SERVICES FLY FISHING CHAMPIONSHIP 2010
MATCH REPORT - GRAFHAM WATER
This years Services Fly Fishing Championships took place on Grafham Water on Tuesday 1st June. Seven teams competed in this event, with a guest appearance from two of our colleagues from the Ambulance Service.
The Police team arrived early on Sunday (30th May) morning, and were briefed by this years Capt. Alan Hill (Constable of Strathclyde Police). The reservoir was divided into section and boat pairings allocated.
Rear: Alan Hill (Strathclyde), Roy Pascoe, Laurence Jones, Derek Pearce (South Wales)
Front: Calum Fraser (Police Sport UK Sec.) Neil Mitchell (Strathclyde) Mick Cartlidge (Staffordshire), Graham Jenkins (South Wales) Ronnie Dempster (Northern)
Grafham Water was really quite choppy with a strong Southeasterly wind blowing across the water into the harbour. Concern that no fishing would be allowed ultimately came to fruition when the safety boat required anglers to leave the water at 3.30pm as the wind strength increased to 35 mph in the afternoon.
Practice on the Monday, proved slightly better as the wind had dropped to 15 mph, with only the occasional 20mph gust. The two days although difficult given the weather conditions, proved most useful in locating the fish. Large pods were found in Savages, Gaines and the Sailing Club. As to tactics the best results on the Monday was fishing with a static buzzers; green / black proving the more successful colours, fished on a sink tip line, with a twenty - twenty-four foot leader.
On the day of the competition, the match commenced at just after 09.30am, at that time Grafham Water was flat calm with only the occasional movement appearing on the surface of the water as the breeze created one or two sporadic ripples which disappeared as fast as they arrived. Cloud cover darkened and the rain started, but it was only a shower...! though a persistent one. It lasted throughout the morning, clearing eventually in the late afternoon, by then the conditions for the competition, were reasonable the wind increasing from the west as the day wore on. This allowed the opportunity for boats to drift along the North shore left of the jetty, also into Savages and across Gaines from the dam.
It was apparent that the practice days fishing for all services involved, had identified where the two main shoals of fish were to be located. This split the armada of boats as they departed the harbour with half heading to Savages and the rest heading to Gaines.
Mid afternoon, found a cluster of boats in Savages, working buzzers very slowly, whilst at Gaines a number of anglers had adopted the more tried and tested method of stripping blobs and boobies. A number of fish were seen coming to the net in both areas and to both methods.
At the conclusion of the match, as the anglers gathered in their teams to weigh-in, and surrender the catch & release cards. No clear winner could be determined; the scores recorded were close, each team having one or two individuals that had produced excellent results.
Mick Cartlidge was the Police top rod and the method he used to catch his fish is as follows: He started with a 20ft plus leader with a size 12 cruncher on the point and 2 buzzers, the middle buzzer a light Cahill and the top was a yellow (they call it chartreuse) ribbed buzzer (tied by Alan Hill) figure of 8 retrieve in Gaines cove, a fish took almost immediately. When it went quiet, he changed the cruncher to a FAB sunburst, that started having takes again, then again it went quiet. At this time, he saw that the soldier palmers were pulling with success so he changed to Di3 pulling a mini cat whisker and orange blob. The change again brought instant success; he started taking fish he continued with this method until it went quiet. He then returned to the original setup and again started to take fish. He continued to change as soon as it went quiet alternating methods changing at least 8 times during the match, which enabled him to catch continually throughout the day.
Mick finished with 4 fish for 6lb and returned 17 others, giving him bag weight of 40lb. The Top Individual was Mick Angel from the Soldier Palmers, he changed from the planned tactics of his team (pulling lures) to fish "straight line with buzzers" the police tactic...! Mick Angel had four fish for 9lb 01oz and bonus of 54lb a total catch of 31 fish.
At the end of the weigh-in, I did not imagine that police team had done so well, an excellent 3rd overall. Superb!
The Wheatsheaf Public House provided an in-door BBQ (which was excellent) and I announced the following results:
Team Placings
Team name # fish Bag lb oz Bonus lb oz Total lb
Civil Service 32 62 13 138 0 200 13
RAF (Fish Hawks) 27 54 9 120 0 174 9
Police 30 75 10 92 0 167 1
Army (Soldier Palmers) 32 62 3 102 0 164 3
Prison Service 29 70 2 14 0 84
Royal Navy & Marines 25 45 8 34 0 79 8
Fire & Rescue Team 20 36 4 24 0 60 4
Individual Anglers Team name Bag lb oz Bonus lb oz Total
Mick Angel Army (Soldier Palmers) 9 1 54 0 63 1
Lee Patten Civil Service 6 13 44 0 50 13
Mick Cartlidge Police 6 0 34 0 40 0
Keith Gilchrist RAF (Fish Hawks) 9 8 30 0 39 8
Si Gaines RAF (Fish Hawks) 6 9 26 0 32 9
Dan Taylor RAF (Fish Hawks) 8 2 24 0 32 2
Matt Walker Civil Service 7 12 24 0 31 12
Phil Thomas RAF (Fish Hawks) 8 5 22 0 30 5
Best Brown Trout
Anglers name Team name Brown lb oz
John Sheridan Prison Service 4 8
Best Rainbow Trout
Anglers name Team name Rainbow lb oz
Dave Hickman Prison Service 4 12
As for the rest of the police team, the Welsh lads (2008 National Champions) really did the team proud, landing some cracking fish. The Captain Alan Hill kept his place in the police team for third year, he came 12th overall. He will support Mick Cartlidge in 2011 British team matches. Although the team contained a number of our older anglers they proved they can still compete at the highest level. Well done gentlemen.
Police Result:
Angler name # fish Bag lb oz Rbw lb oz Brn lb oz Bonus lb oz
Mick Cartlidge 4 6 0 0 0 0 0 34 0 40 0
Alan Hill 4 9 0 0 0 0 0 14 0 23 0
Laurence Jones 4 14 8 4 5 0 0 8 0 22 8
Roy Pascoe 4 8 15 0 0 0 0 12 0 20 15
Graham Jenkins 4 11 4 4 3 0 0 8 0 19 4
Neil Mitchell 4 9 0 0 0 0 0 10 0 19 0
Derek Pearce 4 11 15 0 0 3 10 6 0 17 15
Ronnie Dempster 2 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0
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