Stour still producing in numbers

Coarse angling

The River Stour at Fordwich has fished well despite the challenging conditions. Mick Wilson bagged a tremendous 21lb of roach in just five hours while the same area of the river gave Alan Caine a rod-bending 3lb 8oz chub.

Further along the Stour at Grove Ferry, Micky Rainer landed the first reported 20lb plus pike of the season with a welcome fish of 20lb 6oz.

At Stonar Lake, Ernie Millard took a well deserved break from his recent voluntary hard work for the Canterbury & District Angling Association and caught lots of skimmer bream and 12 bigger ‘slabs’ to 5lb. Chris Harnett bagged five more big bream of 5lb as well as a 15lb common carp and most notably 11 roach including fish of 2lb 4oz. Mick Dyer’s haul included seven bream to 5lb and several more specimen roach to 2lb 6oz.

Mark Maddison went even further with roach to 2lb 11oz as well as a 12lb common carp and a 17lb mirror. Concentrating on carp, Bradley Batten hooked eight fish to 20lb 8oz, while Nick Sargeant took bream to 5lb, 13 small carp to 10lb 8oz and five bigger carp to 16lb in a most memorable session. With 11 bream to 6lb 8oz to his name, John Neame went on to coax a weighty mirror carp of 16lb 8oz.

A mirror of the same size fell to Graham Pugsley who also banked five bream to 4lb. A mix of bream, roach, chub, dace and perch were all landed during a regular informal match contested by 12 locala ssociation members.

Ian Frost won this latest encounter with 16lb 8oz, J Cashman finished second with 15lb 8oz, narrowly ahead of A Yates with 15lb 6oz and A Caine with 14lb 14oz. n On Sunday the Canterbury & District Angling Association will be holding their Christmas Shield competition at Stonar Lake. The draw will be made at Jock’s shed at 8am with fishing between 9am and 3pm.

The association has membership vacancies. For further details please telephone 01227 710830 during office hours.