uk match - issue 12 preview

inside: SCOTTHORNE kWHITE kPICKERING kNUDD kGARDENER kADDY

All-time legendsreveal their

winningtactics

THE

February 2011 issue 12

THE

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MATCH

THETHEBEST OF

All-time legends

BEST OFBEST OFBRITISH

01 UK MATCH COVER UNION JACK.indd 1 14/2/11 07:36:22

UKMatch Magazine 2 FebrUary 22nd 2011

TacticsUKMUKMatch reveals the winning tricks that made the difference this month

04

10

22

28

38

Hit every single bite

The bread-punch king

Tip fishing made easy

Seeing out the winter

Pellets - but not for carp

In search of quality Fenland roach with four times World Champion Bob Nudd.

England Feeder team boss Tommy Pickering talks fishing the tip for carp.

Winter isn’t over yet so Mark Addy has sound advice for beating a cold snap.

Forget lumps, Steve Gardener’s pellet approach wins without those big fish!

Barnsley legend Denis White unveils his deadly feeder rig. The secret? Pole elastic!

UKM | Contents

UKM | Contacts

Editorial

Tel: 01733 232600 Fax: 01733 465844

Write to: UKMatch, Angling Times, Media House, Lynchwood, Peterborough, PE2 6EA Cover: England’s

legends reveal their winning tactics!

GeT online www.gofishing.co.uk

Advertising

Tel: 01733 395028Fax: 01733 468671

Published by: Bauer Consumer Media, Media House, Lynchwood, Peterborough Printed by: Polestar Group, Colchester

of the Month

When the carp don’t feed…

kAngler: Des Shipp kSponsor: Preston Innovations kVenue: Maver Larford Lakes kWeight: 44-6-0

I t seems a distant memory now but only four weeks ago the ice was still playing havoc with matchfishing, freezing lakes and reducing

attendances as well as weights and that’s exactly the scenario Des Shipp found himself in when trying to qualify for the Maver Classic final at Larford.

Where carp normally dominate, the Preston Innovations-backed England ace knew that the big fish wouldn’t feed with a quarter of the Specimen Lake frozen over and instead pinned his hopes in the often ignored silverfish found in the

Stourport complex.Fishing classic groundbait feeder

and maggot tactics, Des slowly got down to business and winkled out a steady run of skimmers and roach to weigh in 44-6-0 and book his place in the May final. His tactical decision was justified as only three carp were caught across the whole complex on the day is question.

“It was mega cold and at the draw the talk was whether any carp would show up, so when I drew peg 69 on the Chalet Bank I fancied getting a few as it’s a really good area, even in the cold,” Des said. “After 45 minutes on the Method feeder with no bites I quickly realised it wasn’t to be and those around me were catching skimmers so that made my mind up.”

Having set up a groundbait feeder

002 UKMATCH News.indd 2 14/2/11 14:30:49

UKMATCH MAGAZINE 3 FEBRUARY 22ND 2011

UKMatch reveals the winning tricks that made the difference this month

ALSO INSIDETHE FEBRUARY ISSUE OF YOUR FREE UKMATCH

MAGAZINE:

Can you improve on the brilliant? Mark

Sawyer casts an eye over Daiwa’s new

flagship pole

P16Airity live testCan you improve on

Sawyer casts an eye

Alan Scotthorne on why every river has a

part that’s fishable, even when it’s in

flood!

P32River relief

The little man talks about his career and

why he called time on the big match

scene

P46Ian Heaps

TACTICS OF THE MONTH

The Wye through Hereford has had a quiet winter by its normally high standards, thanks largely to the cold weather. Come the mild spell the fish turned up with a vengeance as Hadrian Whittle proved as he shook the ton with a super chub bag to win the Hereford DAA open and set up a great run in to the end of the river season.

Famed for his big weights of bleak when the river goes in flood, Starlets ace Hadrian is no stranger to big river fishing and wielded a 20ft bolo rod to get among the fish after a slowish start on the stick float from peg 64, right in the middle of the town centre.

“The peg has been kind to me in the past as I’ve won a few matches off it, but going on recent form it wasn’t the place to be,” Hadrian explained. “For that reason I set a target of around 30lb of dace, roach and chublets on the stick float fishing light tackle and maggot but within the first hour I’d

caught 13 chub up to 2lb but all the time the stick line was slowing down.”

