Extracted from the January 2018 Newsletter
We are coming to the end of the match fishing season. It normally ends about this time mostly due to floods! This last month has been quite dry and the rivers low and clear for the most part.
Those of you who read my match reports on the forum will have noticed a decline in the average weights of fish caught over the last few weeks compared with the summer months. This is due in no small part to the lack of flow and colour of the rivers.
The points competition went down to the wire. Vince Davies had been in the lead all season but went on a trip to Africa, missing the last two scoring matches. The last match, on Sunday 19th November, Simon Hibbert won the match and won the Points Trophy by one point. The final top three were Simon Hibbert 77 points, Vince Davies 76 points and Pete Lewis 74 points.
The Golden Peg competition is proving very difficult to win. We currently have a £100 pot and are adding to a second pot. All the angler has to do is to have his peg selected as the Golden Peg and then win the match. To show how difficult this is, Vince Davies, who has won almost every match this year, drew the same peg he had won from the week before with 13lb 12oz as the Golden Peg but could only manage 14oz!
We have had a lot of new faces join us at the matches which is excellent. So far this year we have had 26 different anglers attend the various matches.
The away match on the River Wey against Godalming AS went well. Our best placed angler was Colin Rumney who came fourth. The Wey fished well until the boats started moving in numbers. Godalming AS also fished against us on the Thames. It was a hard day— top weight was 14lb 5oz of perch by a Godalming angler. We are currently arranging matches against Godalming AS so if you want an away trip check out next year’s match calendar when it is published.
We also had a home and away match with the 21 Club – our near neighbours who have the upstream section of the Loddon from ours at Charvil. The home leg was on the Pats which fished well with an average of 4.05lbs per angler and 20 anglers taking part. The away match however was on a low clear Loddon. T&DFC anglers took the first three places but the weights were low and the fishing was hard.
Please note: next season we will ask anglers attending away matches to contact me or Colin Rumney at least five days before the match to ensure that the away club has enough pegs for all anglers.
By John Green
