Every other weekend to the Winter league there is a open match on the emerging River Soar. Today for me i drew the Abbey Peg 4 in very good company so my work would be cut out to gain a respectable result.
Peg 5 to my left in the distance is Tom Pringle of the Wigston stable .
My working sticks for the day : 2 stick floats of the Pete Warren variety , a small waggler and a bomb rod.
In front of me and my target area.
To my right is Steve Gardner
Sunday lunch for the expectants
First 2 hours for me was excellent as i captured many small roach , chub and Perch . The hours 3 and 4 it slowed down . I did lose a very good chub and had perch and Roach of a respectable size taken by the Pike , again !! Eventually in the last hour i started to catch Gudgeon (proper gobis) , small Roach and Perch but without the Pike i might have got a few more LB's , but that is fishing and even though the Pike have been my nuisance over the last few matches you have to say that they are here because of a very large population of silver fish.
On to the weigh-in and Peg 1 with Sam Merry who proved to be the winner of the Abbey with 23lb+ using 16's laggy on 0.17 line and big lobs ……the peg looked frightening but Sam mastered the conditions and came thro' handsomely.
The author with his catch ….well done Sam Merry! ….23lb
peg 2 and Cam Hughes took an excellent 13lb for section 2nd
Peg 3 had 5lb+
3rd in section for me with 10-11
(Lost chub and Pike taken Roach several times cost me dearly again !)
Nick Moss with 10-3
Stu Timpson with a hard earned 5lb + catch in fast water
Rob took a great catch of small fish for 5lb+
Joff with a all caster catch of 9.5lb of prime Dace and Roach
Back in the pub the banter was explosive with all the great weights that were returned .
Stu the head of Bennets of Mountsorrel with John Kilby who took a section 3rd in his first ever river match …..just a natural !
Winter league next Sunday ….. bring it one ! ……..THE SOAR IS ON FIRE !….GET BACK ON THE RIVERS !!!
FOOTNOTE : IF ALL THE CLUBS IN THE WINTER LEAGUE SERIES COULD MUSTER SEVERAL HELPERS PER CLUB I RECKON OVER THE CLOSE SEASON PERIOD WE COULD PLANT 100 PLUS PERMANENT PEGS READY FOR THE SEASON 2015 . LETS HELP THE LOUGHBOROUGH AC AND OTHER CLUBS OWNING THESE WATERS AND GET MORE PEOPLE BACK ON THE RIVERS !!!
The saturday before the 2nd round of Winter league on the sunday seen myself at the Waterside Pub side practising with my Greenhill AC piscatorial ; John Kilby who has been fishing very successfully local Leicestershire commercial pools but he fancied a change . He expressed a great interest in fishing canals and rivers and expanding his skill set , he certainly did as Top Wigston Rod Joe Oakes gave John an hour of his time …… massive learning curve for John as Joe soon had him bagging.
The lure of river fishing has captivated John and he has added further skills to his angling .
First put in and a small skimmer
Joe guiding John through his first lesson on the river Soar a highly hard and technical river to fish but once mastered the rewards are obvious.
Small Chub
For me it was nice to catch some large sardines (Bleak)
Had 2 Pete Warren stick floats set up ready for any eventual section draw however i did try them out as it has been years since i fished the method.
Nice 2-3 oz fish when the Pike were taking a rest.
End of a great session and John had a nice 7.5LB bag of small fish but it was bites all day !
A good 3 hour session for me gave confidence however reality is that pleasure sessions are always weight builders but fine tuning the rigs is the most important.
Winter League on the river Soar is the fastest growing attendance angling competition in the UK with 9 teams of 10 it could take a lot more but thats next year :)
With the success of the Soar masters series this summer the Winter league continued in the same way with the 90 anglers committed over the 6 matches . Each team has about 15-20 anglers so effectively the league could realise double that up to 180 anglers !