That saw Hadrian reach for the bolo rod, which was cast to midriver and also saw a switch in feed, the maggots swapped for groundbait, with a ball the size of a snooker ball fed on every run through. After a slow start using bread on the hook, the penny dropped and Hadrian swapped to a bunch of maggots, the chub lining up right over the feed to be caught, especially in the final two hours.

Winter fishing is all about taking your chances and Maver man Andy Kinder certainly did that to win the Hayfield Lakes open last month, by including a 9lb carp in his winning weight.

The big fish was landed on fine bloodworm tackle and denied Parkdean champion Lee Kerry another memorable worm and joker win.

Fished by the finest match anglers in South Yorkshire, the match came off the back of the cold spell and with the water still freezing, Andy, like the others on show, went down the bloodworm and joker route on the Island Lake aiming for 200 roach and skimmers and 20lb at the scales.

“The lake had just finished defrosting and not many carp had been caught so we knew the roach and skimmers would be a better bet. It was incredibly windy on the day and I could only fish at 10m, but there was 10ft of water there on a flat plateau, which was absolutely perfect,” Andy said. “I cupped in six balls of groundbait and leam with 250ml of joker in it and kicked off with single bloodworm on a size 22 hook,

0.07mm hooklength and a 1.25g float and caught straight away, although the stamp of fish was all over the place, from 1oz to 4oz although I was motoring along quite nicely until the carp showed up!”

Fishing a No 4 elastic, the carp plodded around for a while before appearing just under the surface within netting range and the Barnsley Blacks team man didn’t need a second invitation to get it in the net.

With no carp showing, Des relied

on big skimmers to book his Maver

Classic place.WHEN THE CARP DON’T FEED…

rod, Des clipped up to 35 turns out and quickly started to get interest, not hectic sport but enough bites to keep the cold out. A little venue knowledge told Des the range the fi sh would be found.

“Normally at Larford most of the bream show at that range and once the peg settled down a bit the fi sh turned up and I was waiting anything between a minute and fi ve minutes for a bite, but when they came they were of a good average size, around 14oz apiece,” he continued. “The key was switching the feed going through the feeder as caster worked well when the bites were regular but when it slowed down I swapped to dead maggots to keep them coming.”

Packing the feeder with Sonu Baits F1 Supercrush groundbait, Des resisted the temptation to feed micro pellets as he wanted the fi sh to be eating the same loose freebies as the same ones he had on the hook, namely single dead red maggot fi shed on a size 18 PR32 hook to an 0.11mm hooklength. UKM

Big carp is a real bonus for KinderkAngler: Andy Kinder kSponsor: Maver kVenue: Hayfield Lakes kWeight: 25-1-0

Whittle back to Wye bagging bestAngler: Hadrian Whittle kTeam: Kamasan Starlets kVenue: River Wye kWeight: 94-8-0

002 UKMATCH News.indd 3 14/2/11 14:31:43

winter bream/Denis WhiteUKM

Never miss another bite!

UKMATCH MAGAZINE 4 FEbrUAry 22Nd 2011 UKMATCH MAGAZINE 5 FEbrUAry 22Nd 2011

4 UKMATCH dennis.indd 4 14/2/11 07:38:04

Name: Denis WhiteAge: 65Lives: BarnsleyOccupation: Retired minerSponsor: Maver

ANGLER FACTFILE

Banish those frustrating knocks and taps with a feeder rig that is so simple to fi sh, you’ll wonder

why you never thought of it before. Barnsley legend Denis White is your guide to a whole new way of

winter feederfi shing for skimmers

Never miss another bite!

A y Up Fatha!’ came the welcome on the other end of the phone, spoken in the deepest,

broadest Barnsley accent possible. The tone belonged to probably one of the South Yorkshire town’s most famous angling sons, a man who has represented his country on dozens of occasions and was a founder member of the mighty Barnsley Blacks – Denis White.

Now of pensionable age, former miner Denis is still going strong in matchfi shing circles, winning big matches on river, canal and lake while fi nding time to sit on the Barnsley DAA committee and throw his heart and soul into coaching the area’s up and coming young talent – a full life at a time when most would be taking it easy.

