I've not found the time to update my blog for over 5 years now, however, I was particularly keen to write about this match as it is likely to be the last ever Angling Trust London Winter League match in the history of the World!
The league is likely to fold next year as 2 teams are dropping out, which has caused my team (Maver Image) to apply to join the East Midlands Winter league. I have fished the London league for about the last ten years, originally with Browning Wickford and now with Maver Image. During this time the league has mainly revolved around canal fishing, although odd forays have been made to 'alien' venues such as the rivers Lea and Cam, as well as commercial fisheries in Willow Park and Tingrith. Normally the one year experiment has been enough on these venues and the following year it has been six rounds on the canals again!
Throughout this period of time I have travelled most weeks with my travelling partner Danny Grimsey and with nearly every round between 70 and 120 miles away, I hate to think the number of miles that we have clocked up. The early days of the league were the most memorable for me as there were eight teams in the league back then (as opposed to five now). One of which being the UK's first professional team in Essex County VDE. Before they disbanded, they won the league every year during the time in which I have been competing. I do remember one year when our young and very keen Wickford team took them to the final round at Willow Park, where they just pipped us by one point, I think.
The canal venues themselves have always been a great attraction for me. After reading Kim Milsom's 'Match Angling Plus' blogs, these were venues that I always wanted to fish, especially if I was fishing against Essex County and the heroes that their squad possessed. They were also the team that I wanted to fish for, especially as I am from Essex. Unfortunately I never actually did though!
It is a real shame that the league is folding, but I feel that many anglers cannot be bothered to put in the effort and/or learn the skills required to fish these venues and just fish commercials all year round. They are missing out though as it is pretty much impossible to ship your pole back through dog shit on a commercial fishery! Seriously though, the thing that has always captured me is arriving at your peg on a canal and not knowing what you are going to catch. These venues are not fished regularly and you could catch anything, (or nothing) it is exciting not actually knowing. Generally on a commercial you know that a carp between 3 and 8 pound will be on the end when the float disappears. Peoples expectations have now been raised higher as a result of commercials and i think that many will no longer tolerate catching 80 fish for 2lb. Don't get me wrong I love commercials, they can offer some fantastic fishing and I spend loads of time on them, however, I couldn't fish them all of the time.
Going back to the reasons why the league is folding, the few young match anglers that do come into the sport inevitably just fish commercials. This is where the big money finals are and they will generally catch their first fish from a commercial anyway (James Drakulic in our team is an exception to this rule and is good enough for the under 23 squad in my opinion). Therefore, you are never going to find new up and coming teams that fish natural venues being created.
The other downfall of the league is that it is very competitive. We have had various teams come and go in the league, some of these because they are making up the numbers. The fact is that people like to win and if they're not competing they'll lose interest and leave instead of trying to improve. It's a sad fact, but that is just life I'm afraid and I can understand it to a certain extent actually.
I may have given the impression earlier that these canal venues are like a 'lucky dip', where you just don't know what you are going to catch next, but this is not the case and in recent years the fishing has deteriorated. The fish populations seem to be changing, which is definitely offering less consistent fishing. Maybe I'm looking through rose tinted glasses, but in my early days of fishing the league there seemed to be roach all of the way through. Whereas now there seem to more bigger fish, like carp, bream and perch, which are often localised around features and get walked to end pegs etc. This can cause a feast or famine situation, especially in a 5 peg section. Our best angler and ex Drennan Knockout Cup Champ Gary Miller has been last in his section twice this year, which underlines this point I think.
A further reason for the difficulty in finding decent boundaries to fish, has been caused by the increase in boats. Apparently in central London, canals are totally banged out with boats now and you'd have no hope of getting 50 pegs in (that's not to mention safety issues and the lack of parking!)
I've noticed that there seems to be more boats around the Milton Keynes area this year too, maybe it's to do with house prices being so high that more people are actually choosing to live on boats!?
