Triple whammy of rain, snow and ice frustrates anglers

No, I’m not talking about Putin or Trump but the weather, and global warming is being blamed.

In just a matter of a few days we’ve seen temperatures change by 18C locally. We’ve gone from one hundred plus millimetres of snow to almost as much rain and we’ve been lucky. Lucky compared to some, that is.

However in angling terms for the most part it has been a disaster with many still waters frozen over and simply getting to a venue somewhat hazardous.

Last week competitions were cancelled across the patch.

Among the casualties were the Wednesday sweepstake and Saturday’s Winter League at Ravenfield, Mel’s Lodgers’ Wednesday match at Lodge Farm, the midweek events at Barnburgh Lakes and Lowfield Lakes, the Doncaster DAA match at Southfield Reservoir, the Wednesday and Saturday matches at Kiveton Hall Farm and even – and this is almost unknown – the Walkley Winter League, to name but a few. But to demonstrate how crazy things are, there was a report of an angler catching roach with Hemp and Tares on the South Yorkshire Navigation.

A few brave souls ventured out but numbers were, as expected, well down.

Eight anglers braved Adam’s Lake at Hayfield on Tuesday to fish the 65’ers match and they all caught. Tim Hamilton won with 19lbs 12ozs from peg 45 – a catch of six carp, three on the pole and three on the tip. Jack Evason was second at adjoining peg 46 with a 13lbs 14ozs net made up of two carp and the rest being silvers. Bill Corbett completed the picture with a third-placed 12lbs 14ozs from peg 49.

Meanwhile, extremely low water temperatures at Wentworth on Monday meant it was always going to be hard work.

In the end the final result came from a peg to peg battle between Colin Moss at peg 7 and John Aston at peg 8, with Colin having the edge weighing 8lbs 14ozs to John's 8lbs 1oz. Two anglers tied for third, both Jeff Whitehouse and Roger Oxley weighing 7lbs 8ozs. Section winners were Glyn Larder 6lbs 14ozs and Phil Flanagan with 6lbs exactly.

Like all the other venues, the field was reduced at Bank End on Sunday but those that fished had a really good day, particularly Ben Summerscales, who landed 112lbs 6ozs from peg 14 for victory.

A bumper 51 anglers fished the Guru N-Gauge Winter League at Aston Park and it was peg 16 on the latter that provided Matt Bailey with a winning 61lbs 1ozs net. Rob Atkins was his nearest challenger with 45lbs 14ozs from peg 29.