That’s not for Denis, or ‘Fatha’ as he’s known around the country. The man lives and breathes fi shing, recently representing the England Veterans team at their World Champs. Surrounded by famous fi sheries such as Worsbrough Reservoir, the Rivers Don and Trent and the big shipping canals, he’s had a matchfi shing apprenticeship second to none.

Fishing with likes of Scotthorne, Pickering and Clegg domestically and Ashurst and Nudd at international level, Denis has a wealth of knowledge on all manner of fi sheries but if you ask him his favourite sort of fi shing, he’ll always give you one reply – bream.

“When I’m deaf, blind, senile, unable to walk or talk and incontinent, then I might consider fi shing commercials but until then, not a chance,” Denis joked.

“There’s so much good natural venue fi shing around here that I can’t understand why people want to fi sh the same lake every week knowing what they’ll catch and the methods they’ll catch them on.”

For that reason UKMatch asked the old-stager to catch some of his beloved bream. The Ouse was talked about but with winter rains ruining that possibility, Denis suggested a Barnsley lake just a stone’s throw from the house he was born in, one he’d fi shed since a kid and one full of skimmers.

‘DenisWhiteBarnsley match legend

UKMATCH MAGAZINE 4 FEBRUARY 22ND 2011 UKMATCH MAGAZINE 5 FEBRUARY 22ND 2011

THEBEST OF

BRITISH

4 UKMATCH dennis.indd 5 14/2/11 07:38:46

COMMERCIAL FEEDER/Tom PickeringUKM


No longer a last resort, the feeder is an out-and-out match winner when fi shed correctly, especially in winter. Few are better with a tip rod in hand than

Tommy Pickering, whether he’s fi shing a commercial or river, and the former World Champ has bags of advice for keeping that rod tip wrenching round...

THE FEEDER MASTER

22 Tom Pickering.indd 22 14/2/11 14:33:16

Name: Alan ScotthorneAge: 48Lives: RotherhamOccupation: Angling consultantSponsors: Shimano and Van Den EyndeTeam: Barnsley Blacks

ANGLER FACTFILE

COMMERCIAL FEEDER/Tom Pickering


Name: Tom PickeringAge: 55Lives: DoncasterOccupation: Preston Innovations tackle consultant Sponsors: Preston Innovations and Sonu BaitsTeam: Barnsley Blacks

ANGLER FACTFILE

THEBEST OF

BRITISH

22 Tom Pickering.indd 23 14/2/11 14:34:02

UKMATCH MAGAZINE 28 FEbrUAry 22ND 2011 UKMATCH MAGAZINE 29 FEbrUAry 22ND 2011

cold-snap king/Mark AddyUKM

“a fine approach will give me every chance to catch whatever’s in the peg” Mark Addy

28 UKMATCH Mark Addy.indd 28 14/2/11 07:59:54


Out of the woods? NOT YET!

March may be just around the corner but a cold snap is still a very real threat. However, England boss Mark Addy reckons that shouldn’t stop

you from catching if you follow his approach, borrowed from thenorth-west canals and perfect for commercials where every bite is crucial

R INGED by a cordon of smashed ice and steering his rig into a hole no bigger than a metre wide, Mark

Addy couldn’t have picked a worse day to catch a few fi sh!

Days of mild late-February daytime temperatures and frost-free nights had given anglers the promise of the end of the cold and something more pleasant to look forwards to in the coming weeks - dreams that came rudely crashing down with nights of minus temperatures and a daytime reading barely above zero.

Inevitably that aff ected the fi shing and following a weekend of hampered open matches and much-reduced weights, the Drennan Team England Co-Manager exuded as much hope and enthusiasm as a man on his long walk to the gallows. His task to catch a net of silverfi sh from a commercial seemed strangled at birth by mother nature.

However, Mark is a veteran of many desperate winter campaigns on his native north-west canals and stillwaters, where the fi shing is hard and the anglers harder still. If anyone could winkle a few out it would be the wily old veteran but he’d have to fall back on tactics normally saved for the canal rather than a fi sh-packed commercial.

That meant no place for thick lines, strong hooks or good

helpings of bait. Instead, gossamer-fi ne rigs and a Scrooge-esque feeding regime coupled with the assistance of an ice breaker would be needed to get the better of Partridge Lakes, Mark’s chosen venue. There he had been plundering double fi gures of roach in matches where the carp were few and far between.

