WHAT RIVERFEST FINAL TAUGHT US
Anglers faced new challenges and hopefully learned from them
NOW that the dust has settled on RiverFest 2018, it’s worth looking back on the competition and reflecting on what it actually meant to the hundreds of river anglers who took part in the qualifiers and also in the final on the Severn at Shrewsbury.
I’ve lost count of the number of anglers who have told me that their own standard of fishing and quality of preparation has gone up. Mine certainly has, despite me being pretty well prepared before RiverFest existed.
As a result of the better preparations, I think we’re all much better river anglers than we were. That’s because many of us have been faced with situations different to those we had previously been used to.
New venues and new rivers have thrown new challenges at us. New friendships, created as a direct result of going to these places, have helped us to learn different approaches and techniques quite quickly, and the standard is now much higher than it has ever been.
NEW RECORDS
Looking back at the qualifiers we saw the match record go not once, but twice. First it went to Deron Harper, who caught a whopping 153-12-0 of bream from the Bristol Avon in July.
We thought that weight would last for ages, but we were wrong. At the end of September, in a match which saw the top four all weigh in over 100lb, a new record was set when Barry Chapman topped the weights with 156-14-0.
The qualifiers kept coming, and we ended up with 72 finalists heading to Shrewsbury. I don’t mind admitting that I was really disappointed to not be in the line-up but I know this feeling was shared with nearly 500 other river fanatics. Now on to the final...
DAY ONE
As the final progressed I took every opportunity to watch the anglers in action, and it was a really interesting two days.
The top end of the venue was disappointing because the low and clear conditions meant fish stocks were low in this area – but it was also the area where the Day One winner, Lee Harries, took his 28lb catch. This comprised nine good chub. Lee fished a very relaxed and patient match, starting on the feeder and catching one chub, while feeding a waggler line.
That was a good decision, because it gave him the chance to get fish feeding confidently. Would he have caught 28lb by going straight in on the waggler?
I don’t think so.
Everyone thought he was going to be well clear, but down on the Quarry length Adam Richards and Lee Wright had fished brilliantly with long pole approaches to finish just 4lb and 7lb behind.
James Robbins had adopted a similar approach to finish 10lb behind. In total, there were 23 double-figure weights recorded which was excellent, considering how low and clear the river was.
DAY TWO
I spent all day on the Quarry Park length on the second day of the final and it was clear to see that some anglers had got to grips with things better than others.
Key observations for me first centred on feeding. A lot of anglers just didn’t feed often enough. I’m not talking about firing in large volumes of feed, just the frequency of introducing loosefeed. The pace of the river was slow and a lot of anglers were casting out, feeding, then running the float all the way down the swim before repeating the exercise. They needed to feed much more often.
Some used pole rigs with far too short a line length between the float and pole-tip. Lines needed to be quite long in order to fish down to feeding fish. Everyone does this a bit differently, though, and James used longer lines than Lee. The key to catching was again regular feeding of small amounts of maggots and hemp after an initial balls-of-groundbait attack.
Next, running line rigs. With the river so low and clear, most anglers set up Bolo rigs, but many had floats on the line with bristles that were much too thick. Worse still, some used painted cane floats, which were difficult to see. Hollow plastic tips are a must.
Many were casting these rigs directly in front when they would have caught more fish by casting downstream and creating an angle as well as having the hookbait in their feed much quicker. The same thing applied to wagglers, and those who caught best used thin hollow insert models.
None of these observations are meant as criticisms. I hope every angler who took part went away with things learnt, and stored a lot of information for another final.
The two stand-out performances for me were by winner Lee Wright and runner-up James Robbins. They both got everything spot-on.
It was a great final, and I hope that everyone enjoyed it. I know from talking to the many spectators that they did, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be doing it again on the same venue next year.