John Goddard Trophy 2008

A couple of weeks (23/11/08) ago the The Surrey Branch Fly Dressers Guild Held the annual competition 'The John Goddard Trophy', this year at Vale End Fishery in Albury. The day did not bode well, as when I let the dog out in the garden, there was a smattering of snow on the ground. By the time I had had breakfast and went out to load the van with my gear, the van was covered in snow. If it had not been a competition, I would have stopped right there. But off I went.

On the way the snow started to turn to sleet and by the time I got to Albury, that had turned to very light rain and arriving at the fishery, it had stopped. Off we went, I started with a slow sink line in the small lake and had also decided to fish with just my home made flies. I had one or two little nibbles but no positive takes and tried a couple of flies. So I moved to the big lake with exactly the same results and then decided to change to a floating lines, as I had see one or two fish on the surface. I went back to the van, threaded the floating line then pulled it down the tie the leader on and snapped about eight inches off the end of my rod! Fortunately I had taken my little rod and changed to using that one.

I went back to roughly the same place on the large lake and got my first positive tug on the second cast, on the third cast I hooked my first fish, a 2 ¾Lbs rainbow. After that it started to rain heavily and it stopped just in time for lunch. We all had our lunches in the hut on site. I had taken homemade Leak and Potato soup (by my own fair hand), bread, yogurt and a banana. Fishing resumed with some going off to Powdermills Fishery. As this is a 'big fish' lake it was agreed that any fish taken would count as two, for the bag count and that it would not be counted to the largest fish wager (everyone puts in £1.00, winner takes all).

I went back to fishing the small lake and after talking to Wendy (who had already caught her bag limit of four) about what she had used, I changed tactics and went for a commercial white and green Cats Whisker, which initially drew no luck. But then I stopped drawing in and suddenly got a take but it did not stay on very long at all. This continued at all most the same spot every other cast but only little tugs from then on. I then tried casting further out and more along the lake but passing the same area. And sure enough got another little tug and then a few casts on, the second fish was caught but this time only a tiddler of 2 ¼Lbs. After that nothing else for the rest of the afternoon, which by the way turned out to be sunny.

After the weigh-in the biggest bag was 11Lbs which went to Derek Peters and he also got the biggest fish but the rules say if this happens the biggest fish goes to the second largest caught. This went to Chris Billson. Eighteen people turned out on this day, miserable start or not.