Category: The Archives

For the first match of the year and with the top end of the Isle not fishing very well at all (to this day, I don’t really know what happened to cause the decline, people will say pollution or predation, I’m not so sure but whatever happened it signalled the end of Chard fishing their stretch of river in matches), we fished …

Firstly, apologies for the title but I was struggling to come up with one for this instalment! New Year’s Day was supposed to be the teams of four on the Isle but it was flooded once again so Mark Leahy suggested we go to Stoford Mill near Yeovil for a sweep. It was my first visit and I had an enjoyable day …

As much as I loved my fishing, I never used to do much prep and it undoubtedly cost me on numerous occasions, I had a few floats made up but certainly not the trays and trays of rigs and multiple hooklength boxes of today. Also my pole only had a few top kits so it was rare I set up more than …

This year, my birthday in May fell on a Sunday and I was at Howley which was probably my favourite venue at the time. I drew peg 7 which I was happy with but the pond has fished quite hard, I managed two carp plus skimmers and roach for 10lb 12oz and a birthday win! The following Sunday we were back again, …

One of the first matches of 1999 saw me finally draw peg 14 at Horlicks, the trouble was it was bitterly cold and my cause wasn’t helped when Rocking Roy came down just before the start and said I was sat at the top of the swim when most people fished the bottom! I got off to a flying start though, with …

After the K & A disaster, the next match was a teams of four on the Huntspill, I drew peg 49 which was a decent area, started on the feeder for a small perch and a decent skimmer before coming in on the pole after an hour and twenty minutes. Bumped a couple of fish before catching another small perch and then …

Checking the records, the first match of the year was supposed to be on the Isle but was cancelled due to the river being flooded (sound familiar?). The next few matches were nothing to write home about either (also sounding very familiar!!!) and I seemed to be losing a lot of fish that were costing me framing places and section wins (also …

In the last instalment, the Chard Spring Pairs had just finished and it was time for another Drennan Superleague campaign. With the first round at Woodlands View near Droitwich the plan for practice was to go up and fish an afternoon match which would mean a long day, especially as Captain Les said we’d go up early and watch the morning match! …

Going through my records, the first few months of the year weren’t very good at all with just the odd minor placing and section win to show for my efforts, in fact it wasn’t until 30th March that there was a match worth talking about! With it being a Bank Holiday, Les used to run a two day match using Howley and Sadborow where …

When I left you in the last instalment, Andy Saunders and myself were lying in joint second place with Nicky Collins and Mike Stone in the popular Chard Spring Pairs league behind Tony Rixon and Pete Sivell. Me and Andy were also in shares and so far he’d picked up every match whereas I hadn’t contributed any money! The penultimate round on May …