Darren North Memorial Match Acorn Fishery

In late 2024 Darren North suffered a heart attack and died whilst away fishing in Ireland. It was a big shock to everyone and a sad loss. I’d known Darren from school and for the last 5 years lived a few doors down from him. When Mike Wilson asked me if I’d like to fish his memorial match it was a definite yes. 

I was looking forward to fishing the match and the chance to raise money for the British Heart Foundation. My preference at Acorn is to fish for the silvers as I enjoy busy fishing and don’t have to pull my arms off slaying carp lol. Last time here in June I managed second in the silvers but I struggled to catch, but since then 35lb to 58lb has won the silvers most matches, I just needed a decent peg. I had asked Jamie Rich for a bit of info and he obliged, it was pretty much in line with what I thought so I was well prepared.

After a breakfast roll at H&H I was at the fishery in good time, I already had 2 pints of casters (from not fishing the weekend) and bought 2 pints of maggots from the shop and was served by my old (very old lol) team mate Des Shipp.  Not long after Mike announced match details and we had a minutes silence for Darren, followed by the draw. Jamie said draw 38 or 40 would help, but I drew 18 on the straight hopefully ok.

When I got to my peg I was happy to see I was surrounded by carp anglers 😊 and had the silvers to myself here. To my left on 19 was Lee Waller, on 16 was Graham Smith, Ryan Jordan and Gary Bowden (with new teeth 😬) were also on the straight. Setting up was simple, 3 top sets with two 4x16 with 0.12 accu power to 16 SFLB one for top set plus two sections, and one for 10m (both deep water) and a 4x12 for 3 1/2 feet at 13.5m.

We started at 10 and I fed maggots and casters on my short line and 10m line, then went across and dropped a small ball of gbait and maggots in and started here. I had a couple of liners and then landed a carp… I binned this off straight away! Onto the 10m line and there were lots of fizzes, but for 15 minutes not a bite! Fishing double red maggot on the hook I finally caught an ide, and very gradually started to get bites and topped up with a toss pot of maggots and casters. After the first hour I had 8lb ide , a couple of skimmers and one small tench.

The second hour was more of the same with ide regularly coming to the net, I was up to 20lb by the end of it. The next hour carried on well but the 10m line was now slower, time to rest and look short. It was more ide here plus a skimmer and 2 tench, but it slowed quickly. Back to 10m and more ide had arrived. I carried on catching mainly at 10m till an hour to go, then it slowed up. With 45 mins to go I dropped a couple of balls of F1 gbait with worm and caster to my right at 10m, and as expected this fizzed right up! In my experience at this time of the day it draws carp in as well as silvers, on this occasion I hooked 3 carp here but did get a couple of skimmers and 3 tench one landed in the all out.

I’d had a fantastic day, really busy and had to change a few things up with the feeding to keep bagging. I had clicked exactly 60lb (30 in each net) but wasn’t sure if I had that much as a lot of the ide are 6oz. However, Graham said he thought I had 60lb. Brian Shanks was on peg 10 and had the scales, Lee elected not to weigh in and then my two nets were added up at 66lb 8oz. 

As it turned out I was able to beat the regular silvers slayers here and was well chuffed to win the silvers on this memorial match. Results overall…

1. Brian Shanks          203-12 p10

2. Keith Ray                192-13 p13

3.Matt Vowels            173-04 p6

4. Jeff Grant               172-07 p40

Silvers

1. Tim Ford           66.08 p18

2. Mike Chapman        32.12 p2

Mike Wilson did a really fantastic job and the match raised £450 for the charity, partly in thanks to Darren’s sister who paid the peg fees, she also came to the match and it was nice to talk to her.

It’s Coming Home

 Well things did not go to plan this weekend until the very end.

I was booked in for a match at Lacock on the Avon, but it was cancelled as the club decided with the low river level they did not want fish kept in keepnets. I had ordered bait so decided to use it up on Swineford or Crane on Sunday pleasure fishing and then get back home to watch the Women’s Euro Final.

