League Match 1 – 25 September 2022
We have now held our first League match of the season – 15 of the 20 signed up competitors turned up bright and early for bacon rolls, peg drawer and to hear the revamped rules and everyone went off to their designated starting peg. With some of the familiar names and faces from last year’s League trying to put each other off the whistle was blown to indicate the start of the match.
Spring Lake was alive immediately – those lucky enough to draw near the middle of the lake in particular received multiple takes and several fish were landed early on. John Micklam and Jim Letham in particular were almost racing to their nets, both quickly rewarded with 3 fish. Jim changed tact to chase a bigger fish to complete his bag whilst John fulfilled his 4 fish limit in the first 45minutes!
With the time bonus removed from last year it wasn’t over for the other anglers and fish were still being caught across both Spring and Brick Lakes. 4 anglers completely bagged up – congratulations John Micklam, Peter Winder, Dean Baker & Mark Baker, whilst several others finished the competition at 1pm with 3 fish in their bags. With a rod average during the competition of 2.7 fish we are very pleased – those of you from last year’s League will remember that the first match was difficult being soon after the summer months but the recent rain definitely helped. We won’t mention the one that got away for Rob Barden – he must be reminded that we don’t allow catch and release! Whilst weighing in and in the following hour competitors went back out to fulfil their ticket - Brick Lake woke up hugely with some day ticket anglers catching 4 fish in an hour whilst others were hooking in on their first casts on the lake! All in all a fantastic day’s fishing and a brilliant turn out and atmosphere.
The rock cakes were once again demolished at the end of the match whilst scores were totted up and John Micklam walked away in first place with a £20 Brick Farm Lakes voucher, a £20 Snowbee voucher & a voucher for the local village coffee house Geo’s. Peter Winder was pipped to the post by Mark Baker who received a £10 Brick Farm Lakes voucher, a Snowbee Classic dry fly box and a voucher for Geo’s!
We look forward to October’s match (Sunday 30th), which will be hosted by Mark & Lorraine whilst Phil & Danni are off fishing in Thailand. Don’t worry – Lorraine has practiced the rock cakes so you’re in safe hands!
There is the ability to be a reserve on match days and there is a couple of spare spots each month, so give us a call at the Lodge if you’d like to sign up for an any of the upcoming matches.