The Mecca of Match Angling - Not quite

Saturday saw me take part in my first 'Parish Games Angling' match with 17 teams consisting of up to three anglers taking part. The organisers said it was the best turn out for some years so spirits were reasonably high. The venue was the Warks Avon's Evesham town waters, home of the famous 'Evesham Festival' which attracts some of the biggest names in angling every August bank holiday. Indeed, a search on the internet claims the stretch is the 'mecca of match angling'.

Having struggled the previous week in my warm up a few miles downstream, I expected sport to be slow. The Warks Avon is not in great condition at the moment and like most rivers across the country it could do with a good flush of rainwater. The draw revealed pegs 12 and 30 for my team. Both pegs had thrown up Barbel throughout the summer according to the match results and managing one of those would almost certainly be enough.

My view for the day

I arrived at peg 30. The river was clear but there was a reasonable flow and it looked as good as anywhere. I decided that I'd begin the first 20 minutes all out for a Barbel. If I could manage a decent fish then I could sit back for the next 4 hours and relax. Obviously, it never came. However, I hadn't lost too much ground if the lack of action on the pegs either side of me was anything to go by. I switched to my stick float line, which I had been feeding from the off and found some fish. Like last week, they were small although I did have a string of 2oz Perch which I hoped would stick around (they didn't) After about sixty minutes or so bites slowed. A switch to worm and feeder saw a positive pull but the result was only a Gudgeon. I managed another before what felt like a two hour drought regardless of method. I eventually found a few more fish on the stick float during the last hour before throwing caution to the wind and praying for a Barbel in the final half hour. The 'all out' was announced and a chat with my neighbour confirmed that it had been a struggle. He weighed 14oz, I managed 12oz. The section was won with 1lb 3oz and the whole match was won with 2lb 8oz. Pretty grim considering I was on the 'mecca of match angling'.

I got bored

Bretforton were victorious and boasted the overall winner in their ranks, which was fortunate given the under par performance of fellow blogger Joe Chatterton ;). So all in all, a pretty disappointing return fishing wise although it was nice to make a few angling acquaintances. It also confirmed that I am no match angler and despite it being my bread and butter as a teenager, I don't regret my decision to feed my angling fix in other ways.