2016 Championship: Round 5

2016 Championship: Round 5

Before the whistle, under near perfect conditions, Steve Palmer was practicing for night fishing by plumbing the depth with his eyes closed, hypnotised trying to feel when he’d hit bottom as his head nodded in synch with his pole(!) This proved a big mistake as he was suddenly awoken by an enormous ‘bite’ while hooking into a single scull that suddenly materialised in front of him. His No 5 elastic, all knots, pole and his nerve were tested to the limit as he managed to stop the boat in neighbor Rob Turner’s swim and even put it into reverse, only the sharp tip of the oar stopped the fun as it cut his line inches from Rob. The rower did return what was left of the rig, including Steve’s ‘lucky’ float, and both had time to recover before the start. Rob however was left with a disturbed swim and he didn’t get over the shock and oar for several hours. The starting whistle seemed to also signal every other scull to take a day out, they appeared en mass from both directions but thanks to great effort from John Pope many were persuaded to ‘turn’ before entering the match length, which made the day considerably more enjoyable. It was remembered by some that in Percy’s day ropes would have been installed across the river at both ends of the match length as more positive encouragement to turn, it is sad indeed that Percy is no longer with us to organise such hazards. After what was a good day for most Steve Borrett was the clear winner, his near 25 lb net including three bream for 11 lb 11 oz and a 2 lb tench. Steve didn’t start fishing for the bream until 12:30 when he saw them rolling and asking to be fed with choppy 12 metres in front of him. Jason O’dell’s 12½ lb for second was completely different, consisting mainly of 9 eels! Third place went to a chuffed Bill Scott who, having spotted bubbles just a few meters out decided to lay on for what he thought might just be a bream. His experience proved right except that it turned out to be a pair, the slightly bigger one going 5 lb 9 oz. One more of these and Bill would surely have won the ‘best three bream cup’ for this season, remember Kevin’s best three at 12 lb 12 oz from the last Cam match weighed only 1½  lb more than Bill’s two and Steve’s from this match just 2 ozs more. Also remembering his 18 lb + Mepal carp from a year or so ago we’ll call him Specimen Bill from now on. Andrew Lindsay was the only other angler in double figures with 10 lb 9 ozs, mostly on the pole feeder, his catch including two bream and a couple of eels. All others had to settle for mixed bags of single bream, eels, decent roach, perch etc and, what is recently becoming more common on The Cam, dace, some up to 6 oz. Mike Lynch wants it noted that he didn’t catch a bream, eel, dace, roach or tench but he did enjoy watching others do so. This has always been a good stretch of river and while a few decent fish showed for this match there were also a few ‘dead’ spots, including in front of Kevin Saunders and Trevor Sturge, both of who might normally do well. Needless to say, but I’ll mention it anyway, after this week’s poor performance and 12^th place Trevor has postponed the hemp lessons. We’re back to Mepal for the next match on 14^th August, a later start at 13:00, draw at 12:00, finishing at 19:00 in the hope that the evening will be more productive: we all live in hope! As usual book on with Trevor if you haven't already.