Allan wins the Cup - Damson, Decoy

 Peg 4
The last Fenland Rods match of the season is - and is likely to be for some time - the Les Bedford Memorial Cup. It commemorates Les' life and his influence on the club during the years he fished with us. It's two years since he died on the banks of Elm Lake while the rest of us waited respectfully while two ambulance crews and the helicopter of the Air Ambulance battled, in vain, to save his life.

It was a sobering time, but a crumb of comfort was that Les died doing one of the things he loved best - fishing with his mates, though he was also a very good bowls player. He was on oxygen for a year before that, but still managed to catch plenty of fish in our matches. And it's a great joy to us that his widow, Wendy, still fishes with us.

 The local Oddfellows offered the club a cup in Les' memory, plus £50, to be competed for annually. And 14 of us turned up to remember Les and his unfailing courtesy and smiles, even when he was still attached to his oxygen tank. Of course the competitiveness never leaves us, does it? And I hoped for Peg 1, which would be sheltered from the forecasted strong South-Westerly by a high bank...while the aerator in that swim offers a great feature for the fish to gravitate towards. Theoretically!

Peg 1, which I (and lots of others) would have liked...but didn't get!

Mel does the honours with the draw.

The draw

Our Handicap Cup winner Mel Lutkin dived into the draw bag for us, and shouted out: "Peg Four" when my name was called. Oh, well, anywhere in the first four would suit me, with perhaps a little more shelter than the rest, and I have noticed that the bigger fish - to 5 lb-plus - tend to come from that end of the lake.

It was not until only one ball was left in the bag that we knew who Peg 1 was going to - the only man left, Allan Golightly. Allan has had a good two seasons, and I guessed he could do well from there. 

Before the match started two anglers had to move. Dennis Sambridge, on 14, found water over part of his platform and moved to 15. Mike Rawson on 7 found his platform had even more water on it, so moved to 16. Very sensible, as  it's so easy to make a mistake and end up in the water.

Fish!
I had two basic options - margins, or the deep water, which starts about ten feet from the side and drops to more than seven feet. 

My home for the day - Peg 4. Note that I prop
my holdall up on my trolley handle so I don't have
to keep bending down to pack and unpack my pole gear.

My first drop in the side into about 18 inches of water with a 4mm expander saw a fish take  straightaway...but it came off. A minute later I hooked another of 1 lb which ended in my net. Ten minutes later I had another. Twenty minutes after that I added a third. They were going off already!

To my right Rob Allen had a fish or two in the deep water fishing a top two, and to his right Peter Spriggs also found some carp that looked to be 2 lb-plus, fishing about four sections.

I decided I would out into the deep water if they got a long way ahead of me, but their catch rate dropped, and to my left Dick Warriner seemed to be catching fish on the inside. So I stayed there, though fishing to the left was now very difficult because of the strong left-to-right wind.

For the next hour it seemed that everybody was struggling, the wind had increased, and I added only another couple of fish. But I was getting liners, or missed bites - who knows? Maggot brought three tiny roach and a 2 lb carp, but I decided against putting too many maggots in the swim, hoping for barbel, as in earlier matches this hadn't worked.

Halfway and I have 13 lb
Halfway through the six-hour (actually five-and-three-quarter-hour) match and I had about seven fish for around 13 lb.I had tried the deep water on a top two, with expander, corn, and cat meat, over pellet and hemp put in via a bait dropper, but never had a touch. But I gradually started getting fish in the margins, from about two feet of water, and then from four feet, about a metre farther out, on the edge of the drop-off, on corn. 

Joe Bedford, elder brother of Les, was seventh
with 32 lb 2 oz - at the age of 90 (I think).

The best rig  was my 'Special Method' which can allow me to fish dead depth, even on a bumpy bottom (which this was). Lifting the bait half an inch (no more) often brought a bite, though I missed nine out of ten. Dragging the bait also brought a fish or two.  It was hard, and I concentrated like mad. However, that one fish out of ten 'bites' that I hooked kept something going into my keepnet. Most were hooked on the outside of the lip, convincing me that the 'bites' I missed were not liners caused by fish hitting the line, but from fishing nosing the bait.

