Junior Matches - Suffolk Water Park

Any of you young budding match anglers out there interested in a match at the Suffolk Water Park? As Part of the National Fishing Festival, junior matches will be held on Tuesday 7th August and Tuesday 21st August. The age limits are 12 to 16 year olds inclusive but if anyone younger than 12 wishes to take part then they must be accompanied.

The draw is at 9 am and the fishing will be from 10am to 3pm. Small prizes will be available for the winners. Entry will ?4 per match the price of a junior day ticket for the Water Park.

The first of a series of Junior matches for National Fishing Week took place yesterday. All the 8 anglers who showed up got a reel courtesy of Diawa and National Fishing Week also a 'where to Fish in East Anglia' book courtesy of the Environment Agency and a little booklet on how to fish from the PAA. The match was a little hard as the water temperature had dropped a degree overnight due to the rain and coolness. However everyone caught at least one fish and weighed in.

The first four results were as follows:-

1st Robert Murphy fishing paste with a weight of 11lb 6oz from end peg 15 comprising of carp and a couple of small tench.
2nd Emma Reynolds (another of the Reynolds clan to keep an eye on for the future) with a weight of 4lb 14oz of roach and rudd. Emma fished a short line with maggot from peg 9.
3rd Reese Page with a weight of 3lb 2oz mostly tench!

They must have enjoyed it because they have all booked in for a fortnight's time! Next Match 7th August.

Next match is tomoorow so let's hope the weather is good.

For people's interest, there were 12 children who turned up to fish in the end and they all caught fish except for one poor little girl who's father was with her all day and probably put her off! I will add that on the first coaches outing that I went to there were about the same number of people but unfortunately no one caught a fish so it isn't just the juniors that struggle in matches!

Anyway, the winner, Alex Gissing, had some nice skimmers and small tench fishing a long pole very well to the far bank and he weighed 14lb 8oz
2nd was Robert Murphy who in fact won the first match, he fished a short pole and had lots of roach and rudd, two small tench and a carp about 1lb for 8lb 13oz
3rd was Rory Orris who again caught roach, rudd and a couple of skimmers for 6lb 5oz
4th was Emma Reynolds who likes to talk! If she had spent as much time on her box catching fish as she did talking to a lad about 4 pegs down the bank, she might have managed the second she did in the first match! In fact she is so renowned for her chatting that she wears a T-shirt with 'Lippy' on the back bought for her by her Dad I think. Emma had some nice skimmers towards the end of the match and weighed 5lb 14oz
5th was Reese Page who again fished a long pole but unfortunately didn't manage any bonus fish to boost his weight it was small roach and rudd for his 5lb 2oz
6th Josh Brane who had small roach and rudd for his 1lb 8oz.
Others who fished Che Clarke, Chris Harvey, Harry Dovey, James Meadows (Harry and James went onto the Traditional Lake after the match and had a 9lb common on floating dog biscuit) Sam Cooper and Stacy Orris

The sun burned down all day and they all did really well to keep at it, especially those who weren't catching very much.

The next Junior match is Tuesday 21st August if anyone wants to fish then please contact me via the pm service.

A few of the juniors were on holiday but there were also some new faces to the Water Park which is nice. The weather was pretty appalling once again with a strong northerly wind and a couple of showers. The juniors coped very well though under the conditions and some nice fish were caught and some others lost or in one case, James, put back instead of into the keepnet! That fish may have cost you the match. We have all done it though James and hopefully a lesson has been learnt.

Anyway, we had 10 keen juniors fishing which considering the forecast and the colour of the sky for most of the day is a small miracle.

1st on the day was Liam Overitt with 8lb 11oz from peg 16. Liam fished the pole at about 6.5 metres down the track with sweetcorn on the hook over a bed of pellets. He had a nice tench, a carp, and a large skimmer. It was Liams first ever fishing match.
2nd was Robert Murphy on peg 7 with 8lb 5oz. Robert fished the pole at various ranges, down the margin, right across and down the middle. He had 2 small carp, some nice perch, rudd and roach mostly on maggot.
3rd was James Meadows on peg 7 fishing a method feeder across to the island baiting with maggot, pellet and corn. James had a tench and 5 or 6 skimmers for 7lb 6oz
4th Abigail Brewster on probably the windiest peg on the lake on the day. She did very well and had 71 fish including a large number of tiny perch. Good practice for the Junior National on the Grand Union Canal art Milton Keynes. She also had 2 small carp and lost a couple of others in the margin weeds. She totalled 5lb 5oz.

Other people who fished were Adam Overitt, Alex Gissing, Chris Harvey, Emma Reynolds, Reese Page, and Sophie Gissing. Everybody caught fish and in the fact the person who weighed in the lowest weight caught more fish in numbers than the winner.

We will be running a similar set of matches next year with perhaps 1 on the canal, 1 on the doughnut and the last one on M2.