“I thought I’d seen the last of that thing this winter,” Mark grumbled as he hurled his breaker into the depths of the Gold Lake. “It’s going to be such a gamble as to whether we catch or not but by adopting a really negative, fi ne approach I’m giving myself every chance to catch whatever is in the peg. Often you

can completely rule carp or F1s out of the equation as they’ll be shoaled up on a handful of pegs. In a team match or if you’re fi shing for your section as an individual, a more general approach to catch everything that swims is a more sensible option.”

Much of this approach will be borrowed from the canals including bait, feed and tackle but the Drennan NW skipper’s fi rst job is to fi nish clearing the ice. Thankfully it isn’t too thick and only takes ten minutes or so of pushing around with his landing net and pole to get a narrow channel clear. If ice breaking were an Olympic sport, Britain’s match

anglers would be nailed on gold medallists after this winter’s trials and tribulations!

“The problem with this time of year is that we should be getting milder weather so any cold spell will hopefully only be brief, but that upsets the fi shing as it’s such a shock to the system and it takes a good few days to get back to normal,” Mark said. “Today is the third cold day in the little spell we’ve had and ice has been on the lakes for two of those so it’s not as if this has come out of the blue. Fingers crossed that the fi sh have got used to it and settled into some sort of routine although I still don’t think it’s going to be brilliant.”

by a cordon

steering his rig into a hole no bigger than a

Addy couldn’t have picked a worse

frost-free nights had given anglers

ice breaker would be needed to get

Mark’s chosen venue. There he had been plundering double fi gures of

“I thought I’d seen the last of that thing this winter,” Mark grumbled

depths of the Gold Lake. “It’s going

giving myself every chance to catch

can completely rule carp or F1s out of the equation as they’ll be shoaled

including bait, feed and tackle but the Drennan NW skipper’s fi rst job

channel clear. If ice breaking were an Olympic sport, Britain’s match

Every fi sh counts

when it’s cold!

Mark Addy

Vets World Champ and England boss

Vets World Champ and England boss

THEBEST OF

BRITISH

28 UKMATCH Mark Addy.indd 29 14/2/11 08:00:30

5 minutes with IAN HEAPS

Interview/Ian HeapsUKM


Small in stature but massive when it came to winning big matches, ‘Heapsy’ is a true legend in every sense of the word!

ANGLER FACTFILEName: Ian HeapsSponsors: NoneJob: Fishery ownerAge: 68Hometown: Narbeth, South Wales

A bag of Decoy

carp for ‘Heapsy’.


nterview

matches, ‘Heapsy’ is a true legend in every sense of the word!

InterviewUKMUKM


InterviewUKMUKM

IAN HEAPS1975 World Champsgold medallist

UKM: Do you miss the big-match scene? IH: In a sense I had been there, done it and got the T-shirt and since I developed my fi shery I thought that would be the end of my matchfi shing as I would spend so much time running the place and coaching. Recently, though, the local lads here have been happy to let me fi sh matches with them – I suppose they think they can beat an old world champ – and they do! That gives me the competitive element that the big opens did and I still really enjoy it. I do miss the open circuit to a degree, but I’d done it for so many years there was nothing new going on – and I don’t miss the long walks either!

UKM: What’s your all-time favourite venue? IH: I had, and still do, have a real love for River Trent as the roach fi shing on there in the 1970s and ’80s made it a real matchman’s mecca. I don’t really have one favourite section as I’d fi sh anywhere, from the tidal to the upper river, but I suppose if I was pushed I’d have to say Burton Joyce as my top pick. I used to fi sh there every Saturday and do very well, and the diff erence to other rivers like the Welland and Witham at that time, were the numbers fi shing.

The Fenland rivers might get 1,000 anglers on it because it was an out-and-out bream match where any area and any angler could win fi shing the feeder or bomb. The Trent was a roach match and the anglers fi shing there, I would say, were highly skilled, but you only got around 100 fi shing. Everyone on the Trent fancied themselves to catch enough roach, and on a normal

IAN HEAPS1975 World Champs

046_UKMatch_Feb 22.indd 46 14/2/11 08:39:25


river you’d need a ‘magic stone’ as the Nottingham lads called it, around 14lb to win. The Trent attracted a diff erent type and diff erent class of angler.

