The August Bank Holiday weekend means only one thing if you’re a fan of top-flight river match angling – the Evesham Festival!
In matches spread over three days on the Warwickshire Avon running through the Worcestershire town, there’s a lot of money up for grabs, along with three of river match angling’s most cherished trophies, with the names of the great and good stretching back to the 1970s stamped on them.
However, the Avon in summer is not an easy river and this year was no exception, with low and clear conditions. Even though each match ended up a struggle for many, the beauty of Evesham is that you just might draw one of the fancied pegs and leave the rest trailing in your wake.
Wychavon Championship (Sat)
Warks Avon, Evesham (80 pegs)
The weekend kicked off with the Wychavon on Saturday, with victory going to St Neots’-based Peter McFayden. He weighed in a 14-3-12 of chub off peg 51 at White House Bend to take the title and the £3,000 top prize.
Second was Andrew ‘Spud’ Murphy, with 10-9-12 at Crown Meadow peg 8, and Leon Blundell completed the top three with 7-9-12 off peg 1.
Peter set up plenty of kit, including chopped worm and hemp lines on the pole. But after no signs on worm, he cast a waggler rig with a triple maggot hookbait across the river into 3ft of water. The fourth cast produced a 2lb chub, but then things went quiet and only after a few hours of feeding heavily did he have the fish in front of him.
“At times, the chub were swirling and by casting over the top of them and winding back, I picked off three similar-sized fish in as many casts,” he said. “I needed to be patient, waiting for several chub to be in the area before casting. When it worked, I got a bite in seconds.”
Peter stuck to the waggler, but lost two chub that forced him to step up to an 0.16mm hooklength and a size 14 hook, feeding heavily with hemp, casters, maggots and tares. When the fish returned, he was able to snare the odd one, eventually adding two more to his net to leave him on six chub plus a few small fish.
Result: 1 P McFayden, Sensas Manor Angling. 14-3-12; 2 A Murphy, Cadence Bait-Tech Superteam,
10-9-12; 3 L Blundell, Cadence Bait-Tech Superteam, 7-9-12; 4 C Drinkwater, Sensas Smithy’s MG Academy, 6-7-12;5 J Price, Sensas Mark One, 6-3-8.
Evesham Championship (Sun)
Warks Avon, Evesham (80 pegs)
Sunday’s match saw an extremely popular winner in Cadence UK boss James Robbins, who lifted the title and the £3,000 cheque, a victory richly deserved after a near miss in last year’s event when he finished second to Iain Jennings.
One of the best running water match anglers in the country, James caught 13-10-0 of quality silverfish, a weight that relegated Andrew ‘Spud’ Murphy to the runner-up spot for the second time in as many days. His 13-6-0 barbel-dominated net was just not enough. Carl Hulley took third with 8-13-0.
Drawing peg 36, James decided on an all-out pole attack, fishing at 13m and 14.5m with breadpunch and caster to net a big chub, two chublets, roach, a good run of hybrids and a few perch. Even so, he feared lightning was going to strike twice as Iain beat him last year with a big barbel, and word came through this time around of Spud’s 12lb 8oz beast late in the match.
“When I heard about that barbel, I thought ‘here we go again’, but I guess it was my day this time as I just got the nod,” James said. “I drew a good peg, 36 just below the mouth of the River Isbourne, a noted chub area. Just lately, though, hybrids have been more dominant, so I had those fish in my plan as well as the chub.”
Starting at 13m, James began on punch, feeding liquidised bread to catch small roach and an 8oz hybrid in the first hour. Changing to a caster line at 14.5m, where he’d been feeding hemp and caster, he snared the three chub – but it wasn’t until past the halfway mark in the match that the hybrids turned up in numbers.
“Fishing light 0.2g and 0.3g rigs with strung-out styl weights, I had a really good run of hybrids on single caster, ranging between 4oz and 8oz,” he continued.
“Being delicate feeders, though, those fish are so hard to catch in the clear water. With an hour to go, I seemed to have killed the peg by feeding too much, which you need to do because there are a lot of bleak around and always the chance of chub.
“Switching back to the breadpunch line, I picked off around 1lb of small roach in that last hour, fish that in the end were to prove more important than anything else I’d caught!”
Result: 1 J Robbins, Cadence, 13-10-0; 2 A Murphy, Cadence Bait-Tech Superteam, 13-6-0; 3 C Hulley, Daventry, 8-13-0; 4 A Clements, Colmic A4, 6-6-8; 5 C Vallender, Daiwa Gordon League, 6-5-8.
Evesham Team Championship (Mon)
Warks Avon, Evesham (80 pegs)
It all came to an end with Monday’s team match welcoming 16 sides made up of five anglers. This arrangement adds a totally different dimension to the fishing, as section points are the name of the game rather than trying to win outright, meaning lots of different methods are brought into play.
Even so, for many the sport was tough on a hard river, but Preston Innovations Delcac made short work of the clear conditions to win and be crowned 2022 champions with an incredible 71-point score – remarkable when you think there were a maximum of 80 points on offer!
Second went to Cadence Bait-Tech Superteam on 55 points, followed by Daiwa Gordon League Black in third on 52. Delcac also supplied the top two individuals in the match as Ben McGrath won and Wayne Hughes bagged second. Both men won their sections to go with a second for skipper Steve Palmer off peg 35 and a pair of fourths for Tim Kaye and Richard James at pegs 68 and 86.
Winner Ben drew peg 16 and fished the perfect team match, scratching out 80 small fish on the pole before spending the last 30 minutes after a barbel. His one and only bite was from a 9lb fish that helped him take 11-9-0 to the scales. That was in total contrast to Wayne on peg 51, the peg that won Saturday’s match. A waggler approach saw him net four chub for 9-7-8.
Team result:1 Preston Innovations Delcac, 71pts; 2 Cadence Bait-Tech Superteam, 55; 3 Daiwa Gordon League Black, 52 (section countback); 4 Sensas Starlets, 42; 5 Drennan Oxford, 47 (section countback); 6 Sensas Manor Leisure, 47.
Individual result: 1 B McGrath, Preston Innovations Delcac, 11-9-0; 2 W Hughes, Preston Innovations Delcac, 9-7-8;
3 L Paige-Smith, Colmic A4, 8-9-12; 4 T Boulton, Sensas Smithy’s MG Black, 7-12-8; 5 J Evans, Colmic Dynamite Baits Trentmen, 6-15-0.
