Game Match Results 2008
| Spring Bank - Jutland Cup Saturday 16th March |
RNRM v Kingsbridge Saturday 5th April |
RN v Associates Sat 26th April |
Services Competition Thursday 3rd June |
| RN Open & Pairs Wednesday 4th June |
RN v BT Wednesday 18th June |
Inter-Commands Wednesday 2nd July |
Secretary's Cup Sunday 12th Oct |
| Trafalgar Shield Saturday 25th October |
Click on the match for the Individual Results
| Trafalgar Shield | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Fish | Best Brown | ||
| Total Weight | Best Rainbow | ||
| Average Weight | Best Bag | ||
| Rod Average | Best Boat | ||
| Fishing Report | |||
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Bushyleaze again proved an excellent venue for the Trafalgar Shield. Despite some atrocious weather in the week preceding the event, the 18 anglers that attended arrived at the water to see a mirror like surface, disturbed only by a multitude of rising fish well within casting range! Being the Trafalgar Shield competition, proceedings started with a toast to the Immortal Memory and, not to marginalise the Bootnecks, a belated toast for the Corps Birthday. Thanks to Bob Jones, Stu Ellins and Neil Jones who each thoughtfully brought a bottle of rum in case I forgot (which I hadn’t). I’d also like to reassure any concerned parties that only a moderate amount of rum was consumed! With everyone chomping at the bit to get amongst the fish, the match brief and parish notices were kept to a minimum and so the competitors set about catching their 4 fish limit. Having collected the anglers’ personal contributions I was leaving to settle up at the tackle shop and even before I left Stu Ellins was into his first fish. As I returned, 15 minutes later to tackle up and start fishing Al Pay, to my consternation, had already landed his 3rd and Stu was also into his 3rd. An hour after the others had started and with most of the best areas already monopolised, I arrived at my favoured spot at the east end of the lake only to find Ted Grant already into a fish which he promptly released from a distance! This favoured spot normally held better quality fish due to the difficulty in casting due to overhanging trees. Alas significant ground work and tree clearance has drastically reduced the natural cover at that spot and, although the fish were still around, the larger specimens were not putting in an appearance. To compound my poor performance the lack of fish was not helped by my insistence in honing my topiary skills for an hour by constantly snagging the remaining branches. The wind had picked up making casting more difficult, vantage points more limited and the fish that had been visible on the surface had gone deeper. With no fish coming out of that end of the lake, I bit the bullet and wandered up to try and pick up a confidence building stockie from the Lodge frontage where several fish had been taken. One of my first tasks there was to lend Carl Rowley my spare rod after he broke his Orvis whilst playing a trout. All was not lost, he went on to bag up with a respectable weight. Next good deed was to net a super 10lb 14oz trout for Mac Macfarlane which he took on a very large cat’s whisker fry pattern on a sinking line. By this point Stu Ellins already had caught his limit and was on his second ticket, obviously why the fishing seemed to tail off! Surely my luck had to pick up! Over the next few hours I tried to target the occasional fish that showed on top but despite plenty of interest I only managed to connect and land 2 decent fish. John Honey and Mac Macfarlane having both bagged up began to walk the bank either helping or heckling as appropriate. As the fishing once again picked up, anglers upheld the ethos of the sport by moving on once they had caught, allowing those with fewer fish to move in on the hotspots. This is exactly what happened to me and I found myself wading chest deep to get a line out to cover a shoal of decent fish at the limit of my range. With assistance, banter and much heckling from nearby anglers, John Honey from a higher vantage point directed me onto a pod of cruising fish. There followed several cast with interested fish creating huge bow waves but only resulting in tentative taps or me striking only to end up wearing the fly line, leader and flies. I changed my point fly for a slightly smaller cat’s whisker pattern and immediately connected with a cracking fish that after 10-15 minutes of innumerable reel screaming runs I managed to net to my great relief. Moving on to let another angler into the spot, I made a few casts from one of the platforms but had no follows. With thoughts of changing to a midge tip and moving on, I reeled in quickly only to hook a small Brown trout which would not fall off! Having seen plenty of decent fish come to the scales I was sure my small Brown had blown any chance of a win. Of the 18 anglers, 9 had bag limits and only one blanked, with 50 fish brought to the scales from a possible 72 including six fish over 5lb 4oz. Best fish by far was Neil MacFarlane’s superb10lb 14oz Rainbow which brought his bag weight to 16lb 14oz which equalled that of John Honey who had a best fish of 7lb 7oz. I was pleasantly surprised that despite my small Brown trout my bag weight came to 17lb 4oz pipping John and Mac by 6 oz and retaining the Trafalgar Shield. I’d like to congratulate the staff at Lechlade and Bushyleaze for maintaining such high standards and especially to thank fishery owner Tim Small for the very kind donation of a days fishing ticket at Bushyleaze as a prize. Although the venue is quite some distance from Portsmouth and Plymouth, the quality of the fishery and exceptionally hard fighting and high quality fish ensures it is a very popular location for our first and last fixtures of the season. Everyone seemed to have a great day and it was an enjoyable and fitting conclusion to a very successful 2008 season. Al |
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