UKM: What are your angling strengths?IH: Being on a par with nature and understanding it, almost living the life of the fi sh and knowing what was going on under the surface. For example, I used to catch a lot of fi sh off bottom, even on the Trent, especially when Sugar Beet discharge was going into the river, which forced the fi sh to come shallower. After years of doing it and knowing what’s what it becomes easy. Another example would be not getting a bite running the fl oat at river pace, but when you laid on or stret-pegged, creating a stationary bait, you did. We used to use Mitchell reels in those days and we learned to backwind ever so slightly so that the fl oat was creeping through the peg, almost exactly as you would when using a centrepin, but with the benefi ts of a fi xed spool reel.

UKM: How would you say the top anglers of today rate against those of your era?IH: This is an old chestnut, and if you ask me it’s a completely diff erent ball game today compared to the ’70s. I’m sure today’s big names like Raison, Ringer and Masson would do very well if they were transported back to the ’70s to fi sh those venues with the tackle that was about back then. They say that there’s nothing like the skills of yesteryear, but those lads are quality anglers, and even if they needed to brush up on things they would soon hone those skills. The sad thing is that no one is using those skills today, and I’d forecast that a lot of them will be lost in the next decade.

UKM: The pole now dominates everywhere. Was that always the case?IH: As soon as poles became available in the UK match anglers at the top of their game immediately saw the benefi ts and were using them. I think the eye-opener for me was in 1975 when I won the World Champs on the slider, which worked for me, but in other sections where a couple of small fi sh would have

made a big diff erence, we missed out and saw how the Continental teams managed to catch on the pole when we couldn’t. I reckon that in 1977 if you went to any match on any canal in the north west, 97 per cent of the anglers were using poles, so there was a very quick uptake because you simply couldn’t beat it for pushing a little dibber under the far-bank bushes and trees. Of course, the pole was also a massive leveller because the need to cast a waggler accurately to the far bank had gone.

UKM: Was owning a fi shery ever a goal of yours?IH: I was the one who told Billy Makin, before he brought his fi shery, that commercials were the way fi shing was going. He did actually ask me if I was interested in coming in with him for Makin’s, but I was too busy working with Silstar and DAM at the time, although the thought did appeal to me. So when my time working in the trade was coming to an end I could see that I needed to do something else and I developed a love for coaching and teaching people about fi shing, and I used to go around the country doing this, staying at various guest houses and B&Bs. That made me think ‘wouldn’t it be great if I had my own place all on one site where I would off er fi shing, coaching and accommodation?’ That’s how Holgan Farm came about.

UKM: Can you still remember your World Champs win like yesterday? Has anything else in fishing ever come close to matching that?IH: There’s nothing to beat a World Champs win whether individual or team, and I would say the only thing to compare with Poland in 1975 was winning team gold in Italy ten years later because it was such a big thing to beat the Italians on their home ground.

UKM: Who was the best angler you ever fi shed with or against?IH: It was always a pleasure to fi sh with any of the great anglers of the time, but one stood out and that was Kevin Ashurst. Like myself, Kevin had a dad who was blessed with the gift of understanding fi sh and nature. Benny put Kevin on the right lines, and my dad Jim did the same for me at an early age. Although we both grew up together and were roughly of the same age, Kevin

always seemed like an angler far older and more experienced than me - he hit headlines long before me and it didn’t seem to matter what venue he was on, he’d win.

UKM: Anglers embrace all methods nowadays, but what did they make of new innovations in the ’70s?IH: The problem is that when you’re winning matches you never really think about changing what you’re doing or thinking about how you could catch more. With all the success I had on lakes waggler fi shing, I often wonder how many times I could have done so much better by trying diff erent things. A good example was when fi shing the waggler, when it was very common in my era to fi sh with up to 18 inches of line on the deck. Only by experimenting after my big match days with diff erent ways of presentation – for instance fi shing at dead depth – did I realise what I’d missed out on and how many bites I never saw in the fi rst place. UKM

The victorious England team of 1985 when they beat Italy on home soil, Ian playing a key part.

THEBEST OF

BRITISHIan embraced the

commercial carp scene in the late 1980s and ’90s.

046_UKMatch_Feb 22.indd 47 14/2/11 08:41:22

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