Saturday 03/07/1993 - National Angling Championship - Division 3 - 16 and 40 Foot Drains - Team Bristol

None of us had previously fished this venue and didn’t enlist any coaching. As per usual it was every man for himself. I did some research and found that the 16, 20 and 40 foot drains were not named after the depth (thankfully), Width (much wider) or the fall across locks (flat landscape). The consensus was that because the Drains were built over 400 years ago the term “Foot” was not back then the unit of measurement we now understand and referred to the width by proportion between each Drain.

However, there was always plenty of Eels in these drains!

Andy Floyd travelled with me. I’m sure we stayed over night but can’t remember where or any of the antics team members got up to.

Team Bristol selected shown below.

85 Teams of 12 entered - 1,020 anglers lined the banks of these two drains.

I was drawn peg K 15 on the 16 Foot drain. No coach, instead found myself travelling by double decker bus. Tackle downstairs anglers up. I do remember just turning right on to the road that ran the length of the 16 Foot Drain and after a short drive we we were all looking out of the right side of the bus mesmerised by the number of Bream we could see up in the water. We were all hoping we had drawn there when someone spotted a peg and was indeed our section. The lad I was sat next to said that's my peg! The bus moved on a bit further and stopped. Unfortunately I had to walk away from this massive shoal of bream which were from pegs K30 to K37. I found my peg which was just below a bridge (pictured below with the red dot). It was about 100 yards from the Bream, but hopeful I might snare one or two.

My peg was right up against a bush to my right nearest to the bridge. Set up a feeder and an Eel rig for the pole. I plan to fish the feeder for 30-45 minutes as a look see. First thing was to put a big pot of white maggot in at 11.5 metres for my Eel line. Started on the tip with GB laced with caster in a Drennan feeder and double red on the hook cast 3/4 over. Whilst willing the tip to go round a family of Mink arrived by the tree. It look as if the young were being taught how to feed/swim. Never had any indications on the tip, but noticed the Mink had moved away and saw small fish topping under the tree. So I set up a shallow light rig to save a blank. I started to catch Roach fry one a bung. But felt it wouldn't lead to many points, so spent the second half of the match on the Eel rig catching the occasional Eel to 4 oz. It was extremely slow. I can't remember what I weighed or my points.

Got back on the bus sitting next to the same guy I came with who explained that when he got to is peg there was so many Bream up in the water all across the Drain he didn't know how he was going to put his keep net in the water without spooking them! The match winner came from peg 36 with 57 lb with six of these pegs coming in top 12!!

Got back to the headquarters and after a short chat with the team we started back home before the result was announced. Before we left Ian Spriggs who was in the next section down from me explained he set up a pole rig which he tried first, his float held up for some reason and did a speculative strike and found a 3 lb Bream on the end. Quite rightly Ian was expecting a good day, however, it was the only bite he had which was enough to come second in his section!

Driving back Andy and I tried to work out if we might have enough points for promotion. We concluded we did - just. I wont go into the details of Andy trying to call a recently deceased NFA official from my car phone in an attempt to see how we got on. We did indeed have enough points for promotion coming 10th and were delighted as we were eager to fish the division 2 National on a proper running river - The mighty Trent.

Result: