Simple Match Fishing Forum

Look forward to it Murff

Part 5:

[highlight][center]the Winter Leagues [/center][/highlight]

(Back to Clive s plan on the River Rinn)


We knew there was an abundance of pike in the Rinn, in common with all Irish waters, and we had experimented with a method of trying to catch these fish. This was two offer two white maggots and a large worm on the hook, and twitch it back along the River bed. I felt this was definitely worth a try , at least for the next hour, and sent the runner off to relay the decision to the rest of the team. He left me at a fair pace and i was left with the knowledge that within twenty minutes all the team members would be furnished with the revised plan.
  An hour later and John appeared again , moving even more quickly . He was quite excited , and reported that there had still been no bream caught, but one of the [highlight]Cofton[/highlight] Side , [highlight]John Rider[/highlight] had landed a six pound pike , and four or five other members had caught smaller samples.
   He revealed that the other teams were starting to adopt the similar tactics , thus endorsing our theory that a change was justified . We finished the match with a total of seventeen pike to our credit, and, just to cap it all, [highlight]Alan Clarke[/highlight] had captured for us the only bream of the match.
   The measure of sport produced in the final can be assessed by the fact that [highlight]John Riders [/highlight] 6lb-11oz put him in First Place and[highlight] Alan Clarkes[/highlight] bream , at 2lb-40oz was enough to gain the second spot. our Master weight was 16lb- 1.5 oz, made up by those seventeen pike, one bream and a few big-mouthed perch.
[highlight]  Whittlesea,[/highlight] a pedigree bream team if ever there was one , were the runners up with a combined team weight of 9lb-10oz.
  [highlight]Cofton[/highlight] had not achieved a brilliant weight, and it was certainly not an orthodox victory. But the performance proved the strength of the teams adaptability. Once again we had assessed the situation early in the match, and had out- foxed all our rivals.
   As a team we knew this was no fluke, but as in the case of our previous victory, we still felt we had not gained the respect of the English match fraternity because of the unusual tactics which we had employed. What we badly needed was an orthodox , no- holds-barred contest to stamp our rights firmly on the the Winter League game.
   probing back to that particular final. through, a popular question would be, whatever happened to those Rinn bream ?
  there is no close season in Ireland, and English anglers had very little experience in the mid 1960s of course fishing during the month of MAY. They were unaware of the fact that the fish travel greatly in search of spawning grounds and, as a  result Rivers reputed to hold large populations become devoid of fish at the crucial time. This was exactly what had happened.
   Nowadays, of course with much more experience behind them of fishing Irish waters at this time of year , anglers tend to arrange there visits, and contests , in the areas were they know fish will be present.
  After two less successful campaigns, we were again on the Irish trail in 1971 after once more beating  off all challengers in the West Midlands League. This time the final was to be held on the [highlight]Plassey[/highlight] section of the[highlight] River Shannon[/highlight] and this looked indeed very much like the venue for which we had been waiting.
  Arriving at the water during the late afternoon before day, "fish -at-all-costs" anglers from other teams were at the waterside within minutes of unpacking there tackle to confirm that the stretch held lots of bream.
  We were then much more experienced as a bream team , especially in Irish Waters, and we had again flown our bait over, not confident of relying on the local supplies.
  Our team walked the match stretch from end to end and it certainly looked full of potential . But it was difficult to pinpoint the areas which might produce the best catches, which meant that every competitor could go into the match with hope of good sport.
   It was a very wide River , 80-100yards in parts, and the depth varied, through 8/10 feet and could be found at most pegs . The Pace was very placid; in fact, it was copy book bream water. ( whoop/whoop)  We were by then very well aware that at this type of venue the only real formula to apply was one of attack, ( love it were are my rods) relying on the big weights to carry through the less productive returns. Not for us the cautious approach where the potential of each peg is assessed , and tactics varied to suit the the swim. We were all going flat out for bream . In fact the venue looked that good we thought we might obtain eight good weights from our twelve man assault.
  Not for the first time , worms were going to be our main bait , and some 300 were cut up and mixed in the ground bait . At the start of the match each of our swims received a good ten pounds of the mix  . If Casters had been the fashionable bait in those days , I am sure that here was the type of swim which would have taken a gallon in any match[highlight] ( just like River Yare)[/highlight]
  None of us were expecting an immediate reaction because Bream are Bream , and even these Irish bream , though uninhibited feeders most of the time, are not normally confronted with the sort of barrage   which we were giving them in that particular contest. The idea behind the generous feed pattern was, of course, that with so many anglers fishing the River at the same time, a mass of bait in the swim would hold the fish there for the rest of the match , once they had arrived .
   With an hour of the final gone , Bream started to show in most areas , in fact only the two extreme ends of the stretch seemed to be unproductive. This affected only an handful of competitors .
  There were vast amounts of fish in the middle parts of the length were we had[highlight] Austin Clissett  [/highlight] working with a 9ft swing tip and catching his fair share. [highlight]Alan Clarke[/highlight] another one of our men , was well among the bream...........
 
