This season’s Pike match was the best attended one for many year’s. We had 16 competitors with several fish getting caught, including a couple of upper doubles.

Larry Howard took top honours with two fish for 24lb 8oz with his best fish of 16lb 6oz coming in the last few minutes of the match. Second spot went to Austin Battell with the one fish which was the biggest of the day and weighed 17lb 4oz and third spot went to Duncan Battell with two fish for 9lb 4oz.

Match winner Larry Howard with his 16lb 6oz fish

Larry Howard ended the season with some fine bags of Chub using his faithful feeder fishing tactics with liquidised bread. No real monsters but all good healthy looking fish to over 3lb.

The railway side track on the Old Ballast Pit has now been completed and we are now working on installing the new platforms and marginal vegetation. After last year’s planting of Iris, we have followed up this year with some Coir rolls with mixed plants pre-planted.
Hopefully within a couple of months, these will have grown well and be in full flower.

Our regular work party attendees continue to do a cracking job on replacing the old platforms on Haysden Lake. We have gone out further with the new ones so the Norfolk Reeds do not have to be cut back so much. We will continue with these until the waterfowl start nesting.

We have recently stocked some more quality Tench, Roach and Rudd into the New Lagoon and Old Ballast PIt. The Tench were all 3lb+ with a few individual fish going well in excess of 5lb. Roach and Rudd were mostly 10″ and above.

The club recently had some oxygen issues on the Old Ballast Pit. The already low water level and dying back lilies and algae blooms meant we were at a high risk of having major problems. As we were carrying out regular water checks, we noticed the ammonia levels had crept up a bit and the oxygen levels had dropped. With the help of the Environment Agency, we were able to put in place the equipment required to minimise fish loss. The pumps and aerators were run for around a week until the problem had passed.
Barden Lake had a similar issue and equipment was installed to minimise potential problems. Both lakes faired reasonably well in regards to fish loss, as the Ballast Pit lost a dozen fish which included Tench, Bream and Carp while Barden lost 3 of its known big fish which was more than likely due to their age.
The club will continue with it’s stocking plan for Barden Lake with around 20 fish to the 20lb mark expected to be stocked this coming winter.

This was the last match of the season and a good turnout there was. 22 anglers attended this rover and the river looked nice with a little colour and some intermittant flow. There were some extra prizes on offer for this one. The most Gudgeon caught which was won with a very impressive haul of 71 fish by Mick Orum. Guess the combined weight of the winning pair was won by Tom Sawyer who was only an ounce out. Fish of the day went to Austin Battell  who caught a Chub of 1lb 14oz.
The fishing was again tough for most but nearly all anglers caught fish. Austin Battell drew number 6 out the hat and was surprised to find his favourite swim vacant. Austin caught fish from the off, although alot of them were very small. There were a few bonus fish amongst his catch, including a couple of decent Roach and six small Chub for an individual weight of 9lb 8oz. This with Peter Hole’s 1lb 15oz made up the match winning weight of 11lb 7oz. In second spot was John Cooper and Roger Trask with 7lb 11oz. Third spot went to Ray Berry and Tony Hyland with 6lb 9oz and fourth spot went to Mick Smith and Mick Orum with 6lb 2oz.

Another platform was reinstated on one of our work parties at Haysden Lake recently. We will be continuing with this work for the next few work parties. Well done to all the members that helped out with this.

Match regulars Larry Howard, Lee Wakeman and Roger Marsh attended the latest work party and completely rebuilt number 3 platform and what a great job they have done.

Well done lads, a great job.

Although the river looked absolutely spot on for this match, the conditions were grim with gusts of wind to nearly 60mph along with cold showers. Ditch Howard drew the favoured swim where the fish had been shoaling up recently. With some shelter to help presentation, Ditch managed a nice net of skimmers for a total of 6lb 14oz and this season’s trophy. In second spot with a skimmer and some nice plump Roach was Larry Howard who caught all his fish on bread. In third spot and fishing the waggler, was Steve Twort with some small Roach and a skimmer for 1lb 11oz.

1st – Ditch Howard    6lb 14oz            2nd –  Larry Howard    2lb 13oz