Wingham Catch Reports and Thanks 2014

[Anthony78]

Wingham Fish-in report 2014

 

Firstly a massive thank you from both myself and Cliff to the bailiffs for all their hard work and shear determination to make this fish-in happen again this year. This fish-in literally would not have happened if it weren't for you guys so thank you all.

 

Secondly another big thank you to Peggy for an awesome BBQ as always. I needed an afternoon siesta afterwards... Probably shouldn't have gone back for seconds.

 

Thirdly I must thank Steve himself for both hosting the event in the first place and also for inviting both myself and fishing partner Cliff to his incredible fishery for another year.

 

Now on to the fishing, this year I was given the choice of fishing 1st, 2nd or 3rd platform which gave me a heck of a lot of features to fish to. I decided to fish the 2nd platform which would allow me to cover most of these features. After some advice from Steve and the regulars I decided on 3 different lines of attack using 3 different methods which would hopefully allow me to figure out 'how they wanted it!'

 

My left rod was to be my perch line after Steve advised me that some good fish had been caught here in the past. This was fished to the base of a gravel hump at 37 yards on a running maggot feeder and worm hook bait, although I swapped over to fake maggots at dusk to avoid the eels. On this line I fed around a kilo of black crumb along with a pint of dead red maggots and only topped up through the maggot feeder which I recast every 30-45 mins. This line produced 3 perch @ 2lb 6oz, 2lb 2oz and 1lb.

 

My middle rod was cast to the top of a gravel bar at 54 yards in 5 feet of water. This rod was fished on a method feeder wrapped in a mix of halibut method groundbait, expo, black crumb and contained lots of freebies. On this line I also fed around a kilo of of plain groundbait but with no free offerings. I wanted the fish to grub around but wanted my feeder to have the only real food content. Just behind this bar I found the smoothest bit of silt I have ever felt so decided this would probably give me the best possible chance of one of Wingham's giant slabs so at night I removed an extra 4 yards of line so my method feeder with balanced fake corn hook bait would be sitting on this lovely feature. Unfortunately the giant bream didn't put in an appearance over the weekend but a new pb tench of 8lb 14oz did pick up my fake corn hook bait from the top of the bar. To say I was a happy chappy was an understatement. And what a cracking fish it was too!

 

My right hand rod, after some advice from both Glynn and Tincatinca (aka Paul), was fished choddy/helecopter style in conjunction with a solid PVA bag of crushed boilies, pellets and dead red maggots. This rod was cast to various areas in and around the weed of a very large gravel bar. I had a bite on the very first cast within 30 seconds of casting out this rod but the fish came off after around 15 seconds due to a hook pull. I convinced myself that this was a pike as I don't even think the PVA nugget placed on the hook had even melted at the time of the bite. After this initial bite I had no further action to this rod despite trying lots of different areas of the swim along with a number of different hook baits.

 

To summarise, although not the most productive session I have ever had due to the conditions, I did manage to break my tench pb and catch a few perch to boot which is not a bad result even if I do say so myself. Each year I fish Wingham I learn something new and have been applying these new findings/skills to the next year, which, considering I have now broken my tench pb 4 times and set my old perch pb at Wingham in recent years it appears to be working. Just wish it was on my doorstep as Steve would definitely be receiving an application for a season ticket.

 

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all next year

 

Anthony78

[Dave H]

I better put in my input for the Anglersnet fish ins. Some of you know and a lot of you won't know this. Just recently I have to gave up on my main job for two reasons - 1) My illness on the right lower leg of cellulitis which is very painful and sore. 2) That mother was diagnose with a rare form of dementia - in fact it called non fluent aphasia - I won't go into details of this but you can look it up!

 

My journey down to Wingham started early last Thursday morning - the traffic was too bad as I expect much worse! I arrived at the clubhouse after stopping at Chartham (to get myself some bait for the fishing) just after 1pm - with nobody around that went into the clubhouse to see what was happen on the carp lake and also the coarse lake.

 

Budgie turn up a few minutes later ( also another good timing) and was told that there was an sudden change in the pegging on the carp lake. Instead going in left and right orchid because there was another carp angler already fishing in the left orchid. Budgie already opted to fish the Point peg! I didn't fancy my chances in the side of the point peg as already fished the peg few year ago.

 

I asked Budgie to think about for allowed me to fish the right point for a couple of night using and sleeping in his massive JRC quad continental xl bivvy - and it is absolutely massive! He didn't mind it as long I had to set it up!!!! (always a catch isn't one!) I even got a text message from Glyn who was fishing in the (Church Bay peg) taking the mickey that needed a planning permission to set the bivvy up!

 

My fishing plan was to fish for carp in the daytime and then fish for eels at night by changing the hooks - hooklenghts by using the quick change swivels. So for the carping was to use a method which caught me well for the tench in the past when fishing as an member of Wingham. This method is something similar to the maggot clip but I don't use a maggot clip - just a simple rig ring - then threading on 15-25 maggots onto an bait floss and tie it up - which create a ball of maggot! This was placed in a PVA bag filled with maggots.

