This match really was a grueller, with a cold easterly wind plus low and clear water conditions made this really tough for most anglers. The top three weights came from the first three swims downstream of Hartlake Bridge, these being the most frequently fished by pleasure anglers. Austin Battell made good use of his comfortable out of the wind spot, fishing the waggler right across and using maggot as hook bait. Although he lost a couple of good Chub fishing light, Austin did manage to land a 2lb fish of the day Chub plus a few Chublets and Roach for a 6lb 4oz winning total. Second spot in the second swim went to Dave Williams who managed 2lb 5oz on the maggot feeder and third spot, fishing nearest to the bridge went to Stuart Cottingham with 1lb 12oz.

22 regulars turned out for this one which is part of the series of six rover matches. The river was low and fairly clear and most expected it to fish hard.  The three top weights came from the long walks upstream, while 4th spot was an impressive 12lb by Pat Galpin in the lock cut. Most anglers caught fish, mainly Roach, with samples to over 1lb. Roger Trask and Austin Battell shared the fish of the day prize with a Roach each of 1lb 4oz. Derek Butcher took the other fish of the day prize with a cracking 2lb 1oz Perch.
Top spot was Austin Battell with a mixed bag of Roach and Chub for 16lb 4oz and ten points towards the Cup. Second spot with another impressive mixed bag, which included some rarely seen Dace, was Derek Butcher with 14lb 12oz. In third place was the consistent Steve Parker, also with an impressive bag of mainly Roach for 13lb 6oz.

It was a very tough day on the Medway for this annual meet against Edenbridge. It was inevitable that some anglers would drop out with the forecast so bad. The first hour the river was comfortably fishable but from then on, the river continued to rise, get more colour in it and lots of debris then came downstream.
Some anglers had some slack areas in their swim and were able to catch the odd Bream to help bump up their weight but for most, it was very hard going and some anglers even packed up before lunch. Top individual honors went to Lee Wakeman with 6 Bream for 12lb 12oz fishing right across to a nice slack bit of water. 2nd and third spots went to Edenbridge anglers Keith Turner 8lb 6oz and Bob Wallace 7lb 14oz. The clubs shared the section wins with two apiece and Tonbridge won the team event by just over 7lb with the top 7 weights from each team counting. Edenbridge hope to host us on one of their waters before the season ends.

WELL DONE LEE

Work continues to progress on the Old Ballast Pit railway bank. The low level access path is coming along nicely and weather permitting, may well get finished this winter. Once the path is complete, some of the already erected platforms will be opened for fishing and the rest of the new platforms due, will be constructed and then opened.

Some recent Carp captures have given us chance to see how our most recently stocked fish are doing in Barden Lake and the Old Ballast Pit. One of this year’s stocked fish went into Barden at just over 10lb and is now already 15lb. A common that went in 4 years ago at 19lb has just hit the thirty pound mark plus alot of the C3 fish that went into the Old Ballast Pit are now big doubles and some have hit 20lb already.
Michael Mcmahon caught some of the latest stock recently and sent in these cracking pictures. Some other pictures were also sent in by Kristy, the Old Ballast Pit bailiff.

After the recent flood water had receded, expectations were high as the river was running nicely with a little colour and looked good to repeat the weights from the last match held here. Unfortunatelt it wasn’t to be and surprisingly, the swims that produced the bigger weights last time around, stayed empty all day except for the one Steve Edwards fished last time as he chose to fish it again and it paid off for him as he recorded a match winning total of 10lb 2oz and ten points towards the Cup. Second spot went to in form Colin Fowler with 7lb 13oz and third spot went to another consistent angler, Tony Hyland with 7lb 12oz.
There were two fish of the day prizes, Roach and Perch but both had to be over the 1lb mark. Peter Hole took the Roach prize with a very nice 1lb 10oz specimen which will also go in for the annual specimen cup. No Perch over 1lb were recorded.

In the recent Harry Fowler Memorial Open held at Haysden Lake, good bags of Roach, Perch and skimmers were recorded and it was quite fitting that Harry Fowler’s son Colin, took the honours with a lovely bag of mainly Roach for 12lb 11oz. Second spot with 11lb 2oz was Mick Smith and third spot went to Ditch Howard with 10lb exactly.
This was a charity match where all proceeds went to Macmillan Nurses and a very respectable amount of £415 was raised on the day.

Society member and regular match attendee Lee Wakeman had a fantastic day at the Canterbury Open held on the River Stour last Sunday. From the off, Lee was into Bream on the feeder and managed to land 28 fish for a very impressive match winning weight of 53lb 6oz. Lee was also part of the winning 4 man ‘A’ team from Tonbridge which also consisted of Mick Smith, Richard Briggs and section winner with 16lb+ Ditch Howard.
Other notable catches were Bob Doyle who managed double figures and Match Captain Martyn hill who managed to land a Mitten Crab on maggot.

Lee Wakeman with his very impressive Bream haul of 53lb 6oz.

In the Society’s most recent club match held on the Sportsground, 28 anglers recorded over 170lb of fish which were mainly Roach. It was the first in the series of the Houghton Cup and the first rover of the match calender. After drawing last out of the bag, Austin Battell didn’t fancy his chances of getting one of the more fancied swims so decided to walk the furthest from the draw to a spot two other anglers looked at and then passed it by. Fishing 5 metres to hand and starting with maggot as hookbait, it was difficult to get through the hundreds of Bleak present. So after a change of rig and change of bait, Roach became more frequent to the net with several fish to 14oz included. This continued for most of the match and Austin ended up  building a very impressive match winning weight of 21lb 7oz. Second spot with another impressive bag of Roach was Tony Hyland with 13lb 13oz followed in third spot by Paul Reddy with 11lb 15oz. The top 6 spots were all made up of double figure bags with plenty of other good back up weights.

Society match anglers were triumphant at the Kent Championships held on the River Rother at Bodium recently. There was an overall 2nd place for Stuart Cottingham with 9lb of pole caught Roach. Richard Taylor took 5th spot and a Section win with 6lb 15oz and there were section wins for Simon Farrer, Steve Parker and Ditch Howard. Well done to Edenbridge for organising a great match and special thanks to all who represented Tonbridge and to Martyn Hill for getting the team together.