On Wednesday...

Some of the opposition weighing in on the other side of  Jeff's Lake in June

 ...I will be fishing my second match ever at Beaver fishery. My first match a couple of months ago was a great day out. I entered the match without expectation and the intention was to just have an enjoyable day fishing, and I did. To my surprise, I started to catch fish at what was an alarming rate, at least for me. The full story of that day can be found HERE. Since then I have been experimenting with different methods, and brushing up on my technique.  What I like about the matches at Beaver is they are very informal, more of a fun day out, pleasure fishing with a target, if you like. At the moment I have nothing to compare them to and I guess there are matches held all over the country in the same vain.

I am now into the twelfth month of my fishing adventure. I started this blog on the 3rd September last year and at that time I knew next to nothing. The first few months were taken up navigating a steep learning curve. I had no idea how much there was to learn or how many ways there are to skin this particular cat. Before I got interested. I thought there was one rod for course fishing, one for fly fishing and one for sea fishing and that was it. That sounds so naive now, I can barely bring myself to admit it.

At first, I was thrashing around trying to find my way around the overwhelming diversity of this enormous subject. I soon realised that if I was going to get anywhere I needed to concentrate on one thing at a time. Reading books and magazines, studying the internet and watching videos was filling my head with a mountain of information that had little or no order.

Tim 'fishing'

Having no real contact with anyone else who fished, apart from Tim (my brother), I turned to the internet forums for help and advice. It was soon very obvious that although he had fished as a kid, forty years earlier, he was not going to be of much help now as he had forgotten most of what he knew and besides, the world of fishing today is a very different place. As it has turned out, the original plan has gone to pot somewhat. I had intended this to be something that we could do together. That was not to be and it is me that is the interested party here. Tim is far less committed than I thought he would be, mainly due to his hectic lifestyle.

For the first few months I was not keen on the idea of fishing alone, maybe it was a confidence thing, or maybe I was hoping that my original plan of the two of us sitting in the bank would come to fruition. That was not to be and in the past year, Tim has made to the bank four times. If I had not made the effort and got out more on my own I think the interest would have been severely curtailed. The breakthrough came when a forum member invited me to a day's fishing at Beaver. Up until then I had only fished at one venue, Bax (now The Willows) near Sittingbourne, Kent. The reason for picking the original venue was that it is just a few miles from where Tim lives and I thought that would be convenient for him and a day out for me. As Tim is not as keen as me, it soon became obvious that I was going to have to go it alone.

The introduction to Beaver was a turning point. It is much closer and quicker to get to and less than half the  distance of going to Bax (Bax is well over an hour away by road and pushing 60 miles). As you will have read in the previous posts, Beaver has become my second home. Not by design, but I have not fished anywhere else other than these two fisheries. This has been a concious decision not to introduce too many variables. I needed to get the hang of one thing at a time and for me that started with waggler fishing. I am now fairly confident (note I did not say competent!) that I have mastered the basics of still water waggler float fishing. All I need to do now is get better at it.

Grrr... missed!

After sacrificing several feeders to the Tree Gods, I have got the hang of feeder fishing, using method feeders, in recent months as have been fairly successful at it (for me!). I caught most of my fish in the last match using this technique. I was also attempting to pellet-waggler fish, however this proved less than successful last time. Since then I have had a couple of months to get it right and last time out I think I may have cracked it - we will see.

I now need to tie a few hooklengths, get the rods tackled up and ready for the match on Wednesday. I am sure I will not get into the prizes but if I can better last times performance I will be happy. This time I have my own method mixes and hook baits to use, having tried them out a week or so ago (see HERE), I am confident they will help me increase my haul of last time.

Ralph.