Tusses Spro Freestyle League round 2 (Lure Witches)

The second round of the Tusses Spro Freestyle was soon upon us and considering I had made the decision that I couldn't commit to fishing as part of a dedicated team, I was still fishing. At the end of the first match where I had filled in for Greg Bafia on the Realistic Shad team I was recruited to fill in for Bethan Sedgewick Miles on the Lure Witches team fishing with Joanna Davies, AKA Asia. I have met Asia here and there on a couple of other matches but had never fished with her as a partner though she seemed over the moon to have someone along to help her compete on this unfamiliar venue. Saying that, my experience of this stretch was limited to a single practice session where the canal became very murky quickly once the boats began moving.

After meeting up with Asia in the Pub car park and discussing a rough plan of action we were keen to get going. With Asia pulling the number two card out at registration we were buoyed up with our early position and once the off was sounded we went with our plan to do a decent walk out to an area which had fished well in practice, then work our way back and things went very well indeed!

After missing a couple of early fish Asia scored first with a small perch to take away the early jitters. After getting hit hard and my lure losing its tail to a good pike, I too put some points on paper with a nice sized zander from exactly the same spot.

With more competitors now flooding past us we actually went against the tide and began moving back along the stretch; running a lure close to the edge I found a bonus baby pike which although diminutive added vital species bonus points.

Our next flurry of action came when Asia hooked a very nice perch close to some cover whilst we were touching base with my good friends, Dave Mutton and Ian Whittaker, from Specimen fishing UK team who had just had a small zander. A few moments after releasing Asia's perch I nabbed us another small zander before Asia lost a similar one.

By late morning things were dire all round. The boat had churned up the silt and any early clarity was long gone. Add to that the now hot sun and most people were struggling. The news on the grapevine was that a couple of teams were building up some better lengths targeting small fish for our part we agreed to just grind it out and push on back towards the start. Somewhere in amongst the thousands of casts we made, Asia hooked and landed a computer tower and I heaved out an old portable TV both of which validated our excellent knot tying skills.

With an hour to go we headed down into the other half of the stretch to fish water that we were convinced had already been thrashed senseless. Knowing what had already been chucked at any fish in the area, I opted for a big change and began casting a creature bait tight into any cover I could find and BOOM! My gamble paid off when I hooked a powerful and very angry zander which turned out to be our biggest fish of the day, much to Asia's joy.

Total 205cm  + 3 x species bonus @ 25cm per species = 280cm

1st Place = 'No Wasps Here' Steve Wilson/Derek Holmes (435cm)

2nd Place = 'Lures and Oatcakes' Chris Milllward/Mark carter (306cm)

3rd Place 'Lure Witches' Joanna Davies/Daniel Everitt (280cm)

Biggest pike = Silviu Stoica (56cm)

Biggest Zander = Daniel Everitt (55cm)

Biggest Perch = Stenescu Cristian/Greg Bafia (38cm)

Well what can I say... A third place finish and the biggest zander of the match for me was a great result. We scooped some prizes and our brilliant performance gave the Lure Witches team a fantastic 30 points towards their overall score. I think everyone who fished it would agree it wasn't an easy match, but all those who take part in these league matches seems to have a great time and there is a great vibe on the bank. I suppose all that remains to say is...
"Who needs a substitute for round three"

PAA Predator Grandprix 2019 - Hawksbury Junction

I was nervous about this one to say the least! I had no idea if anyone I knew would be fishing and for all I knew I might be crashing an exclusive club match that didn't want any interlopers. On top of that I knew the canals were in a right state after two weeks of turbulent weather as a couple of storms had passed through. The zander should by all rights be either about spawn or on the nests and the perch had become like ghosts as they too were meant to be spawning soon. If that wasn't enough the weather was predicted to be a mixed bag through the day which for light lure fishing can make things very hard...

When I arrived into the parking area it was already buzzing with anglers all ready for a day of lure slinging, but from what I could see at first glance I might be the only non-polish competitor in attendance. That was until I spotted Ashley who I'd met a few weeks prior in the Tusses Spro warm up. I needn't have been concerned about being one of the few English lads competing as it quickly became very clear that the members from the Polish Anglers Association were a very friendly lot and welcomed us heartily, every one of them shaking hands upon arrival which would be something nice to see at other matches. It was also somewhat helpful that we knew Greg Bafia from the Tusses lure division who very helpfully translated any important info through the day. After all the greetings were done and the entrance fee was paid, the chaps in charge began paring us up ready for the off and filling us in on the rules for the match.

Having had a little wander around the venue a couple of days prior and seeing what a state the canals were in after the ever blowing gales had kept just about every molecule of sediment suspended in the water, I knew the first few hours of this match would be key. As much as I dislike the Oxford canal it seemed the best option as there was a noticeable colour difference between that and the adjacent Coventry. So with my partner in tow I lead us directly onto the Oxford and this turned out to be a great decision for me as early on I hooked and landed a good size zander which not only settled me down quickly but also put me in a great position early on.