 

My tackle was 3 x Jrc Skylinner carp rods at 2.75lb Test Curve and 12ft long armed with the old Shimano Longcast reels with braided mainline. the PVA was esp perforated and was deliver on the Anchor Bait Delivery system. By then Steve Burke just pop in to say a few words about the fish ins and things to do!

 

So with all three rod baited up and cast out and I sat waited in my chair as the night went in - but the moon came out and lit the place up - it wasn't cold at night as I expected to be.

 

By then must have drifted of to sleep - but still got my receiver in my hand! As the night went on there was no movement, no bleeps from bite alarms but the only sound was the birds chirping away and the noisy frogs croaking!

 

Next morning it was our usual tasks to get the clubhouse ready before other angler/guest arrived on Saturday morning. My main task the to help Glyn with the 4 piles of broken hard core which was left on the main road track from the previous work on the road. I told Glyn to stay in the tractor as he was in no state to work! This took me around 40min to hour to clear up - shovelling the hard core into the bucket of the digger! Then the Hard core had to be dump and back again to refill the hard core! When the road track was done - my next job was to get bait for Anderoo (Andy Walker) - so I went into Sandwich Coarse Fisheries to get the bait which was a couple miles up the road.

 

By the time I got back to the clubhouse there was more clearing up to do - like the kitchen, showers, toilets, and the garden chairs was wash down and clean.

 

By the time "we" finish cleaning up I was so shattered that wasn't sure to fish on or sleep, but I decided to fish on again until 1am again the moon came out and again - no bleeps and movement on the carp lake.

 

At 5am on Saturday morning it was time for me to move out the Point peg and into the Left Orchid peg but it was also a quick visit to the clubhouse to have an shower, a quick sandwich from our Master Chef - Steve Campbell and an cup of tea from Budgie missus - Jo

 

Then it was time for move into the Left Orchid - again fish it a few times and again did caught eels in the past but never a carp!

 

After an hour of carefully using the depth marker to find the clear spot as there was a present of weed about. It was matter getting the bait in the clear area. Again carping in the daytime and eeling at night was my plan. The weather turn out to be a very nice warm and even got a bit of red on my forehead! Jo went to the clubhouse to cook a nice chicken casserole which I really enjoyed.

 

But nigh time was my biggest challenge because I must have been bitten around 25 times from the mosquitos as I forgot to pack my mosquito spray! ( Not going to make the same mistake next time!)

 

Again no movement until 8 minutes past two in the morning that had a bleep and another bleep from my delkims on the left rods which was baited in the shallow water on the left of me. I stood beside of my bedchair just case a run occur but it never happen. I sat in the chair inside my bivvy waiting for the run occur. I gave up and about to get into bed again when the same rod bleep again. Again nothing happen. Again the moon was out again!

 

Sunday Morning was woken up to see ac couple of carp near the surface - out changing the rigs to get son zig bug going but only to find didn't packed my zig bugs but had pop up boilie will do the trick - out it went and left it. It been in the water for four hours and was time for the BBQ again.

 

As always the famous BBQ was done by Peggy Burke and again always the food tasted good.

 

After the BBQ - I was thinking of leaving the zigs out for the rest of the day and through the night as well, but the weather was chilly at night and even had three field mouse for my company at the peg!

 

The rest of the night was very quiet so I decide to called it a day as it wasn't going happen to catch a fish that day!

 

I slowly pack up the fishing trailer and left the clubhouse around 5pm after having chat on various things involving Wingham!

 

I saw Anthony and Cliff was packing the car up as I left the clubhouse. On the way back on the M25 near Heathrow where got a pip of the horn to find Ant and Cliff overtook me and Cliff was waving at me - which made me laugh a bit . I got home around 9pm in the evening to find that been bombardment with emails and letters to with my carers side.

 

I would like to say a thank you to the Bailiffs - Budgie?(only joking bruv) but for Glyn and Terry for those hard work they do at Wingham and the place never be the same with out them.

 

Another thank you for Steve Campbell for the Master Chef Bacon sandwich as always!

 

A biggest thanks for Peggy Burke for cooking the wonderful BBQ on Sunday and Monday

 

And finally a biggest thanks for Steve Burke for allowing me to help out with the bailiffs and again fishing on the carp lake again.

Sorry to hear about your leg mate a honestly am. maybe off work the stress will come down and it will improve. Stress can make many things worse..Atleast you tried a few swims for the Eels. ATB

[Anderoo]

We don't seem to be having the AN Fish Ins like we used to so think we should kick start the whole thing again. Remember ANYONE can arrange a Fish In its hasn't got to be on a top syndicate like Wingham just a venue you know well and can sort the details on. Preferably something a bit different or themed.

 

Absolutely - as we discussed, we ought to try to pick these up again as there have been some excellent ones in the past. I will certainly try to organise a zander one at Rutland in the autumn, and the other idea of 'any method trout fishing' at Pitsford for the perch would be another easy one to sort out.

 

The social side of AN has died off loads compared to previous years, we should all try to breathe a bit of life back into it!