Ok that's enough rambling about the history of the league and onto the match itself, let me set the scene. This was a very 'important' match as the league was finely poised. Sensas Oakwood were winning the league by a point, from ourselves (Maver Image) and a further point behind ourselves were Garbolino Blackhorse. The way that the winter league works is that the top two teams go through to fish a semi final against other qualifying teams from the south of England.Two semi final venues are chosen by the Angling Trust and the winning team from each league choose their venue and the 2nd place team go to the other venue. Typically, a natural venue and a commercial fishery is chosen and this year was no exception. The venues were both attractive propositions this year, one being Colemans Cottage, which is a great venue and only fifteen minutes from my house! The other being the Kennet & Avon canal, which has been a semi final before and one which my teams have always qualified from.
Ok, so the final round of our league was to be held on the Grand Union Canal in Milton Keynes. Specifically, the sections were split between Rogues Lane to New Bradwell and Deans Road. The draw itself was being held at the 'Super Sausage Cafe' in Potterspury and has to be the best cafe that I have ever been to! After a 5 am start, a good fry up is a must to get you 'match fit'! Our team for the day was as follows:
Steve Clark (captain)
Andy Mead
Chris Vandervleit
John Weeden
Danny Grimsey
James Drakulic
Peter Vasey
Martin Foster
Steve Joy
Me
Plus we were 'guided' expertly by our team manger Syd Wilson. Unfortunately we were missing our strongest angler Gary Miller, who has recently become a Dad and was on 'baby duty'.
The practice match indicated that it would be a small fish affair and could be peggy in areas, as the canal was certainly clearer than normal. MK generally holds a tinge of colour which means that fish often remain well spread. 3-4lb was our target weight for 'good' points (1st or 2nd in section). Before the draw everyone received a pep talk from 'the emperor' Pete Vasey, as he is widely acknowledged to be one of the best at this style of fishing. This is quite unusual for our team, as normally we simply attack our pegs as we see fit, however, this was likely to be a 'method' water so it was important that everyone was on the same wave length with regards to lines to fish and also quantities of bait to feed.
The draw was made and it was time to talk through our pegs. On paper it appeared that we had drawn reasonably and had hopefully avoided any horrendous pegs. Fortunately, for myself I had drawn the end peg to the left of Deans Road. End pegs are always a big advantage on canals and this draw was merely a continuation of my good drawing fortune in the league. I had already managed 3 end pegs to date in preceding winter league rounds/practice matches! As a result some good natured 'banter' was flying around from my team mates, r.e greedily taking the teams best peg again, but not actually in those words if you know what I mean! It's always great to draw decent pegs, but the pressure to do well comes with that. I always think that it's important to win your section off an end peg or you've dropped points for the team.
My travelling partner Danny had drawn on the boats at New Bradwell, which was likely to be an ok section on paper, although he did have an end peg to contend with in his section. He dropped me off at Deans Road and I soon arrived at my peg. To look at it was a typical non descript bit of canal with concrete banks and just a few brambles protruding from the far bank. Although with not an angler in sight to my left I was very optimistic about proceedings.
My first job was to prepare my joker. Pete Vasey had managed to source some Belgian (same as polish) joker, which is becoming almost impossible to obtain these days. We had also ordered the 'standard' Russian joker as a back up . The reason why the Belgian is preferable is due to it being bigger, more lively and consequently easier to hook. For these reasons it is thought to me more enticing to roach and perch too.
In an ideal world I'd have got my joker the day before to allow myself to prepare it adequately, however, I wasn't driving to London to pick it up, so I'd have to sort it on the bank. I immediately riddled it to remove the dead and then put a small amount of the live stuff onto a very fine joker riddle. The small joker goes through the riddle and leaves the largest joker on top of the mesh. These are what I use as hookers and when the fish do not want to eat a bloodworm can be a killer bait.
Whilst the joker was going through the riddle I plumbed up 6 lines. Line number 1 was fished at 1 o'clock, at 5 joints. Here I expected to catch Perch on bloodworm. Line number 2 was at 6 joints in the deepest water to fish the bread. Line number 3 was at 10.5 metres, just going up the far shelf, here I would fish bloodworm and joker in double leam. Line number 4 was a lobworm line at 13 metres towards the empty canal to my left and at the bottom of the far shelf in the deepest water. Line number 5 was in 3 feet of water at 11 o'clock at 12 metres to fish over raw joker. Finally line number 6 was at the same depth and distance but at 2o'clock. This was a 'spare' line and was not fed at the start and could be fed if/when needed, when I knew how the canal was fishing.
I should mention that in my section from the 'main' rival teams was Gary Eales from Oakwood on peg 5 and Lee Newsome from Blackhorse on peg 3. Back to the match and in the first hour I managed caught 3 8 ounce skimmers on the bread, plus 15-20 small roach. My general rule of thumb on canal matches is if you get a bite on bread in the first 5 minutes, you'll have a decent day and very often it rings true. I also managed a 'big burglar' of 1.5lb on my first drop in on the lob and one of a pound shortly later. A smattering of chublets and small perch came to my net in between. This gave me a good 4lb at the end of the first 1.5 hours and a perfect start, especially as there didn't seem to be too much of any significance being caught in the rest of the section. I decided to feed another lobbie line 13 metres to my right, in the same depth and at the bottom of the far shelf, which is always the sign of a good day.
At around this point 'team manager' Syd Wilson approached, as he was running all of the Deans Road sections. Amid much 'effing and jeffing', told me that I had to win my section as the team had a very poor start and were already playing catch up, as he felt we were 3rd overall. A result which could possible see us not qualify.
For the next hour I worked the bread line, the lobworm line and the short b/j line, which kept me ticking over, although there no signs of any further bonus fish. A boat charging through the inside of my peg put paid to those lines and at the half way mark it was time to look across, which had had a nice rest for 2.5 hours.
By rotating the 10.5 metre double leam line and 12 metre raw line, I was able to keep bursts of small roach and perch coming to my net for the next hour or so. Topping up the double leam line a couple of times with reasonably joker rich egg sized balls kept the fish coming. The light was now fading and it had started to rain quite heavily too as the last hour approached. I re-fed the lobworm lines and also the bread line, as the lower light levels often mean that a late bonus can be caught.
These late bonus fish did materialise and in the next hour caught 5 more Perch between 12 ounces and 1.5lb on my original lob worm line. It can often be a problem keeping 'big' Perch on the hook, however I was winning 7-0, which is quite unusual. Murphy's Law dictates that if you hook only 1 during the day and really need it, that's when it'll come off! It's happened to me before a few times.
Whenever I needed to top this line up, I was able to get a fish every put in on either my raw line or double leam line. These were 'only' small Roach and Perch, but kept me nicely ticking over. At the final whistle and at the end of a thoroughly enjoyable day, I'd bagged 7 lobworm Perch, 2 bread skimmers and 95 bloodworm fish for 13lb 12 ounces. This was enough for a section win from Blackhorse's Lee Newsome in second. Unfortunately, in the other Deans Road sections the news was not so good, as we'd struggled overall, with a few average-poor pegs to blame. Conversely, down the other end of the match we'd fared excellently which gave us a real liquorice all sorts of results. Danny had also won his section and had included a fine specimen roach of 1lb 9 ounces in his net, caught on bloodworm! Ironically, a few years back I also caught a 'massive' roach on the same tactics from almost the same peg. I wonder if it is the same fish?
We'd actually amassed 5 section wins, but that only gave us a total of 36 points. Fortunately, I'd won the match individually, which I'm not ashamed to say I was very pleased about as it is likely to be my final London Winter League match ever. However, I'm realistic and know that many of the competitors would have also won from the peg. The power of an end peg can never be underestimated. As it was lashing down with rain I couldn't be bothered to get a picture of my catch, although of course I wish I did now!
The most important thing was the team result though and our 36 points was 2nd on the day, with Oakwood amassing 38 points to win on the day. Blackhorse were 3rd with 34 points. This meant that Oakwood were crowned deserved champions. I think I am right in saying that it is the first time that they have won the league in 20 years of trying, so no one can begrudge them this win.Oakwood have chosen the Kennet & Avon canal as their semi final venue, which leaves us with Colemans Cottage. I'd expect this to be a very close semi final as most of the teams that qualify these days, exclusively fish commercials, so everyone knows the methods required. The draw will probably be the deciding factor on the day. The great thing about Colemans for me personally, is that it is a whole 15 minutes from my house and for once, lovely short journeys to the practice matches!
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