A great start

50cm

By now a lot of the competitors who had gone down the Coventry were filtering back up and down onto the Oxford in search of comfort away from the wind and better conditions in general. This meant that most of the water myself and my partner fished would be second hand which was not ideal. Oddly though three or four spots further down the canal I targeted a snaggy narrow area only to quickly get a pluck which soon turned into a second pluck, followed by a proper hit. Luckily I had located a shoal of small zander and quickly landed two perfect match sized fish.

32cm

22cm

Much as expected things got worse as the morning wore on. Early on some fantastic fish had been caught including a rumoured 77cm zander, some decent pike and a big perch, but as soon as the first boats began chugging through, the little clarity we had soon disappeared in the clouds of silt churned up. With three zander on my score card I really wanted to try and root out some small perch and so scaled down my lures specifically to target them, focussing on potential holding spots, but the efforts was in vain as the captures all round deteriorated with the weather. In a two hour period the weather changed from sunny and very windy to raining heavily, then snowing. In a break from the weather we marched back to the most productive area where it promptly began hailing hard. Honestly this sudden influx of cold water did nothing to help the already slow fishing in my opinion.

After recovering any of the spot where I had found fish, I rolled the dice and dragged my partner off for one last foray onto the abandoned Coventry. It was a real gamble as the wind was hammering down the canal and the water was almost thick, it was that muddy, but if this decision paid off I could have scored some massive perch from one or two haunts I knew. The perch were much as they have been for a while now, conspicuous by their absence! My effort though was rewarded by a single small zed which on a match this hard proved very valuable at 22cm long.

22cm

It had been a hard match all round from what I could tell but this wasn't evident in the high spirits of all the competitors who were laughing and joking about the awful weather and generally enjoying themselves. On a hard day I was happy with the four fish I had caught, but until the sheets were in and the scores tallied up I would have to wait to see how I had done.

Total = 126cm

It wasn't until one of the officials told me to make sure I stuck around that I realised that I had actually done quite well in these terrible conditions. As the officials spoke away in Polish, Greg translated. Prizes for a previous competition were handed out and the juniors were applauded. Then after a while they got onto the top scores of the day and happily my name came out for the 2nd place position.

I was made up to finish in the top three as from what I had seen of my fellow competitors they fished really well and their cast rates are unbelievable. Not only were all the other chaps there great anglers but they made me feel very welcome and they were full of congratulations after the prizes were awarded. I will certainly not think twice before fishing another PAA event in the future should the opportunity arrive as they really were a great bunch to fish along side.

Tusses Freestyle Warm Up friendly.

I'd been really looking forward to the Tusses warm up friendly for quite a while. These friendly get together club matches have a great vibe about them with anglers of all nationalities that love lure fishing coming together for a good time. The only fly in my ointment was the fact that nine days prior I'd had some long awaited carpel tunnel surgery on my right hand to cut the transverse carpel ligament and release the pressure on the median nerve. Thus I was left with a stitched up wound at the bottom of my right hand and the ligament that helps the thumbs movement severed. Prior to the event I had a little experiment with a super light lure rod and found that although I was able to fish I couldn't really cast as such. A second experiment with my left hand had me casting like a drunken toddler so I concluded that in the approaching match was going to be strictly limited to fishing under the rod tip dibbling style.

Luckily for me I was green lit to drive by the quack a few days prior to the event and after a wary drive through dense fog I arrived early to see plenty of competitors readying rods in the car park near the Greyhound pub at Hawksbury junction.

I think everyone had trepidations about the fishing as the recent wall to wall sunshine and high temperatures had probably had little effect on the water temps, so the fish would probably be quite cagey still. This was even worse for me given my limited range; I would be scrabbling around on the shallower shelf rather than being able to search out the deeper water. With this in mind I opted to travel out a bit to find a spot of unchallenged canal where I knew there was deeper water close in and things initially started very well when I hooked and landed a high scoring jack pike early in the match.

After that things went very sour for me. I was intermittently locating single fish that I was just about persuading to bite. The problem I was having was with my hand strapped up in a brace for protection I was just that bit too slow to connect with these very subtle fast hits. I missed or lost no less than ten small fish, most of which I felt vibrating for a moment before they just disappeared. Psychologically it was very damaging as I knew that in what was going to be a tight match I lost what could have been a metre of fish. Towards the end of the match I finally found a decent perch lingering in a bank side snag which tore so hard into the lure that even I wasn't going to miss it. At 29cm it was a very welcome addition to the score card.

My final hope lay in a bridge at the end of the stretch that I had been fishing. Most of the year you can pick one or two fish up around its deep structured margins and I had saved it deliberately till last just in case. My final half an hour saw me work every reachable inch of it again and again until finally I connected with a small zander which looked no bigger than 20cm when it came up to the surface and let go of the lure in one final insult.

Total = 79cm

Once back at the meet point it became evident things had been hard all round and most people had struggled to return any decent scores. Though a few anglers had done very well and reports of a big pike and a few decent zander helped make the difference between the top three and everyone else when the scores were tallied up.

1st Place = Stephen Coldicott 261cm + Biggest pike 79cm

2nd Place = Cautis Tiberius 215cm

3rd Place = Greg Bafia 132cm

Biggest zander = Salwomir Mikolajczak 55cm

Biggest perch = Daniel Everitt 29cm

I couldn't be to disappointed with how I'd done as things were really against me on this one with my hand not being one hundred percent. I was a little gutted that I didn't bank at least a few of those small fish to bulk up my score. Had I have been on point then I am sure I could have added close to a meter to my score which might have seen me possibly placing. It was however a nice surprise to get the prize for the largest perch and win a load of Realistic shad lures to try out before the next match.

At the end of the day though I had a great time as did everyone attending which I must say is down to David Warrens hard work organising the event, and I can't wait until the next open Tusses event in a month or so time when hopefully I will be able to cast further than my rod tip.

A competitive foray #1

My personal identity as an angler has always been pretty clear to me, "I am a specimen orientated angler who could could quite easily slip into that all consuming place where the biggest fish must be caught at all costs, but choose's not to as I value all the things that this would jeopardise too much to do it". Match angling therefore doesn't hold much interest for me. Well, that was until I began doing a spot of lure fishing when young BB was born. You see the two types of competitive match fishing are very different. Traditional match fishing involves drawing a peg, pitching up in that peg with nearly all the fishing gear you own and eeking the greatest weight of fish you can out of your prescribed swim within the specified time limit. Lure match fishing instead is about catching the greatest length of predatory fish out of said prescribed area, which could be many miles within a specified time limit. The latter is much more mobile and strangely you find yourself fishing areas others have fished and failed, only for you to catch.

I have not had much opportunity to explore this interesting facet of lure fishing before apart from a single foray a couple of years ago when I was asked to fish with the England contingent for the CRT International lure friendly, which is organised to build bridges between all nationalities of anglers in the UK. This was not the experience I expected as only a few weeks prior to the event I had surgery to remove a kidney stone which left me with a stent in my water works. A stent, for those who are unaware of such evil things, is a plastic pipe which is designed to hold open pipes inside your body and thus caused in my case, urinal reflux. This is where when-ever you take a pee, urine is forced back up the pipe from your bladder to your kidney. In short this feels like Satan is raping your pee pipe. Hence my first ever lure match involved me spending the day with a non English speaking chap, peeing blood into the bushes, being in a constant cold sweat on a burning hot day and generally feeling like death. I can't even remember the fishing and can only recall curling up on the bed once home whimpering with JB looking at me very worried.

It's taken a few years to get over that experience and conveniently I have been asked if I wanted to be part of the England team for this CRT event and after agreeing I have taken a dip into the world of competitive lure fishing to get myself prepared. Luckily for me a friendly event was organized by Tusses Lure Division a few weeks prior to the CRT event which it seemed might be a good warm up so I duly singed up for it.

Now I do not wish to give full blow by blow accounts of each outing as this would be terribly boring and might serve to share info with my competitors should they read this, so all I will do is outline the events, venues, catches and results with possibly conclusions should they be needed.

Tusses Autumn Friendly

Venue = All Tusses Lure Division waters

Total length = 151cm 

Finish position = 11th place

I did myself out of a couple of points through rushing to total my score, which is a lesson learned for next time. Though this wasn't the biggest lesson taken from this match. Throughout the match I lost four small zander of around 20cm+, two small perch of maybe 10cm+ and a better perch of at least 25cm+. All of which added up an estimated 115cm, which would have taken my score to around 266cm which could have jumped me two or even three places higher into the top ten. All of these lost fish were down to exactly the same thing, poor hook ups, and when forty five percent of hooked fish are coming off something needs addressing for the next time.

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After chatting with my good fried Carl Arcus who is a very experienced in this area, it became clear a practice session was a necessity to help pin down possible fish holding spots for the up coming CRT match. With limited time though and a cut off point for practice coming in before I had a day free, I had to reorganize a few things and skive an afternoon off to get some needed time on the water before the match day.

Practice for CRT International Friendly.

Venue = LACC sections bridge 18 - 30

Total Length = 111cm (In the CRT match only the best two perch count. So 51cm would be my perch quota)

Doesn't count.

Leave well alone!

As pleasing as the practice session was with me making up 51cm perch quota that I would be very happy with during the CRT event it was terribly disappointing on the zander front. With zander quota making up at least fifty percent of the fish you can submit it is imperative that competitors catch any they can. Even more worryingly was the fact that I only encountered two tiny ones both of which let go of the lure at the surface. On a better note a change of hook pattern seems to have helped increase my conversion of hits into fish. on the Tusses event where of sixteen good hits I landed nine giving me a 56% conversion rate of hits to fish. On this practice with a different hook pattern I landed eight fish out of eleven good hits giving me a conversion of hits to fish of 73%.

After only two dedicated outings trying to build up decent match scores I am having to quickly re-educate myself to not actually look for the biggest fish as I have been for many years, but to instead look for the most prevalent fish as this give better opportunity to build length quickly. With this in mind I felt I was on the way to focusing myself to think more like a lure match angler than like a specimen angler.