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A CHANGE of venue after 18 years brought a breath of fresh air to the annual Toone-Barlow Memorial Match, after Steve and Frank’s old haunt of the Trent at Long Higgin was exchanged for further upriver on our own stretch at Burton.
The attendance went up to 65, a vast increase from last year for the midweek match.
Almost the whole field enjoyed silver fish action with roach, dace, chub, perch and grayling in the faster and shallower water.
Man on a roll Sam Merry showed he can do no wrong at the moment with an impressive 19lbs 12oz mixed bag topped by a bonus 2lbs 8oz chub.
Fresh from second place in the Coors AC three-day festival and fourth in the RiverFest qualifier on the same banks, he added a £200 pay-day in this memorial match, which raised £650 for the cancer ward of Nottingham General Hospital, where Barlow and Toone were both treated.
Instead of stick float or waggler, Merry chose his 16 metre pole to tackle Peg 15 on the Coors stretch at the back of the Washlands Sports and Social Club.
He landed mainly roach of 2-6 oz on hemp and tares, using a pint of hemp and half a pint of tares on size 16 and 14 hooks in the 4ft deep swim. His only stick float fish was the big chub, on single bronze maggot.
Only a hungry pike threatened to come between him and a win in his first ever Barlow Memorial match, as it tried to snatch fish off his hook and even grabbed his keepnet, rolling crocodile-style with the mesh in its mouth to try to tear it.
Runner-up from the other end of the same section, Peg 2, was Shakespeare angler and Coors Festival winner Tony Marshall, who opted for stick float and various baits, but in particular casters, for roach, chub, dace and grayling weighing 15lbs 12oz.
Third was Nigel Trueman, who drew on the Baileys section and fished stick float a rod length out and waggler four rod lengths out on the far side, with hemp and tares for perch, roach, dace, chublets and a good number of mini barbel totalling 14lbs 8oz.
Thanking the tackle companies who sponsored the event with raffle prizes, Dean Barlow said: “This is going to be the venue for the match from now on.”
He cited parking behind each peg and plenty of fish as the reasons for the boost in attendance.
Others: Pete Morris, 14lbs 4oz, Steve Pierrepoint, 14lbs, Ed Warren, 12lbs 4oz.
The Trent may have been clear and clean but the weather was not.
Rain and winds had an impact on the Ferry Bridge match with only one double-figure weight taken.
Again, anglers used both the stick float and the waggler to keep the fish coming, along with the maggots that have been the bait to use all season.
Hemp and tares do not seem to work to the same extent at they have on other pegs on the river. It is also evident that the chub have not yet made an appearance of any quantity.
The winner was Mick Reynolds with 12lbs 9oz of perch, roach and dace, a feature of all of the anglers that weighed in decent weights.
Runner-up for the first time this season was John Lavender with 9lbs 5oz and third was Dave Shakespeare with 8lbs 3oz.
When the going gets tough, call on Terry Carpenter. As secretary of the Burton Veterans he can be relied on for most things. That is apart from judging when he has 40lbs in his keep net!
On this occasion at the Brailsford Fishery, he overcooked it and was restricted to that weight at the end.
Not that it made any difference because he won the match by a country mile as it was. He weighed in carp on the feeder and maggot.
Second place was taken with a weight of 23lbs 4oz, another all-carp net caught by Joe Frost on his pole and maggots.
Again, he was well, ahead of third-placed Pete Gourlay, who weighed in 17lbs 8oz of carp that he caught on the pole and meat and sweet corn but he only just beat off the challenge of last week’s winner, Mick Lakin on 17lbs 6oz.
Toone-Barlow Memorial Match: angling report
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