During the next two hours I kept adding the occasional fish, mainly from 2 lb to 3 lb, but eventually felt I had to go long again, so I went out to four sections, where the water was actually about four inches shallower than at the bottom of the steep shelf.

A slight problem
I had re-made my favourite 1gm rig, as I had been using the original for several weeks. But I couldn't get the shotting exactly right - either there was too much tip showing, or not enough. That may have had something to do with the undertow, which seemed to come and go. 

Peter Spriggs - third with 54 lb 9 oz,
 all taken on four or five sections of pole
in the deep water.

However, this rig, baited with corn, did tempt half-a-dozen or more carp, the best up to 4 lb, plus a five-pounder foulhooked near the tail, which took me a long time to land. Another, which felt even bigger, came off after several minutes. I also pricked a couple more as I lifted out or struck at a bite.

Rain!
Back to the inside to rest the long swim, and a couple more fish came in, then back long, with half an hour to go, on corn. In the high wind expander wasn't working, while corn, being heavier, gave me more confidence that I was fishing positively. Two quick fish came, and I was playing the second as the rain started. 

The downpour became heavier as I landed this fish and once it was in the net I had to stand up and leave the platform to get my waterproof Imax jacket on. The zip is never easy, and it must have taken me five minutes to get comfortable and start fishing again, in heavy rain now. In fact it was so heavy I couldn't see the float properly.

The last ten minutes
The last ten minutes, when I had thought I would be able to get another fish or two, as they had been biting well, flew by leaving me fishless, and cold. That was a bit of a downer - as was the start of the packing up, as I - and probably every other angler - had left my brolly in the van, and bags and holdalls were drenched.

Sod's Law reigns (geddit?)
Of course, by the time I had done the bulk of the packing up, and the weighing-in started, the rain had eased to a slight drizzle. Sod's Law...

I estimated I had 60 lb, but had no idea whether this would be any good - Peter Spriggs seemed to have had bigger fish than me early on, but he'd had a torrid middle of the match. 

Allan Golightly weighed
61 lb 9 oz, from Peg 1, to win the 
Les Bedford Memorial Cup.

A surprise

Dick, next to me on Peg 3, said that Pegs 1 and 2 had caught a lot of fish. Allan Golightly on 1 weighed in 61 lb 9 oz. It then appeared, from anglers watching, that they thought this was very good - I had assumed that some weights in the higher pegs would probably be considerably more than this, so that surprised me. On 2 Joe Bedford - Les' elder brother and now aged 90 - didn't have as many as Dick had assumed. He weighed 32 lb 2 oz, beaten by 14 oz by Dick himself.

The result - a well-deserved win for Allan Golightly.

I was next, and for a change my fish weighed slightly less than I had estimated - just 58 lb 9 oz, which held second place right to the end. Bob on my right guessed I might have 80 lb - strange how we all seem to imagine that other anglers have more than they do. It's just the same for me! I thought he had 50 lb or more, but he weighed little more than half that...

Peter Spriggs on Peg 6 was only a couple of fish behind me, and while I rued the fish I had lost, I know he had also lost some foulhooked.

So Allan won - a popular win - and was presented with the cup and the £25 winning gift from the Oddfellows by Les' widow Wendy. I was just as pleased as if I had won, because Allan lives in my village, and is a great club member, hardly ever missing a match.

Allan receives the cup from clubmate Wendy Bedford,
wife of Les Bedford, in whose memory the cup was given. 

My Grafham expedition
I mentioned a trip to Grafham in the last blog. It took place and I never had a pull. But having spent hours sorting through my flyfishing gear after a long break from fishing the fly, I intend to try again, probably from the bank at Elinor, Northants. 

Next match is on Beastie at Decoy on We4dnesday. The forecast is not too bad, with a South-Westerly and up to 15% chance of rain during match times. Pegs 29 and 30 would give the best of everything - fliers and a back wind - but I would still pick 18, given the chance.