Ivan's Angle: Sunday 12th December - Ray South Memorial Match Warks Avon Evesham

This was my first outing since the Poppy Match on 14th November due to being away on a Caribbean Cruise. Although the cruise was 2 weeks I was being careful not to mix prior to going and had to self isolate after coming back to the UK until my PCR was done.

I search high and low for a match locally but there wasn't any. Bathampton AA had advertised a match on the Bristol Avon at Newbridge but after contacting Dean Harvey he informed me it was cancelled.

I was left with two options..... Port Talbot Docks or Evesham each of them about an hour and a quarter away, I decided on Evesham as it was also a Festival qualifying match.

We hadn't had that much rain locally but I knew they had more in the Midlands so set about monitoring the River Gauge reports for Evesham. It didn't look too bad and I also checked with local angler Trevor Chalk to get his opinion of what it might look like on the Sunday. It was going to be about 18 inches up at the most so not too bad.

Up early on the Sunday and at 0630 it was 12 degree's, I had everything in the van to cover all options.

A nice run up to Evesham and as I crossed over the Town Bridge I could see the level was definitely up with a tinge of colour. After I parked up at Hampton Ferry I met up with a few other from the Gloucestershire area, Jon Tocknell, Andy Richings, Brian Pollard and Mark Brush. I sat with Mark in the Cafe prior to the draw, he's very successful at Evesham and picked his brains a bit.

34 booked in today with 2 anglers qualifying for the Evesham Festival in August, the match prize money today had also been enhanced by the late Ray South's family to the tune of £250.

Most favoured the deeper pegs in the Ferry Field due to the state of the river as the conditions appeared to be spot on for bream.

Upstream of the town bridge had been put in but not the pegs immediately below as they are much shallower and the water would be bombing through. I was pretty well down the que and when I got to the battleship style draw grid I saw that A5 was still there (I have picked this disc quite often) so called it out to Diana and when she turned it over I was on peg 14, the first time I have been above the town bridge.

I spoke to Andy Richings afterwards who said it was a decent depth there and you could get skimmers or even a barble.

Fishing was 10:15 - 15:15 so plenty of time to drive down to the car park load up and a short walk to the peg. Not knowing what the peg looked like I just took everything.

To my surprise and give the amount of pegs v the number of anglers fishing pegs 13, 14 and 15 were all in. The guy above me on 13 had a bit of a moan as he was closer to me than I was to the angler on 15. I felt I had enough room so was fairly happy.

The river had a bit of pace on it right in the middle but there was also a crease this side of the middle and the near bank which looked fishy. I decided on just two methods, maggot feeder (45 gram) down the middle and a small ground bait (30 gram) feeder for about 12 metres out downstream. I nearly set up a whip for bleak but decided against it.

At the start the sun was right in my eyes and had to raise my had to block it out in order to see the tip.

I started off on the inside line with the ground bait feeder and worm but after 45 minutes nothing so picked up the maggot feeder rod. Third chuck and a very small chublet hung itself on 2 maggots, didn't even see the bite. The 45 grams held the middle just nice and on my next cast had a lovely drop back getting a nice 5 ounce roach, here we go, cracked it I thought. I did get a few nipped maggots but no indication whatsoever.

I could hear the angler above me on the phone having a good old moan and it sounded like most were struggling.

I had been re-casting about every 5 minutes trying to make something happen as you would for trotting, trying to draw fish into the swim.

A group of people passed on paddle boards dressed as Santa's ..... why?

Not long after they went by I put on 3 maggots, I was fishing a proper hook, Preston N50 although it was a 16 to 0.14 Accu Power.

After I cast it was in about 3 minutes or so and I turned to get some gear out of my back behind the seatbox when out of the corner of my eye I noticed the tip bounce back. I hit it and thought I had snagged a floating log or branch until it started to move upstream. The way it was nodding I thought it was a decent bream and carefully got it with about 5 metres of the bank when it came up to the top. Not a bream but a barble and a big one at that. As I shipped the net out it dived and headed right across the river and I was franticly back winding.

Please don't come off I thought, I was a bag of nerves to be honest and knew the importance of landing this fish.

The angler above me shouted down "barbel" I shouted back yes, he said something else but I didn't hear it. I don't know how long it took to get it back to the nearside but I managed it and netted it successfully to the apaulse of a guy stood behind me (non angler). It was bent double in the landing net and there was a huge sense of relief on my part. Even after I had put it in the keep net I was still shaking for quite a while.

It was about 13:30 now with and hour and 45 minutes to go, plenty of time to get another I thought.

Word from passers by suggested the river was fishing rock hard, a few skimmers had been caught above me as well as a bream in the Ferry Field.

I had only one more bite until the all out, a ruff.

Peg 13 above me had one ruff and on peg 15 he had a small chublet.

When Jay came down with the scales to me the best upstream of me was 5lb.

My barbel, roach, chublet and ruff went 10lb 7oz so the barbel was a level 10lb.

2 photo's below which shows off it's length and girth .....

Back at Hampton Ferry I found that I was 2nd overall and didn't qualify as Jon Tocknell had 2 big bream on the pole feeder for 13lb plus (2 in 15 minutes) after he saw one roll. Jon was also the last peg in my qualifying zone, but tbh I wasn't that bothered after landing that magnificent fish.