Army Angling Federation Inter Corps Championship Westwood Lakes 31st Aug 14

Well it was a weekend road trip up to Westwood Lakes (nr Boston Lincolnshire) for the Army Angling Federation Inter Corps match. This match sees each arm of the British Army pit their wits against each other in a 6 man team shoot out, with the lowest points taking the title of inter corps champs and the braggin rights.

With me being in The Royal Artillery it was good to be on the bank once again fishing for my corps with braggin rights to be had and personal pride at stake, I see it as quite an important match which comes around once a year.

The journey started at around 2000hrs on the Friday with one of the team Simon Irwin turning up with the van to load my kit before the 4 ½ hour journey north bound. Simon was keen to show me the River Witham which he had fished as a kid and where he had learned to fish so a night by the river and camping beds out in the back of the van we were woken to the beautiful view of the River Witham first thing in the morning. Gutted we couldn’t get away first thing Friday morning as would of loved to have fished it for the day, still plans are afoot to come back soon and fish it for the weekend.

The plan for the rest of the weekend was to fish the Saturday open at Westwood lakes to try and 

gauge how the place fishes and what methods and baits work ready for the Inter Corps match on the Sunday, so Saturday was more like a throw away match. Meeting Rich Harris (another member of the team) it wasn’t long before we were tucking in to a large breakfast. The open was on Skylark and from what we could gauge it was full of F1’s and carp with a good head of silvers with pellet being the bait to use. With a verity of baits we wanted to see if we also catch on other baits that might just give us an edge on the Sunday or would we have to slog it out on pellet. With a roaming draw on the cards it was noted that whilst the 3 of us fancied the bottom end of the lake it was interesting to see the locals follow the wind and pick the top end of the lake (first note to myself). Having heard that chopped worm and caster can work on the lake I set about plumbing up the far bank at 11 ½ meters to find the shelf that I had been told about with about 2ft depth. A line down the track at its deepest of 5ft and another line down the margin saw me set up ready to go. Bait for the day was as mentioned chopped worm and caster, red maggot and sloppy fishmeal groundbait. With the all “All In” it was off to work and see how the peg would produce with the wind blowing off my back it was a comfortable days fishing with me working out what I thought would be an effective plan should I draw the lake again on the Sunday. With me catching 63lb of fish over the 5 hours most coming in the last hour or so I was happy with the day’s work. I wasn’t expecting to frame as I said it was a throw away match to gauge the fishing and come up with a plan and wasn’t surprised I was comfortably beaten by the locals on the top end of the lake with a ton plus taking first and a few 90lb weights going onto the scales.  With Craig and Felix turning up (another two of the 6 man team) it was time to put over a few ideas whilst in the bar at the fishery having a few cold pints before they had a fish themselves for a few hours. After a few more beers it was decided it was time to get our heads down before the match on Sunday.

With an early start it was back to the fishery with most of the teams there already it wasn’t long before the draw was made and we learned our fate as to which lake we would be fishing and who against.  The draw saw myself and H Harris on Skylark with the other 4 members of the team on Falcon lake.  As for the draw I was happy with the lake and found myself towards the top end of the lake where the locals had sat the day before. However getting to my bank I noticed the far bank was featureless with no reeds or cover that could possibly hold fish like some of the other pegs on the lake, still that was what the draw had produced so it was time to look at what other options I had.

My plan of attack would be 2 swims far bank at 13 meters one at 11 o’clock one at 2 o’clock. A swim at 12 o’clock 2 plus 2 and I would just one of the margins looking for around 1-2ft of water and somewhere where the fish could hide (empty peg to my right). Rigs for all the swims were as follows

11 o’clock swim 20 inches deep.

Browning yellow hollow elastic set slack on a pulla, Hillbilly Oliver 0.1g float 0.14mm Browning Cenex mainline to a 4inch 0.12mm hooklength fisnished off with a Tubertini size 18 808 hook.  Shot was number 12’s spread out. This would be my pellet line.

2 o’clock swim 20 inches deep

Browning Blue hollow elastic set pingy on a pulla, Hillbilly HK47 0.2g float 0.14mm Browning Cenex mainline to an 8inch 0.14mm hooklength finished off with a B911 size 16 hook. Shot was a simple bulk with 2 droppers. This would be my chopped worm and caster line and where I was hoping for a bigger stamp of fish.

12o’clock 2 plus 2 4ft deep

Browning Blue Hollow elastic on a pulla, Hillbilly Oliver 0.3g float, 0.14mm Browning Cenex mainline to a 4inch 0.12mm hooklength fisnished off with a Tubertini size 18 808 hook. Shotting was a bulk and 2 droppers and fed again with pellet.

12o’clock 2 plus 2 2ft deep (Shallow)

Browning yellow hollow elastic set slack on a pulla, jigga float 0.14mm Browning Cenex mainline to a 6inch 0.12mm hooklength fisnished off with a b511 size 18 hook with a banded hair.  Shot was number 12’s spread out. This would be my shallow pellet line should I be able to get them up in the water short.