   to be continued 
 
 

Once again, look forward to the TBC Murff

Part 6:
 
 
[highlight][center]The Winter Leagues[/center][/highlight]

( back to the River Shannon)


So ,  opposite [highlight]Alan Clarke[/highlight] , was [highlight]Hughie Boulter[/highlight] and he was also busy netting fish. I was catching at a steady pace.
    [highlight]Johnny Coles[/highlight] again running the bank, informed me that our bold tactics were reaping benefits, even though during the early stages the more cautious anglers in other teams had attracted the first bites. But with the match well under way the [highlight]Cofton[/highlight] men were settling the fish down in large numbers. I must admit that before the final whistle sounded we were assured of another National Winter League victory.
  We had put together quite a number of good weights, and the icing was really put on the cake when [highlight]Austin Clissett,[/highlight] aided by several helping hands , dragged his huge catch to the scales. This was a sensation , [highlight]the first 100lb match catch ever [/highlight]recorded by an English matchmen, his actual weight being [highlight]101lb-6oz, [/highlight]easily a new event record.
   our winning weight was also the best ever, at[highlight] 276lb-13.5oz[/highlight] and streets ahead of the field . For the first we had achieved a result which even our greatest critics accepted as a  performance of the highest order.
    By 1975 winter-league involvement had shown tremendous growth , and ,year by year, it was becoming harder to win .Semi-finals had become commonplace in the seasons programme, and even the standard in our West Midlands League was very much higher.
    The Birmingham -based [highlight]STARLETS[/highlight] outfit became the team to be reckoned with,  and having removed this threat , we were off to the semi-final on the [highlight]Warwickshire Avon[/highlight] at [highlight]Eckington[/highlight] . Unlike in previous years , when the next stage would have been trip to[highlight] Ireland [/highlight], the successful semi-finalist were to battle for the National crown much closer to home, at [highlight]Coombe Abbey Lake[/highlight] , near Coventry , a change decided upon because of[highlight] the troubles in Ireland[/highlight] at the time.
  Back to the semi-final, however, and this was indeed a strong line up in which we saw our main rivals as [highlight]Oundle,[/highlight] a team born and bred in bream country.
  [highlight]Eckington[/highlight] being a local venue for our team , we were able to enjoy many practise sessions. this was indeed a luxury, but the problem with all luxuries is they are not always accepted for what they are.
   We knew that[highlight] Eckington[/highlight] was a good bream water , even during March when the semi-final was to take place , but , having limitless time to spend at the venue , we started to look for alternative methods  to have "up our sleeves".
    quite unintentionally we had prepared a very complicated team plan. We believed we knew the bream locations, and team members drawn in those areas fished for them. In the other swims which we considered barren in terms of bream, the plan was to try and catch bleak as a make weight species .
   On match day we were quietly confident that we had covered all approaches, and made our way to our pegs in the full knowledge of what we had to do at our different berths.
  there was a big turnout of spectators, and after about two hour's it became obvious from bankside chat that bream were being caught in odd numbers from the most unlikely places ! Our cautious tactics had put us down the field and right in trouble.
Although the odd member of our team drawn in the bream areas had caught a fish or two , we were pursuing a very negative approach overall. This called for a re-think , similar that one on the Rinn a few years earlier. We had to get out of trouble and quickly!
    I told the runner to advise each team member to scrap the bleak tactic and get after the bream . Fortunately , we had all groundbaited the far bank area, so on went the little red worms and away we went.
   With some ten minutes minutes of the match left , [highlight]IVAN MARKS[/highlight] such a good judge of a contest , came behind me and said "we needed another bream to go through to the final", and no sooner had he said it than my tip curved  around.( what a God....) I was playing a near three pounder. But it seemed ages before the fish slipped over the rim of the net, and it was only just before the final whistle sounded.
   Not knowing the water [highlight]Oundle[/highlight] had employed a "bream or bust" tactics,  the right method on the day , and just pipped us at the post for first place . But we had sneaked into second position and so booked our place in the[highlight] Coombe Abbey[/highlight] Final  . But without that late change of tactics we would have finished nowhere.
      The final at [highlight]Coombe Abbey[/highlight] created a lot of interest , one reason being that it was the first major contest of the new season . The Press , perhaps rightly so were naming[highlight] Oundle[/highlight] as marginal favourites to win despite the fact that[highlight] Cofton Hackett[/highlight] was the established Winter League outfit of the time with three titles under our belt . The argument was that all this had been achieved on Irish waters and the critics maintained that we had not proved ourselves at home in England. there was also the important factor that [highlight]Oundle[/highlight] had been smart enough to beat us on our home location at [highlight]Eckington[/highlight] in the semi-final. What the critics did not know, though, was how we made that disastrously wrong approach for such a long period of that match........
   
     to be concluded later this evening,..............     
   

Part 7:
    [highlight][center]The Winter Leagues[/center][/highlight]

( Back to Coombe Abbey)

The day of the big match finally arrived and our team assembled at headquarters armed with an ample supply of gozzers, squatts and groundbait . Betting was very close , Oundle being quoted at 2-1 , and ourselves at 5-2.
   our plan was to feed five or six egg sized balls of groundbait laced with squatts and casters at a distance of forty yards from the bank , and swing-tip a size 20 hook to 1lb bottom with a 5ft tail, using a 3/4oz bomb to 2&1/2 lb reel line . Gozzers were to be the hookbait, the general opinion of the team being that two small baits would be the right approach.
  As the match got under way our catapults were put to use, firing the groundbait out to the fishing area. Our attempt to clinch our fourth National Winter League victory, and our first on English waters , had begun.
  As with all bream match's , progress was slow at the start but eventually bream were being slipped into the waiting keepnets. A number of fish were foul hooked as, being the first few days of the season, the bream were moving fairly high in the water and not looking for anglers" baits. Few of these foul-hooked fish arrived at the nets , however , for Coombe Abbey bream are big, and as the virgin pandock beds formed considerable obstruction to the competitors, breakages were common.
   Two members of our team,[highlight] Ken Smith[/highlight] and [highlight]Paul Evans,[/highlight] were drawn almost opposite each other and were enjoying good sport.
At the entrance to the lake on the public bank, [highlight]Ron Lees[/highlight] was also finding fish for [highlight]Cofton,[/highlight] but we were certainly not having things all our own way as the [highlight]Oundle[/highlight] team men were also catching there fair share.
   Few bankside punters were  willing to stake too much on one team or the other, and only the scales were going to decide the issue.
    we received a good start from [highlight]Ken Smith [/highlight] who scaled more than 30lb. Then[highlight] Paul Evans [/highlight]chipped in with a fine 25lb catch, and Ron Lees followed up with 20lb. I fell just short of this with a high 19lb, and with very good backing weights we were able to amass more than 100lb.
   Meanwhile [highlight]Oundle,[/highlight] our conquerors from [highlight]Eckington, [/highlight] were  busy putting there scores together, but they finished short of our three figure total, having to settle for second place.
   That day we had beaten one of the country's top bream outfits, in fact some people would saythe No1 side, at there own game. At least we had proved that we were to be feared not only on Irish waters but also on home venues.
  [highlight]Cofton Hackett s[/highlight] record   of  FOUR victories is a target for every winter-league outfit in the country and one which I believe will stand for a very long time. At the same time I am hoping that before not too  long we can extend our run of victories to five.
   This target might well have been achieved   in the following year when [highlight]Cofton[/highlight] again won there way through to the finalat the same Coombe venue. But then we wer pipped at the post by [highlight]Dorking.[/highlight] There was some consolation for us, however , in providing the individual winner-[highlight] Ken Giles[/highlight], with a mammoth catch of more than  fifty pounds.

This as been one off , the True stories from a book written By Clive Smith.
  titled Championship Match Fishing
Ten Of The Best...
1 The Embassy Challenge
2 The B.A.A Annual
3 The Ladbroke Champs
4 The Courage Championships
5 The SunPro-Am Championships
6 The National Championships
7 The Winter Leagues
8 The Birmingham Angling Festival
9 My Favourite match
10 The World Championships.

  This and many other Match Angling books inspired me to take up fishing and more importantly take up team fishing, you cant fail to learn from these master  go get some copies you WILL enjoy them and you will want to go fishing.
  I hope you have enjoyed the story about the Birth of the winter Leagues, and I for one are very proud to be not just an angler , but an angler from the Black Country

This year I have really missed The Angling Times Winter Leagues
    And I hope that the Angling Trust CAN  save it

Cheers for taking the time and trouble to type that all out Murff


And anyone wanting a copy of '10 of the best' can pick one up (secondhand) from here

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Championship-Ma ... 294&sr=8-1