Saturday 08/10/1994 - Nation Angling Championship - Division 2 - River Trent - Team Bristol

With the team having gained promotion in consecutive years we were now looking to make it from Division 2 to Division 1. Once again no practice or local expert help. Everyman for himself. However, we had three really good river anglers join us, volunteering to fish :

Rod Hill

Pete Phillips

Darren Gillman

We decided to travel up on the Friday morning and have a pleasure session off the match length. Andy Floyd travelled with me. I'm not sure where we fished but it wasn't far from the road where we parked. Andy and I selected to fish the Stick close in and caught lots of small fish - Gudgeon, Roach. However, Glenn Bailey fished the waggler well out and was catching some quality Roach to 1 lb. I had packed up and went and had a go on his waggler whilst he packed up. Had one decent Roach before I snapped the 1 lb hook length striking on a fish.

Not sure what happened on our pre-match drink in Nottingham. However, everyone was well hungover which was apparent by many not eating their breakfast. I thought Kev Boltz particularly looked the worse for wear

80 Teams of 12 - 960 anglers would line the mighty River Trent.

I was drawn peg L34. Which was between Holme and Winthorpe (peg shown with red dot).  Found the relevant coach and found myself sitting next to Andy Billington who was fishing for Mohmar, who had drawn peg 28. We had a good chat on the coach. When the coach stopped we found ourselves at the higher numbers of L section near M section. It was a long walk to our pegs with Andy having a bit further to walk than me. Arrived at my peg the river was running right to left.  To gain that extra downstream room I set up 1 metre above where the peg was placed as per Wayne Swinscoe's previous advice - all within the rules.

I noticed that all the anglers I could see had set up a heavy feeder rods and were practice casting 70 yards or so to the far bank - Chub the target I'm guessing. The rules only allowed using a bomb before the match and only casting a feeder during the match (should apply this rule on commercials nowadays). Both Ian Sprigg's and me had purchased Diawa 13 foot Porky Pig's for just this purpose with the reel line fitted with 6 lb shock leaders. So set that up remembering that Wayne said to hold the rod and to expect bites on the drop. However, it was very shallow over and wasn't convinced this would work. The angler downstream of me was having problems casting with one practice cast landing at my feet, made me jumpy after that, so kept an eye on him! He followed this up with a fair few crack-offs during the match. I also set a GB feeder for down the middle. The main flow was down my inside so set up and a 10 BB Crow Quill to fish at two rod lengths out where I had 12 foot of water. Never had time to set up the waggler.

I started on a maggot feeder and first cast I had a right drop back and thought I had missed it and after a long retrieve thinking there was nothing on the hook found a Gudgeon hanging on the hook. I carried on fishing the maggot feeder getting drop backs, every time thinking it was something decent, but only rewarded with small fish. I had been loose feeding the inside regularly with maggot and when a large Barge came down the middle we had to wind in so I picked up the Crow Quill and first trot down had a 2 lb Chub. Quickly followed another one about 1 lb. It went quiet so rested it and tried the GB feeder down the middle and had a few small 2 oz Skimmers. Spent the last hour on the Crow Quill and had two more Chub.

I weighed 7 lb 9 oz and discovered I was second in the section with 79 points. Walked back with Andy who had 1 oz less than me for third in the section. We were to meet up again in Denmark on the Embassy Pairs.

Back at the results and found that four of us was in the top 10 in our section and good backing points. We all waited with bated breath as the the team results were announced in reverse order. We were all elated to find we were third team overall - bronze with 665 points and promotion to the Division 1. More importantly we would be local on the Gloucester Canal. 

It was only whilst writing this that I relised we had beaten Trinders into fourth place. Just have a look at their team it's the who's who of match fishing especially the Trent.

Result:

Darnell Hoti AC took the team honours with 803 points With the match being won by Alan Simpson with 28 lb 5 oz of Chub.