Sadly on Saturday my wife Wendy got a call to say her grandfather had fallen and hurt his head but was refusing to go to hospital. Long story short, we drove to Lymington and took him to hospital in Southampton. Got home 02:30 and then drove back to Southampton Sunday. He’s settled down in hospital now and fingers crossed for a good recovery.

Never even thought about fishing.

Got home after listening to the football on the car radio just in time to watch the penalties. Well after a tough weekend England back to back Euro champions was a great tonic.

Well done ladies absolutely brilliant team!

Pairs League - Newbridge

No blog posts from me for a while as I’ve been really busy with other social events. This meant I was not able to fish the first two rounds of this league and I was indebted to Shaun Townsend and Rich Whitmarsh covering for me and keeping me and my partner Rich Lacey in contention. After two rounds Jerry Pocock and Nic Coles were clear leaders. 

My preparation for this match was a bit short and being at Warren Bates stag do was probably not the best preparation… 🤣 but it was a cracking day out 🍻

Got to the river before the 7:30 draw time, then realised I’d left my 2 litres of squash at home, definitely was going to miss that! Unfortunately more boaters had decided to moor up illegally and pegs 16 and 18 were unfishable.

Rich did the draw for us as I was still loading my trolley, I fancied A1 to A3 for a good days fishing. Rich drew be B8 so a long walk for me to permanent peg 59, a very deep peg that is a good bream peg, but the bream aren’t feeding at the mo. Rich was on A5 permanent 30, and not the best we thought.

Setting up on 59 I put a groundbait feeder up first, 14 to 0.15, groundbait was Thatchers green. A waggler was put up but as I only caught 2 bleak on it it’s not getting a mention. A 2g pole rig with 20 to 0.10 and a 3G with 16 to 0.13 for fishing worm. My plan was to loose feed the pole line today, and I did this from the start feeding maggots and hemp (couldn’t feed casters as I only had a pint due to the maggot shortage). I started the match on the feeder hoping for a lucky bream, but after 45 minutes I just had 2 roach and a perch.  Onto the pole and I had 2 perch and a roach, I was properly struggling.

After 90 minutes I called Dean Harvey who was below me on the Norfolk Reeds peg. He was doing well having had a 6lb+ bream and lots of perch on the feeder.  I needed to get some bites, so I decided to put more worm in on the feeder line and now feed worms on the pole line.  This did improve things in that on the feeder I had a some small perch, a 6oz skimmer and two chublets. The pole worm line gave up some small perch which petered out.

I spent the last hour on the feeder hoping for a bream, but it never came but I added a few more small roach and perch.

I thought I had just over 4lb, and was not expecting to do well. Toby on the end peg had 9lb 10oz of mainly roach on the pole, then Dean had 15lb 1oz. He caught on the crowquill for the last 3 hours, and had tons of bites he said. 

My net went 5lb 1oz so a right battering of Dean.

There were it seemed pockets of fish and only 1 other bream was caught in the section by Mike Weston. As you can see from the board I got 5 points and was the best of the worst weights, definitely needed a bream or 2 to get good points.

Down in A section Lee Warden had a good day catching on a 6m whip and long rod to catch 14lb 13oz of roach and chublets. Rich did brilliant to get 8lb 5oz and 8 points.

Dean won the match and with his partner Derek coming second in his section they smashed the day and as a result are now leading the pairs league with 39 points. In second with 38 points is myself and Rich, then Jerry and Nic have 36 1/2 points after blowing out today. With 3 matches to go though it’s really close with most pairs having 30 points plus. The next round is in 2 weeks, 1 section at the trees at Saltford and 1 at Swineford.

Back on the River

Not had a chance to get on the river so I became a member of Ridgeway and booked in for their Sunday match at Swineford. I walked this match last year and it fished well with lots of chublets, chub and some bream.

The draw was 8:30 by the outfall, and big thanks go to Ridgeway legend Steve Dumbleton who runs the club, matches and had organised swim clearing on the Friday. My first duties were to explain to some Eastern European anglers that they could not fish here. Eventually the penny dropped and they headed off elsewhere. 

11 fishing today and I fancied drawing any of the last 5  pegs. Well as per my current draws I avoided them, I pulled a choice, 1 or 3. Well it was 3 for me, a steep peg but I hoped not a bleak fest like peg 1 would be.

