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- May 19, 2002
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Last Sunday was the Mike Winney Memorial Trophy – next month it’ll be 32 years 
since Mike passed away at the ridiculously young age of just 41 and jotting down the names of those taking part in this match I realised that there’s only three current club members who will have fished with Mike ‘back in the day’ – myself, Steve Warren and Jim Taylor. Venue for the match was Brafferton Fishery yet again, although for a change we were on Ghost Lake.
Ghost Lake has a lot less species than our usual haunt on Spring Lake – silvers are limited to roach & perch plus odd rudd and chub and the carp are nearly all ‘proper’ carp rather than F1s which tend to dominate on the other lakes. We had a cracking turn-out of 15 members and since I only had 19 pegs booked we were a little closer together than I would have liked.
Following the draw I found myself on permanent peg 7
I had Darren to my left on peg 8 (invisible due to the bush between us) and peg 6 was vacant. On most of this lake there’s no real margin – the lake just drops away steeply at about 45 degrees – you can feel the plummet sliding down the slope when you attempt to plumb up.It’s the same sort of profile against the islands too and due to vegetation unless there’s a gap you won’t get close enough – I had a gap in the bushes in front of me – unfortunately it was ‘guarded’ by a couple of small branches which were, as I discovered when I hooked them, still firmly affixed to the island. I had no flat margin so set up one rig to fish laid on the slope, one at the base, one down the middle (about four and a half feet) and one for tight across into my little rat-hole.
Got a few small roach from down the middle, nothing over a couple of ounces and a brace of micro-perch indicated they’d probably swam off so I dropped the method feeder into the gap against the island. Little knocks and twitches on the tip indicated there was something there but nothing that was interested in my hook-bait. I had nothing down either edge so flicked the waggler out to the dead tree on the corner of the island. Fishing 18” deep I picked up another couple of roach with maggot on the hook but pellet produced nothing. I decided to have a stroll, retrieve my peg markers and hopefully get an ‘action’ shot’ or two.
Up towards the top (car-park end) of the lake there was only Rob catching consistently – there was a little shoal of visible carp just off the island and if he got his pellet waggler in the right place it would invariably result in a bite. It was a bit of a tricky cast though and it wasn’t long before the island claimed a few floats – come Christmas they’ll look quite festive. He was catching though – and Frankie snared one too as I was stood watching.
Down towards the other end of the lake Darren and Barry had a couple of carp - plus the latter had a big perch, Kev had a single carp but the lads fishing into open water were seeing rather more action. I got a shot of Jim swinging a small fish to hand and Steve R. netting something a little more substantial. Further down again George reckoned he had a net-full (he lied) and Steve W. once again had snared a decent perch. At that point Rob was probably in the lead, however once he’d caught those resident carp he had very little else.
There didn’t appear to be much in the way of carp in front of me, although I did spook an unseen one when I landed my pellet waggler on top of it. I had thirty minutes catching silvers shallow just with my top kit and a fruitless half-hour trying to get something down the edge before lobbing the feeder back across to the island – I only lost one hooklength when I got a little too close to those trailing branches. Five minutes from the end I finally got a proper bite – a three foot pull – on a white wafter and after a brief battle slipped the net under a common of 2lb odd. I was fairly sure I was gonna finish up last and the weigh-in proved that was indeed the case.
Jim Taylor on peg fourteen won by almost ten pounds and also had the single biggest fish at 10lb 9oz - as I said at the start he's an appropriate winner since at least he fished with Mike when he was still alive.
Second was Tony on peg twelve with 25lb 6oz
Third was Dave with 22lb 5oz from peg 15.
4th Rob
5th Darren
6th George
7th Steve W - including a carp of 8lb 4oz
8th Barry
9th Steve R
10th Mike
11th Tink
12th Frankie
13th Peter
14th Kev
15th Simon
Next match we've got yet another change to the published match calendar
Lockwood Beck is currently closed for essential maintenance works (and will be until Christmas time) so the next match will be at Grange Farm Pond on October 4th and we'll be fishing the float-only contest (Tontine Cup - one point per ounce / one point per fish) that should have been held there back in June.