Recent rains seen the Soar rise a few inches in middle of the week but it returned to normal come Sunday and was starting to clear but the effect was to inspire the fish to feed better as the river sections were covered in bleak , roach , Perch , small chublettes , gudgeon , skimmers , hybrids , bream , Dace etc …
The teams gathered at the Anchor pub at Hathern as usual and this week the breakfast was not too bad , its showing signs of improvement , will the fishing follow suit ?
Early morning waiting for the breakfast doors to open was the man from AT and Stu , co-manager of Bennets of Mountsorrel , a highly successful shop currently selling 50 plus gallons a week in maggots , that is the sign of revived angling on the rivers and canals and lakes.
Stu and John , brothers in conference as the teams section pegs are dished out.
On the greens , peg 14 , previous week fished by our man , Wayne Swinscoe . Did he leave one of his rods ?
To my left is the bridge and just the other side is the end peg of the other section.
Diagonally left is the canal section , target for the feeder ?
Opposite , 30 metres of water with an average of 6' depth , close in to me was weed and only 3' in the side dropping gradually to 3-4' at 4metres then 6' the rest . 3 metres from the boats was a lot of rubbish on the deck as made some 20 casts trying to find a clean bottom.
The sun was now at full bore and the river showing signs of clarity , will it still fish ?
Menu board
Sensas canal Black and river leam , 50-50 with chop and caster ….they must be up for a feed ?
Match kicked off and i had 4 see-thro skimmers on single red on a 0.10bottom to a 1.25gr Maurizio Schiepattie Mars Blu. Then a couple of gudgeon then a small perch then quiet for 10 minutes . I started to change the rigs round as the wind got tougher , so started placing a heavy 2.0 gr float and holding back hard but got better results when changing to a 1.5gr Maurizio Schiepatti Sirio fished to a pimple on the bristle and letting it run thro .
The peg had gone quiet for a reason and that was the dinner bell for the Pike as i was beaten up through the rest of the match by successive freshwater sharks than knew no mercy . They even attacked my net and kept returning even though i would charge after them with my plunging landing net . I did not have it as bad as the Notts lad to my right who owned up to some 25 plus pike . Each time i looked round he was fighting a pike with 6m of pole up in the air .
However he did fair better than i and took good roach in the last 2 hours to hemp and feeding it , nothing else and how he held it a 14m in the wind i will never know !
My Notts friend managed 3.5 kilos in the end and could have technically doubled his weight as the Pike had 20 of his fish , they had 16 of mine !
Dan Ashington of Starlet fished for bleak at 11m pinging hemp only ! then landed a few specimen roach and perch later on Hemp !
The weights progressively got bigger as the pegs went up stream and the winning peg was won handsomely with 3 Bream and a good mix for 6.5 kilos .
Great weights overall this day and considering it was a uncomfortable wind that limited bait presentation then this was a success with many weights over 3 kilos . Think the series will put the Soar valley back on the map and the former glory days will return and continue to grow in popularity as the Commercials take a dive and the anglers return to their roots . Note that the Trent is also returning to former glories and this can only be very good news for the tackle trade in general as the shop continue to sell more live bait .
Practice this Sunday 26th on the Osiers ,Abbey , Proctors etc… to be confirmed , Meet at the Anchor pub as usual at 07:30 AM ……don't forget you get an extra hour in bed , put your clocks back an hour.
MIDLANDS ANGLING SUPPLIES LTD are THE stockist of Italian Maurizio Schiepatti floats in GREAT BRITAIN and Northern and Southern Ireland.
We have been with Maurizio for just over a year and we are just about to launch the website containing the exclusive range to the connoisseur angler .
Here is a taster , if you are interested then please contact Midlands Angling Supplies Ltd for details on type , weights and names.
These floats have been tested on the Thames , Stainforth and Keaby canal , river Soar and Ireland .
If you a re interested in seeing more then please contact : vince@midlandsanglingsupplies.com
Example floats can be seen at the Soar valley SENSAS winter league and the Loughborough winter league . Watch out for their launch soon on the MAS site !
