My Match Tidal Trent June 18th

[TF_AlibongoParticipant]

June 18th Tidal Trent Paul Andrews Volkswagen Specialist Monday Evening Series, Laughterton. 18 Fished.

I was looking forward to this match now that I felt I had a bit better understanding for the river after the break. This was going to be the first match of the season that we were to fish during a split tide, this is when the river rises during the match. Last year this meant one thing ‘Skimmer Soup’. I had received an email during the day from Simon Heaton to find out my thoughts on what to expect and my and this was my response

Prediction tonight

something weird has happened to the tides, it should have topped this morning at 9.45 – 10am but actually topped at 8am, if the same happens tonight then tide could be topping at about 8.30pm which will mean with this extra water that when the river is filling it will probably stand or at least slow down for an hour and half to 2 hours. with this in mind it has been very apparent that there were more bits over the weekend in the 1st hour before the river started running like Joe f*ck! So conclusion is that it will fish its hairy little man boobs off but then again I always think it’s going to fish!!! lol

At the draw I wasn’t really to bothered where I was going to draw as I was pretty confident it was going to be a night of catching well! As with most of the matches I run, I got someone else to draw for me and out came 56 the same peg as yesterday. I really fancied my chances now as I knew there were a few bream and skimmers in the area. The usual set up of 13’ & 14’ Shimano Catana with a 3oz carbon tip in both. As the previous day on the 13’ I was using a 5000 front drag stradic with 0.23 sufix elite mainline and a 1oz nisa medium open end feeder with a 2oz “dead cow” attached. On the 14’ I had a 5000 technium reel with 8lb technium mainline with the same feeder and lead. Both rods were started with a 2½’ 0.17 dia hooklength and a size 14 PR39 hook. My intention as yesterday was to start on dendra but to be ready for the change to smaller baits & hooklengths as I felt my way into the match. Dendra is a great bait to start on as I want to cast very regular at the start to get a bit of bait out. So with this bait & Diameter hooklength you are less likely to get line twist. Groundbait choice was my less aggressive mix of 1kg Dynamite silver X bream original mixed with ½ a kilo of dynamite silver X black canal & lake, as I felt this was the correct choice yesterday. I chopped up some worms as usual and added equal amounts of casters, maggots & a splatter of Dynamite XL corn.

These matches seem to fly by as we only fish for 3 hours, it felt like an age before my first bite but eventually it came and a plump roach came to the net. Things were a bit thick and fast for the next 20 – 30 minutes with roach, Hybrids & skimmers to 1½lb succumb to my hookbait and this was before the tide so just imagine what it would be like when it turned!!! Well I can tell you it was nothing like what I had imagined as on the turn of the tide me & everyone else stopped catching or getting indications! The worst thing was the fact that when the tide came and the river just stood still and rose there were loads of fish topping which you just don’t see when the river is running off!
I thought I was in the hunt for the section win as I had only seen ‘Top Trent Rod’ and best bud Dean Smith and my other great friend Chris White catch a deal of anything. Things had completely gone and what usually feels like a match that is flying it began to feel like time was standing still! I had rung all the changes in hookbaits, hooklengths and the regularity of my cast but nothing was working. Then with about 20mins to go I went to pick the rod up and it felt solid. I thought just my luck bl**dy snags, but then I felt a kick? I had visions of a big bream appearing but the fight started to go down an all too familiar line and I realised I was into a large eel. When the feeder came up and the fish broke the surface everything looked wrong. I netted the fish and upon retrieval I could see that I had foul hooked it in the side, that was some luck! A couple more chucks and no bites came. I noticed Chris on the end peg on my right hook into a fish which he tentatively played to the net, I could tell he was taking his time expecting another bream to surface which added to the one he had caught earlier would leave me dead in the water. What came up though was another large foul hooked eel! I was rolling around laughing and joking about how well he had played that eel shaped bream. I then decided that a change was in order as there were clearly a few eels about if we were foul hooking them! I remembered back to when I first started fishing the river in the late 90’s and you were best fishing a short hooklength and maggot to catch them. This worked a treat and I had 2 more large eels of about a 1lb in the last 3 casts. I thought this would put me well clear of the rest of the section! Chris was 1st to weigh in on my right and he put 9lb15oz on the scales. This had thrown me as I thought I had beaten him by at least a couple of lb and I didn’t think I would have much more than 9lb. I was a little deflated whilst walking to my peg and even when I took my net out it didn’t feel like that much but when the scales went past 10lb I was overjoyed but also a little embarrassed as I must admit I was owning up to 6lb – 7lb! Dean weighed in 7lb8oz so the section win was in the bag. This was the most important thing to me as I was desperate to defend my title that I Joint won last year with Deano and I was to miss the following match which isn’t ideal when fishing against the class of river anglers that I was in the company of. When we got back to the car park I was even happier to find out that I had finished 2nd again which was a surprise! When checking the results I realised I had been beaten by the same peg that did my yesterday but this time it was even more convincing and I would have needed a miracle to have caught this peg up. The winner was the man of the moment and with a 100% record for the start of the season, Bill White. Chris was 3rd so the Whites were making a Henry sandwich! The results:

1st 25lb9oz Bill White (Lincoln Whisby AS) Peg 8 bream & skimmers
2nd 10lb3oz Alan Henry (Dynamite/Shimano) peg 56 skimmers, roach & eels
3rd 9lb15oz Chris White (Lincoln Whisby AS) peg 57 1 bream, skimmers & eels
4th 9lb12oz John Small (Lincoln Whisby AS) peg 3 skimmers & roach
5th 9lb1oz Alan Houlton (Lincs County) peg 9 skimmers & roach
6th 7lb8oz Dean Smith (Lincoln Whisby AS) peg 52 skimmers & roach

I was away for the following week in Stafford moor and I must admit this is probably the best commercial fishery I have ever visited. We stopped in an unbelievably luxurious log cabin that over looked tanners lake and had a Jacuzzi! I did get a couple of matches in whilst I was there and my run of good draws continued with a 3rd place in the Tuesday open with 168lb14oz my new personal best match weight and 2nd in the Friday residents match with 95lb1oz. All caught on the waggler! Many thanks to Andy and his staff for a fantastic time. If anyone wants a fishing holiday I thoroughly recommend it. 🙂

[TF_Pedro]

Nice one Al….keep em coming 😎
Tidals still got her knickers in a twist…judging by levels at Torksey 😡

Me n Loda will be deffo be back fo more….Well once we get summer league n div1 on bristol avon …….out of the way 😉

[Anonymous]

yes ped it will be a shame when the canal matches finish………………………………………. :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[TF_Jabjab]

Are you not going to talk about your match on the 17th June? You know, the one that a really good angler won…. 😉 😉

Seriously though, interesting read. See you soon.

[TF_Pedro]

Get used to extra water in Tidal..cos grounds that saturated water tables bound to ave risen.
Time to fill yas boots soooooo…enjoy 😉

[Author]

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