Simon
since Mike passed away at the ridiculously young age of just 41 and jotting down the names of those taking part in this match I realised that there’s only three current club members who will have fished with Mike ‘back in the day’ – myself, Steve Warren and Jim Taylor. Venue for the match was Brafferton Fishery yet again, although for a change we were on Ghost Lake.Ghost Lake has a lot less species than our usual haunt on Spring Lake – silvers are limited to roach & perch plus odd rudd and chub and the carp are nearly all ‘proper’ carp rather than F1s which tend to dominate on the other lakes. We had a cracking turn-out of 15 members and since I only had 19 pegs booked we were a little closer together than I would have liked.
Following the draw I found myself on permanent peg 7
I had Darren to my left on peg 8 (invisible due to the bush between us) and peg 6 was vacant. On most of this lake there’s no real margin – the lake just drops away steeply at about 45 degrees – you can feel the plummet sliding down the slope when you attempt to plumb up.
It’s the same sort of profile against the islands too and due to vegetation unless there’s a gap you won’t get close enough – I had a gap in the bushes in front of me – unfortunately it was ‘guarded’ by a couple of small branches which were, as I discovered when I hooked them, still firmly affixed to the island. I had no flat margin so set up one rig to fish laid on the slope, one at the base, one down the middle (about four and a half feet) and one for tight across into my little rat-hole.
Got a few small roach from down the middle, nothing over a couple of ounces and a brace of micro-perch indicated they’d probably swam off so I dropped the method feeder into the gap against the island. Little knocks and twitches on the tip indicated there was something there but nothing that was interested in my hook-bait. I had nothing down either edge so flicked the waggler out to the dead tree on the corner of the island. Fishing 18” deep I picked up another couple of roach with maggot on the hook but pellet produced nothing. I decided to have a stroll, retrieve my peg markers and hopefully get an ‘action’ shot’ or two.
Up towards the top (car-park end) of the lake there was only Rob catching consistently – there was a little shoal of visible carp just off the island and if he got his pellet waggler in the right place it would invariably result in a bite. It was a bit of a tricky cast though and it wasn’t long before the island claimed a few floats – come Christmas they’ll look quite festive. He was catching though – and Frankie snared one too as I was stood watching.
Down towards the other end of the lake Darren and Barry had a couple of carp - plus the latter had a big perch, Kev had a single carp but the lads fishing into open water were seeing rather more action. I got a shot of Jim swinging a small fish to hand and Steve R. netting something a little more substantial. Further down again George reckoned he had a net-full (he lied) and Steve W. once again had snared a decent perch. At that point Rob was probably in the lead, however once he’d caught those resident carp he had very little else.
There didn’t appear to be much in the way of carp in front of me, although I did spook an unseen one when I landed my pellet waggler on top of it. I had thirty minutes catching silvers shallow just with my top kit and a fruitless half-hour trying to get something down the edge before lobbing the feeder back across to the island – I only lost one hooklength when I got a little too close to those trailing branches. Five minutes from the end I finally got a proper bite – a three foot pull – on a white wafter and after a brief battle slipped the net under a common of 2lb odd. I was fairly sure I was gonna finish up last and the weigh-in proved that was indeed the case.
Jim Taylor on peg fourteen won by almost ten pounds and also had the single biggest fish at 10lb 9oz - as I said at the start he's an appropriate winner since at least he fished with Mike when he was still alive.
Second was Tony on peg twelve with 25lb 6oz
Third was Dave with 22lb 5oz from peg 15.
4th Rob
5th Darren
6th George
7th Steve W - including a carp of 8lb 4oz
8th Barry
9th Steve R
10th Mike
11th Tink
12th Frankie
13th Peter
14th Kev
15th Simon
Next match we've got yet another change to the published match calendar
Lockwood Beck is currently closed for essential maintenance works (and will be until Christmas time) so the next match will be at Grange Farm Pond on October 4th and we'll be fishing the float-only contest (Tontine Cup - one point per ounce / one point per fish) that should have been held there back in June.
Simon
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