I was surprised at how little flow there was, but then again I guess it’s been dry for ages. What flow there was was between 6m and 16m, and it varies and changes during the day. Past this the river was on its head. Set up a 6m whip with 3G rig 16 N10 to 0.12, a 3G bolo and a gbait feeder.  I mixed up some Sonubaits black roach and black river for the whip, and usual sweet skimmer and Thatchers for the feeder.

I had 10 chucks on the feeder and a quick look for just rattlers. Onto the whip where I was feeding the odd small ball of my gbait with casters and hemp. First swing in and caught in a tree… got the rig back but had to snap the line, it was turned into a 5m rig, no more tree problems after this. I started with caster on the hook, and it wasn’t long before I was getting hold ups from bleak and after a while the bulk was moved down and I had a no6, no 8 and no 10 next to the hook length. First hour was ok, maybe 2lb, bleak, dace, a roach and a perch. 

The second and third hours were better, more dace, but had to switch from caster to maggots on the hook. A few more roach and perch were also welcome. Ali Gibbs on peg 4 and Craig Pinker on peg 2 both said they were struggling and getting bleaker out.

Bites dried up other than bleak so I introduced some chopped worms in the gbait, this got me a few more perch and then I hooked what was probably a chub that took off at a rate of knots and snapped me. After this it was a struggle, the feeder line was dead other than bits and the whip and bolo was just odd bleak. My match ended quietly and I thought I had 7 to 8lb, word was everyone had struggled. 

The scales came down from peg 12, John (forgot his surname 🙈) was top with 8lb 12, and Matt Challenger had a little less. Ali had 4lb then my fish went 9lb 8oz, with Craig also having 4lb that meant I was top on the day. 

A lot tougher day than I expected, and had the bigger fish fed I would have been way down, but I got lucky today and enjoyed my day on the whip. Nice to be back on the river, but I’m now not fishing for a couple of weeks due to other activities. Hopefully so meaningful rain falls to improve the flow.

Viaduct Holiday

Another year another week at Viaduct Fishery with good mates.. fishing, beer and great banter what’s not to like. There was 11 of us this year, in one lodge was Martin Rayet, Gordon Cannings, Tony Witcombe, Mark Tanner and Hayden Withers. In my lodge was Glenn Bailey, Mike Nicholls, Geoff Francis, Gary Bowden and chief organiser Martyn Woodington. Due to the PVA bags on the lead dominating the carp fishing and it not being something I want to do I had decided to go all out for silvers, unless I drew a peg solid with carp. The silvers were coming out in the middle of the lake on Campbell so that’s where I needed to draw.

Saturday and Campbell open, met up with the lodge mates and got into the draw queue. I was a bit gutted when I drew out corner peg 132, but you never know so I was still going for silvers. My approach was same as my previous two opens here, gbait, casters, maggots and micro pellets. It’s a shallow peg here so 4x12 rigs with 16 SFLB to 0.12 fluorocarbon would do. I set up a carp rig for the end bank in case I needed to go for the section. I did get amongst the skimmers to start, steady and odd fish, but then it died. I had a look for carp but there was a nasty bramble under the water that messed that up and I gave that up. I ended with 25lb I think of skimmers for no good. Bit of a heavy night on the beer, I blame Gary Bowden for his bottle of rum 🙈🤣

Sunday open on Campbell and after a breakfast bap made by top man Geoff Francis I was soon drawing a peg from the coffee tin. No middle peg for me again, 121 on the top bank. The local silvers slayers said it hasn’t been great. Same approach but a 4x14 for out at 6m and 11m, and 4x12 for margins where I would feed caster. After a slow start when I hooked 2 carp my 6m line came to life and I had a nice run of skimmers here, but soon it died. Nigel Bartlett on 119 was getting odd skimmers but like me not bagging. My margins were poor for silvers and hooked a couple of carp. I went out to 11m for a few more skimmers but then it all died and I only caught a few late skimmers. I weighed 34lb of silvers which tied with Nige for nothing lol. Martin Reyat won the silvers with 53lb from 125. Tony Wittcomb won the match with 135lb on the teabag. Lovely curry on the night.

