13th June – Grafham Water
The Weather.
The wind on the day was a light to moderate South South Westerly, increasing through the day to reach about 12mph in the afternoon and veering to West South Westerly. Although fishing started with a bright spell. for most of the day we had 80+% cloud cover, with another bright spell in the middle of the day. In short a excellent fishing conditions, however the wind had moved almost 180° overnight so fish that had been found on the North shore during practice on Tuesday might well have moved or been unsettled.
The Fishing
My Boat Partner David Moore Doing Some Serious Fishing
Fish were caught from Pig Bay to the Willows on the North shore and in Gaines cove with a good number of larger fish taken to achieve the 2lb 2oz average weight. The largest fish weighed in at 3lbs 10oz to give Jeff Hickson (Invicta) the second heaviest bag of the day, beaten Tony Wilkinson (RN) with a bag weighing 23lb 4oz.
The new catch and release format worked well and 105 fish were killed and a further 50 released giving a rod average of over 5 fish. Grafham really out did itself providing excellent competition fishing, rewarding those who found the fish and the technique on the day.
My boat partner and I were using a washing line on a floater with a tequila FAB on the point and two diawl bachs or hares ears on the droppers. These consistently took fish through out the day on the North shore between Church bay and deep water point. Others used dries to great effect, notably Peter De Kremer who managed to take eight fish on dries by five o’clock in Gaines.
As a competitor on the day obviously I had a limited view of what others were doing – so if you where there please add your comments on the day.
Peter Waterhouse