However, whilst it has appeared to provide pleasurable reading for lots of people and I am still constantly amazed and gratified and the huge volumes of comments; and face to face meetings with complete strangers who walk up to me and say "keep the blog going Gaz , I look forward to it every week" it has its negatives too.
The blog of course has leaned toward the the banter and away from the technical. The banter and humour of anglers is second to none. Many of the guys I have met are far funnier than professional paid comedians; and sometimes I would like to pass comment when they compliment my writing efforts, by saying its your humour not mine that makes it.
An odd side effect I never envisaged ( too naive I suppose) is that some people show their views in a negative way, assume they actually know you, and assume its quite ok to be less than friendly.
Whilst I must say the positives far out weigh the negative it is aggravating that others may suffer as a result of my scribblings. An example of this is whilst I portray myself as the "unluckiest angler" in the world, the knock on effect at times is that those around me may also become accused of being mediocre.
To that end I am considering bringing to an end this literary odyssey. The last thing I wanted was for others to be affected and personally for me to be seen as a well meaning joke.
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Fishing with friends and Legends
A few months ago I decided to take two weeks leave and during that time would arrange a friendly knock up match. As always, the normal things have to be answered , where , when and who to invite without upsetting anyone. Where well I plumped for Witherington Farm for its on site tackle shop , cafe and parking. Lets do it mid week and on Barnmoor. The day itself yesterday.
Who to invite. Well in my mind I wanted to invite friends and in particular people who I admire. I admire these Gentlemen for their skill, their honesty /integrity there friendly manner and the fact that over time their guidance and advice (sometimes hard to take) has added to my own skill and help me improve.
Most of all these guys are thinkers, not sheep, they think about what they are doing and constantly work at improving their own game, that's why they have been tops for so long.
Originally I had 11 + me but work and other commitments meant we reduced to ten. There are of course many others that have touched my angling life, but the bank can only hold the weight of so many. So to the match and below are the names and the pictures of surely a "Dream Team".
One of the nicest men is the quietly spoken Brian Shutler, but he is camera shy. Thing is Bri, we can see your famous beanie hat next to me.
The bright sky behind the best of the weather on this truly awful day. Every one was keen to get underway and set up in the dry. Before I go on; what a team of 6 you could get from these guys.
Remember its an opinion thats all, but assuming its a canal match. I will take the Dick Clegg role as Manager and say team is. My mentor John Dewberry, Dave Moody even at his age, Georger of course, James Carty, Ian Spanners Spanswick and without doubt the "Fish" Gary Etheridge. Bri Shutler as reserve.
The thing I have noticed about anglers its not the appearance; and although I once did say about Gary E his peg resembles a car boot sale, others have said oh no Gaz your to kind its more like Scrapheap Challenge. Fact is Gary E is an angling genius.
The draw gets underway and my ball bag of ping pong balls is converted into permanent pegs and we set up quickly. Trapped between Bri and the legend I didn't hold out much hope.
My plan having practiced last week was to have two lines. Primary line on the pole with Scopex laced 4 mill expander over sonubaits micro pellet feed. Back up Maggot line on waggler. As with all things conditions dictate and its the abilities of those around me that see that and change to fit.
It was quickly apparent to me that the horrendous driving rain and wind would make it uncomfortable to fish the pole. In addition the normal instant response to pellet was missing. Quick dabble on the wag brought a small skimmer. The a run of frustrating sail away bites that seemed impossible to hit.
Tinkering with the shotting pattern and fishing 6 inches over depth meant some deep hooked fish and too much work for the disgorger, but at least the float was stable and the bites when they came were much easier to hit. The fish were all over my ground baited area, and although the cold , wet and windy conditions were not conducive to accurate loose feeding - it did appear they were loving it the more the merrier.
To be precise the ground bait was one third Etang, one third Sensas Magic, and one third Gros Gardons, laced with caster. Pinging bronze maggot over the top the fish came regularly, well at least compared with my com-padres around me. The Rain was relentless at times obliterating the sight of my dotted down wag. Its funny though when the bites are coming the rain doesn't seem as bad. But it truly was and was beginning to put a hell of a dampener on the day for me and I am sure the others.
With an hour and half to go I had a run of reasonable (the Normark Microlite handling the bigger fish magnificently) fish that seemed to suggest I might be up for winning this, but I couldn't be sure. I just kept thinking the others will see what I am doing, emulate it and then pass me.
The weather just would not relent and I was losing the fish slowly unable to hold them in my swim. The main problem was trying to keep everything dry (bait wise) especially the GB. In the end I was cupping in sloppy soup of GB, and you can image try to ship out in very wet slippery and windy conditions it must have looked amateurish.
I called the all out to the collective relief of those who longed for a hot bath, hot food and a shot of their favourite tipple. I became Brian's brolly bitch as we trudged around the lake with Ian weighing in.
Whilst some may think I was lucky , they are wrong I worked at it and every fish was justified, even I can win against the best. I had done well today.
Winning though that accolade went to the formidable Dave George and well done to him. Unlucky to Mr Moody losing to big Carp, and nice one Frank for catching an eel. A well deserved third for JC who must have been frozen wearing shorts under his bib and brace. In fact well done to all the Pewsey reps, Barnmoor is no canal that's for sure.
The mystery weight next. My wife had asked what the winning weight would be and I had said 30 lb, so she wrote 9 lb and sealed the envelope, in the hope that the wealth would be shared.
Leo took it as the closest and also took the "merry go round pound" coin from Spanners who took it from after he took it from after I took it from Chris Rushton and well......... you get the picture.
All in all a reasonable day despite the weather, and I think the others enjoyed doing something different in silver fish only instead of a Carp race. For me an honour to fish with friends first foremost and top anglers second.
Especially well done the Victor (left) in photo.
The only irritant................. I certainly will not print a received disingenuous comment and I certainly hope it was said in jest. I will leave it to your imagination and just show the pic below.
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