BIG WIN Roach the key to River Yare glory
Harwood targets the redfins to hold on for the Broads Three Rivers Festival title
FEW natural fisheries can rival the rivers of the Norfolk Broads for delivering great matches.
True to form the Three Rivers Festival, organised by local clubs Norwich DAA and Great Yarmouth, drew more than 80 anglers to battle it out over three days across the Bure, Thurne and Yare, where hopes were high of big roach and skimmer weights.
They didn’t quite materialise, though, making the festival more of a challenge. As anyone who has fished the Broads in summer knows, the mixture of tidal waters, powerful flows, errant holiday boats and wild but moody fish can all add up to fishing that’s far from a cake walk. This festival saw only two anglers emerge with a perfect three section wins for first and second.
Getting the verdict on aggregate weight was Drennan Oxford’s Steve Harwood, who totalled 61-11-0 against the 50-10-0 of match legend Mark Pollard. Steve Clark completed the top three as the only angler with 4pts.
Harwood’s opening days were productive as the Thurne at Martham and Coldharbour gave him 20lb-plus nets to not only win the sections, but also put a good bit of weight on the board in the event of a tie. On the final day he faced the tough River Yare.
The choice to make on this powerful river is whether to fish for bream and skimmers or go all-out for roach. On a venue that had only reopened for matches the week before, there was little form to go on. Drawing an average area, Steve went for the roach, a move that turned out to be a wise one…
At the peg
“I ended up with peg 120, which is just down from Langley Pump. Not a great area for big weights, but a fair section if it was an outand-out roach day. Talk before the match seemed to be that there were few bream and skimmers feeding on the river. Roach would be the main target, so I set myself the target of 10lb minimum of them.
“Plumbing up, the peg was around 10ft deep but, with the tide flooding in, that would go up to close on 14ft by the end. I opted to fish just one line at 10m with the aim of catching as many fish as possible, regardless of size, using plenty of groundbait in such deep, flowing water.
“Feeding a small ball every run through of Sensas River and Gros Gardons groundbait holding as much hemp and caster as I could manage, I caught the occasional roach on a 3g rig with a size 16 hook to an 0.10mm hooklength and a single maggot or caster as hookbait. When the tide was flowing in strongly, the water had small boils on the surface, showing that the flow and pace was uneven. I’m sure that’s why the first few hours of the match were hard.”
The tide eases – and the fish feed
“As we approached the point where the tide turned, the pace began to slow and the water was a lot ‘smoother’, prompting me to change to a 1.5g rig. It was like fishing a different river. There were lots more bites and three of my roach were over 1lb, although the average fish size was only an ounce or two. I’d catch all over the peg, from where the groundbait went in to more than 6m down the peg.
“With about an hour to go, the tide was going to top out, which means the river stops flowing one way, stands still and then goes in the opposite direction. When the tide did top, my peg was about 14ft deep, too deep to try to catch on the drop! I managed a few more roach, but it was a slower end to the match than I’d have liked.”
Weighing in
“I felt I’d caught 10lb but not a lot more, so to have 14lb was a bit of a bonus and showed how important those three big roach were! It now came down to finding out how Mark Pollard, Richard Watson and Adrian Higginbottom had done as they all had two wins going into the final day.
“Only Mark won his, but I ended up with around 10lb weight advantage to win the whole thing. It made up for the long drive from Oxfordshire, but I’d also had three great days’ fishing.”