Match Report

The first leg of the Kirkby Bott Trophy was held on the Arun at Watersfield on a very warm sunny day. There was very little wind at the beginning of the match but it picked up during the match. The grass in the field was long, making trolley handling difficult and Vince had allowed for this with his new large wheeled trolley.

Mick had got the wrong rod hold-all in the last match last season at this venue and in this match he had forgotten his landing net but fortunately he had a spare one in his car, but he still had to walk all the way back to the car park. This year I have tried to organise the matches on smaller tides, fishing the tide up, over the slack and some of the tide down. However the only swim that fished on the up tide was the Mint swim- the other swims were very slow and the fish only started feeding in these swims on the slack and on the down tide.

Fishing the Mint Swim was Steve Simmonds who trotted a float on rod and line and caught fish all match. He caught dace and roach weighing 11-5-8.

Vince Herringshaw was fishing the swim between the bushes and caught 7-15-0 of roach, dace and bleak. He used the whip and pole.

Mick Greenway was fishing upstream of Vince and caught 2-9-0 of roach and dace on the pole feeder and long pole.