2019 - CHARNWOOD league - No1 - 15th September

At last the Charnwood league has started and praise needs to be given to the three who started this new concept of river and canal teams; Paul Greensmith , Stu Timson of Bennetts Tackle and Scott Johnson of Soar Tackle . I and others arrived after invites to this league which is dedicated to Leicestershire tackle shops , Leicestershire angling clubs and surrounding counties fishing clubs . The ethos of the 'Charnwood' is to make the league fair , close as possible to the HQ and as safe as possible with the pegging . Enjoyment is another factor as the fun needs to be put back into our sport . We also wanted to spread the money allocation so was devised a split river and Canal with 1st 2nd and 3rd for every river and canal plus 4 section 1st and 4 section 2nd in each river and canal .
Also ,  to create a league you need dedication and hard work and nothing more working harder than Stu Timson and his lads gouging their way through the suffocating Penny wart that plagues the River Soar system and also complimenting this with dug out pegs to the best of their abilities . I have been out on a few work party days with Stu and believe you me its tough work getting through it - a massive thanks to them .

The day started with meeting at the BARROW TOWN FC for breakfast cobs and tea/coffee . The air of expectancy at the conception of this league start was exciting as finally it came to the captains draw from pre-selected peg envelopes completed at the Bennetts tackle shop the night before.

The Canal men went of to the two Moores lane park areas and the river boys split into top of Deeps , Lower Deeps and Greens at the HQ field . Travelling time was minimal thus giving all anglers plenty of time to set up and prepare .
The kick off was started by all Browning Bennetts in each section , they also closed the proceedings and also weighed each section - fabulous effort guys .



I was pegged on Greens which turned out to be great fishing.

1st on Greens on peg 10 with 16-13 was Jim Gregory of Browning Bennetts A

Extra angler Richie Reynolds on peg 9 had 17-1 for 2nd individual on the day

On peg 6 Tony Cahill of SOLDIERS and SAILORS had 10-8 for 2nd place


On Peg 5 John Harper of Sensas Lifestyle with 8-1 was 3rd

Scott Westwood of COLMIC Soar Tackle took 5th place with 6-9

On peg 3 MAS RED Phil Ackerley took 4-8 with not a bonus fish for 6th place

In 4th place was Martin Taylor for BROWNING BENNETTS B with 8-0 of peg 2

Back at HQ calculating became priority as the Maths master Paul Greensmith got to work to create the Brown envelopes for all the framers .

Paul Greensmith BROWNING BENNETTS A with individual 3rd on canal

Steve Nurse COLMIC WIGSTON with a section

Chris Bucko of SOLDIERS and SAILORS with section

Richie Reynolds with 2nd individual on river

John Kilby MAS RED - 2nd individual on canal
Phil Tyrell COLMIC WIGSTON - 1st individual on canal

Mark Millington MAS RED with section on Canal

John Wells COLMIC WIGSTON with section on river

Ian Phillips of BROWNING BENNETTS A with section

Alan Round enjoying the day

Ian Shaw SENSAS LIFESTYLE with section

David Kimber with a section for MAS - RED on river section Cobbles

John Harper SENSAS LIFESTYLE with section

John Russell section for BROWNING BENNETTS B

The days top man on the river was Jim Marcer with 23-0 on the river for SOLDIERS and SAILORS

Mark Stewart BROWNING BENNETTS B with a section on canal

The days top dogs

Highly successful day which i believe all enjoyed - bring on the next match

2019 - September 14th DIVISION 2 National with the MAS team and a days viewing on MAS rod Paul Middleton

The BIG day finally arrived and after the teams continuous practice open matches in the months before then a true test of their endeavours was about to be realised . Our Captain , Dean Cherrington led his team from the front spending hours on phone calls and booking and organising all the matches upto this date , all we needed now was a draw ! The draw was made aided by a lucky charm of the medusa touch Paul ' End-peg' Middleton. In fact i sat with him all day as he loaded his kit into my car  as we went searching for 'C' section. Whilst there i recorded a few movies as they day unfolded

At the draw and good friends COLMIC SOAR TACKLE were there in numbers

Our man Ron Scales

David Gough - Gary Chalk - Colin ' i love Taylor Diane' Talbot - Paul Middleton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKVa4O2MuS0

Ron Scales - Clive Lloyd - Tom Boyce

Draw complete and back to Deans van for a team discussion and allocation of squat

Paul and i travelled down narrow lanes and eventually mades it to Section C

Paul was on peg C9 , an end peg !

View from the bridge to the other section just past the moored boat

11:00 AM and match commenced

Paul potted at 4m and far side at 11m , also potted down stream to the bridge in middle or maybe closer to far shelf.

First man at the other section was Jonathan Leivers who fished a tidy match

Paul looking at options

Dumpy Perch and gudgeon were the weigh builders

Most barges were well behaved however some of them accelerated thro the bridge and their propeller really disturbed the peg , too much . One barge for some silly reason went over to the far side possibly scraping its hull on the bottom as it excited the bridge .

Half way through and the fishing got harder

I met the owners of this barge and enjoyed several conversations - they even offered cups of tea to the anglers !

This barge was well behaved with just a trickle behind it

Weigh in time for our section and Paul has lost out buy 180 grams - that barge thro his squat peg cost dearly ! However a 3rd in section is not bad at all


Ummmmm .......... next section a long , do i see micro pellets in a clear bag ??? ...... were they not barred for today ?

It has been a fantastic experience to have a team represent MAS for the first time , must do it again . Well done to David Gough who finished 40th out of over 400 anglers  . Shame the team did not have more luck on the draw , it could have been so different .