Monday was a teams match on Lodge. A bit of fun and banter, with random team selection. My team was Gary, Mike and Mark. I was on 66 a corner peg and can be very good. When I got to the peg was a bit gutted to see a pleasure angler on Carey had set up base camp right on top of the bank by my margin. Suffice to say my close margin never produced a fish. I set up to the fish paste at 11m and margin rigs for meat to my right by the tree and to my left by spiky grass. The paste started ok for me and had a few carp which was better than Glenn on 64, but Tony on 68 was flying! Eventually the paste died for me and Tony, and most were struggling unless they could catch in margins. Mike on 71 was bagging apparently and as my LH margin was messed up I went long down by the trees. I had a few carp but they didn’t stay and it died. I ended up getting an odd carp by the tree on meat, but was getting battered by Tony who was catching carp and ducks.

Tony won with 180lb and Mike was second with 177lb (chucked back some skimmers to have another net). Tony’s team won as well and mine were second so well done chaps. 

Tuesday open on Campbell… and I was gutted when I pulled 121 again! 

Short story, after 2 hours I had 1 skimmer and with Nige Easton and Rob Eagle bagging I was never going to get in the money. The lake was fishing hard and I thought I would go for the section money, so I got off my box and knocked up some paste and got a paste rig out. In an hour I had 4 carp and was amazed, but it soon slowed up as I then fouled too many. A look long in my left margin on corn produced a few skimmers and a 16lb carp. I ended up with 64lb and that was just enough to win the section and get a pick up. Howard Webb won with 92lb on the tea bag, Nige Easton had 48lb of silvers on 115. Quite a few beers and a takeaway I think.

Wednesday was an away day at Acorn fishery where I was definitely fishing for silvers. Lots of ide in here now and I planned to fish for them to start across in 3 feet of water. Balls… I drew peg 12 which is 17m wide and the only peg I could not fish across for ide!!! However, I drew this peg on the same match last year and had a lot of tench so was going to have to catch them and skimmers. 4x16 float, 0.13 to 16 GPM for 8m and top set plus one. I fed maggots as this was the way everyone has been catching. Well after an hour I was still waiting for a bloody bite! Martin Rayet on peg 13 was still waiting for a carp but a few silvers, Glenn on 10 was struggling, but pegs 1 to 5 were bagging. My maggot attack was not working, so I switched the long line to gbait caster and worm, this eventually got a few fizzes and signs of fish in the peg. It wasn’t easy but I had the odd skimmer, ide and small tench to end up with 23lb. That was enough to get me second in the silvers with Paul Faires winning with 29lb from peg 6. Gary Bowden won overall from peg 1 with 178lb beating Woody on peg 5 who had 135lb. We ate well in the Brent Knoll carvery later!

Thursday cost cutter open on Campell and I was chuffed to draw 126 which should be good for silvers, but had retired carp angler Martin Reyat on 125 also fishing for silvers and Mike Nicholls in 127 fishing for silvers. Carp were spawning in our margins today after the previous hot days. However, today heavy rain was forecast and it did arrive for a few hours. I stuck to my guns on gbait caster etc, and I was amazed to see fizzing on my top set plus 3 sections line to left and to right by a willow. Only trouble was I couldn’t hardly get a bite!!! It was frustrating as hell, Mike was struggling too, but Martin went down his margin and started to catch. I had fed caster to my left and corn and micro to my right. After a while I started to get a few but only on the corn, but I was always behind Martin. My last hour or so was poor but I did land a last cast carp of just under 15lb on my silvers rig which was nice. Martin had fished a brilliant match to win the silvers with 63lb, I had 43lb and Mike 31lb. I missed out on a pick

up as 46lb was needed, I should have had that. Tony won the match with 126lb on the teabag.

Well the fishing was hard this year, and I’m glad I went for silvers as I enjoyed that. But the teabag has dominated again, and it’s a bit tedious just fishing Campbell as a result. So we’ve all decided that as much as we love Viaduct and Somerton it’s off to pastures new next year. Our thanks to Steve, Helen and Matt for putting up with us for 12+ years and all the good memories, but it’s time for a change.