Margin lines 1 ½ ft deep Right 7 meters down the bank fishing a ft from the bank.

Browning Blue Hollow elastic on a pulla, Hillbilly AK47 0.2g float, 0.16mm Browning Cenex mainline to a 6inch 0.14mm hooklength fisnished off with a b911X size 14 hook. Shotting was a bulk and 2 droppers fished with chopped worm only.

With a quick walk round the 2 sections on the lake I noticed that most had opted for pellet, ground bait and a few worms and maggots. With what I had learned yesterday with what I had on my tray either the pellet would work or the worm and caster. With the all in it was straight out onto the far bank with worm and caster not feeding my pellet line across or my margin swim. A handful of 4mm pellet thrown on top of my 2 plus 2 line and then time to settle on my worm and caster line across. With indications straight away that there were fish in the swim it was long before the float shot under and the elastic came ripping out shipping back saw the elastic go slack and fishless. This happened for the first 3-4 fish and it seems I was foul hooking them (looking back from yesterdays match I noticed that if I fed a lot then I ended up with a lot of fish in the swim but wouldn’t settle) today I had scaled down my feed but was getting the same problem. Over to the pellet swim and with 4-5 6mm pellet saw a return of fish and by the looks of it they were happy to get their heads down and feed. With my 2 plus 2 line now showing a few signs that fish were now short I opted for the shorter line to see if I could build a weight short instead of having to fish across. With my deck rig out it wasn’t long before I was picking off the odd fish but not in numbers like I had hoped, there were indications that the fish had come up in the water slightly so shifted to my jigga rig to search the water column and find out what depth they were at. This produced a few more fish but yet again the bites were cagey and they weren’t there in numbers.

Looking up and down the section it seemed I wasn’t the only one having problems and I could hear people saying it was fishing hard. Still perseverance and pride at stake it was time to scratch my head and start thinking about picking a few fish of each swim and then moving. With my trump card still to play down the right hand margin which I hadn’t been fed or looked at still in my pocket I wasn’t worried just yet that I could possibly blow out.

Looking back over the far bank on both the pellet and worm and caster swims produced a few more fish but yet again the bites weren’t frantic and forth coming, with time ticking on I notice a few anglers were looking to their margin swim and had started producing a run of fish. Still the plan was to keep going on my lines across and short before hitting the margin in the last hour. With about 15-20lb of small F1 carp in the net and with elastic starting to get pulled out from fish other anglers were catching it was time to play the trump card.

I believe what I had done is created a safe haven for the fish to sit down the right hand side, there had been plenty of pellet going in short and across and I feel the fish just wanted some space due to the pressure on the bank. With the lake being pegged 2 anglers miss a peg then another 2 and so on each angler had a free peg either to the left or right of them giving the fish space. I had looked at the margins yesterday and worked out that if I fed only worm I had a chance of catching carp, F1’s, Barbel and ide yet if I mixed it with caster in a groundbait slop the peg became too much and I was asking to foul hook the fish so a big pot of worm chopped up down the edge went in with half a worm over the top. Within 2 minutes the float shot under and a 4lb carp was in the net, Straight back out saw another carp hit the worm on the drop. This carried on for the last hour with the margin going berserk fish after fish was landed from quality Ide, Barbel up to 4lb and bream to 6lb and a good stamp of carp and a few bigger F1’s. The fish had turned on just at the right time and by the looks of things my trump card had paid off, still with the wind blowing left to right and watching the angler on the end peg to my right I had a feeling it was going to be close. After a frantic last hour I didn’t want the “all out” to be called as it was clear the fish had their heads down and wanted more. My Browning Z9 pole had taken a battering with my terminal tackle standing up to the job hitting fish and landing the quickly. With the all out called I wasn’t sure how I’d fair against the rest.

With the scales coming round and 15 kilo to beat I was confident I had caught more than that in the last hour alone. With 2 weigh ins due to split nets it became apparent that I had put 31 kilo onto the scales (68lb) and had not only won my section doubling 2^nd place in sections weight I had also won the lake through the 2 sections with 19 kilo closest, Result !!

Rich Harris had done a 2^nd in his section and with another section win from Felix, 2 3rds in sections from Si and Carl and a 6^th in section from Craig from a difficult section we had 16 points and had a feeling we could creep into the top 3 as a team. With all of us trying to work out how many points each team had managed it wasn’t long before we were put out of our misery. With the teams being announced in reverse order and not hearing our name it was called that the top 3 teams had all drawn on points, us the AGC and the Royal Signals. To come out with a winner it then went down to placing which left the AGC team 3^rd but we were still tied with the Royal Signals so the next port of call was weight count back and unfortunately we came up short with the Royal Signals taking the top spot leaving us in and respectful 2^nd place. Close but not close enough, still considering we as the Royal Artillery didn’t enter a team into last year’s competition we sort of kept below the radar and with the result raised a few eye brows.

Having fished for the Royal Artillery (The Gunners) for a few years now, this has been our best result for some time and proves the talent within the team, we as a team now want to build on this having seen us come so close yet to be denied at last hurdle. Next year we want to win it and turn a few more heads.