Hadrian Whittle won The Wye Championship on Sunday with a weight of 52lbs 5ozs made up of.............................1560 Bleak.

I’ve only fished the method feeder once and it was a half-hearted attempt that did catch but was frustrating so I trawled all the method threads on here for nuggets of fishing gold.

In work at 5am to hit a robot repeatedly with a big hammer but at the lake for 8:00 to find the swim I’d hoped for occupied by 2 lads & 5 or six rods hogging the top third of the lake. Never mind I set up in a huge bay, put up my feeder rod (Ron Thomson 12’ Panther feeder, 8lb mainline, Drennan 15g in-line method feeder, size 14 QM1 4” 6lb hooklength) and a float rod just in case.

Bait choice was Sonubaits Super Crush robin red method mix & 2mm Stiki Method pellets (half flavoured with banoffee Haze) with 8mm washed out Waft Ums for banding on the hook. I added a glug of Haze on the hook bait too as I filled the mould.

As it’s a natural and not a commie I adopted the “cast/wait 5...

Match 10 of our much altered and delayed season and yet another change to the original calendar – we should have been fishing our Trout Cup at Lockwood Beck Reservoir, however that’s currently shut for maintenance works so that will be fished at the back end of March instead. Back in June we should have held our float-only match – the Tontine Cup – at Grange Farm Pond near Thirsk however they hadn’t yet reopened – fortunately they have now and were happy to accommodate us.

The Tontine Cup is unusual in that not only is it float-only, it’s also decided on points – one point per fish and one point per ounce – so the top weight may not lift the trophy (although in practice often does). It’s one of the oldest trophies that the club still fishes for and has been decided on a points basis for as long as I can remember – at least forty odd years.

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