Here is this week’s round up of news, information and catch reports from Luton Angling Club.
Beckerings Reservoir
Steve Emery has spent three years at Beckerings in a quest to catch his target fish ‘The Half Lin’. This week it graced his net at 33lbs on the nose, and it's his new PB too! He sends a huge thank you to Alex for the amazing photos. Earlier that morning he also landed a hard fighting 26lbs 1oz mirror.
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| Steve Emery - Half Lin |
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| Steve Emery - Half Lin |
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| Steve Emery - 26lb 1oz Mirror |
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| Steve Emery - 26lb 1oz Mirror |
Sunday Series Match Venue Change
The LAC match group Sunday series match booked on Beckerings Reservoir on Sunday 27th October, will now take place at Lavendon Mill (Upstream) due to access issues for less able anglers due to low water levels at the reservoir. Beckerings will be open as normal on 27th October and Lavendon Mill Upstream will be closed for the match.
Grand Union Canal
Bill Ridgway and his friend Steve had another good day at Slapton Bridge 120 section 11. Steve had a surprise last cast with a jack pike taken on a 14 hook and worm. Bill's bag was skimmers and roach and Steve had nice Roach perch and Skimmers.
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| Steve's Jack Pike |
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| Grand Union Canal |
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| Grand Union Canal |
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| Grand Union Canal |
One of our talented Juniors had a free day this week due to a teacher training day at school, and wanting to get some last minute practice for The Grand Union Junior Championship match which was to be held on Saturday 12th October he went to The Globe section.
Jack started the session trying punch but had no bites after a good 30 minutes, probably due to the canal being pretty coloured. After that he went to the old faithful pinkie over ground bait on the edge of the track and had 2 nice bream and lost 2 more and also had plenty of skimmers. He was feeding small balls of ground bait when it slowed down as he was wary of not over feeding in the cold.
Jack said his bites were steady about 8 minutes apart each. He tried another swim near an overhanging branch with ground bait and caster (he would have liked to add chopped worms but was saving the ones he had for the match on Saturday) but this swim only gave him two fish.
Jack said it was a tough day, but was very happy with his bag at the end, his bites came from changing lines and picking fish off of each one. He finished the day with 7lb 12oz, very well done Jack, a great session, and we hope you drew a decent peg in the Championship at Three locks, and we look forward to the match report from that event.
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| Jack O'Brien - The Globe on the GUC |
CRT Regional GUC Southern Junior Championship Saturday 12th October 2024
Well, it was a tough one for all our young anglers, although their spirits were not diminished and the smiles and friendships on display at the prizegiving in the car park at Three Locks afterwards were brilliant.
After heavy rain and two extremely cold nights, the Canal fished more like a January winter league than an autumn event. The morning started at 8C and did warm up ending at about 12C when we did the weigh-in.
The match was very tough for everyone, with normal ‘banker’ swims failing to produce, and the fish seemingly reluctant to put in an appearance with no ‘Bonus ‘ fish in evidence either.
Local celebrity angler Lee Newson came and was really impressed by the skills he saw displayed on the bank and did the prize presentation afterwards with John Ellis of CRT, where some great prizes and trophies were awarded. All the young anglers who fished bagged something from the prize table
Luton did extremely well again with Luton Kingfisher Angler Leo taking first in the Cadets, and Louis Owen and Jack O'brien taking first and second in the Juniors, closely followed by Lottie Clark of Northampton who took third.
Well done to all who fished for sticking at it on a very tough day, the parents for the support, all who helped steward and organise and run the event, Sue Galloway and the Northampton crew, and of course Lee Newson and John Ellis for walking the bank and doing the presentation afterwards.
Many of the young anglers who fished this week will be off to Shropshire next week to fish the final event of the ‘Lets Fish’ year the Daiwa ‘Global Community’ match sponsored by Daiwa where 250 young anglers will line the banks of the Shropshire Union in teams representing countries from around the globe to compete for over £8000 of prizes.
Luton Kingfisher anglers have done extremely well here in the past, and we hope to repeat that success next weekend.
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| CRT Regional Southern Junior Championship |
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| CRT Regional Southern Junior Championship |
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| CRT Regional Southern Junior Championship |
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| CRT Regional Southern Junior Championship |
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| CRT Regional Southern Junior Championship |
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| CRT Regional Southern Junior Championship |
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| CRT Regional Southern Junior Championship |
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| CRT Regional Southern Junior Championship |
Luton Angling Club Predator Challenge 2024 - Match Report.
The charity predator challenge was originally supposed to take place in February, but was cancelled at the last minute due to rapidly rising flood waters.
With the recent bad weather and serious flooding it wasn’t looking good for the re-scheduled event on Saturday 12th October, but thankfully conditions had improved in the week prior to the match and 13 anglers arrived at South Lagoon on Saturday morning with the lake in almost perfect condition. There was very little wind and the lake was calm and the weather was quite warm compared to the very cold and frosty morning on Friday.
After a vote from all the participants it was decided to exclude Peg 25 from the draw as whoever drew that peg would probably end up winning as it's a very productive swim being next to the river inlet.
As all the anglers arrived promptly for the draw 8am and it went smoothly, we brought forward the start of the match by 1 hour, giving an extra hour of fishing time so it was all in at 9am. It did rain on and off throughout the match, but in-between the rain showers, the sun came out, and it was quite warm in the sunshine.
Things started well with the first Pike caught within the first 25 minutes by Ray Dempsey in Peg 16, Ray was really pleased as he's not been able to fish for a while and this is his first outing this year. The Pike was in superb condition and weighed 6lb 7.5oz. This capture early on gave us high hopes for a successful match.
The next fish was caught by Andy Wylot at 11:35 in the adjacent peg (peg 15) a slightly smaller Pike at 5lb 11oz.
Unfortunately, that would prove to be the last Pike landed, Graham Bailey lost one in the margins, and a couple of the others missed bites.
Gary Brown fished for the Perch, hoping that one of the lakes' larger Perch would make an appearance. However, he only had two small perch, but that was still enough to earn him 3rd place.
In 4th place was Les Elliman with one small perch.
1st Place - Raymond Dempsey
1 Pike - 6lb 7.5oz
2nd Place - Andy Wylot
1 Pike - 5lb 11oz
3rd Place - Gary Brown
2 Small Perch - a few ounces
4th Place - Les Elliman
1 Perch - a couple of ounces
Everyone enjoyed the day and the banter even though the majority didn't catch.
Everyone is looking forward to us planning another match early next year.
Thanks to Brian Turner, David Murdoch, Andy Smith and Barry Emery for organising and stewarding the match and to David Thorn for photos and drone footage(which we will upload soon)
£120 was raised for this year's chosen charity, which is the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.
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| Ray Dempsey 6lb 7.5oz Pike |
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| Winner - Ray Dempsey and Bailiff Brian Turner |
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| Andy Wylot - 5lb 11oz Pike |
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| 2nd Place - Andy Wylot and Bailiff Brian Turner |
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| 3rd Place - Gary Brown - Perch |
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| Winners Trophy |
Match Report 9th October Upper Lake Lakeside, Cublington
After yet another night of heavy rain 19 of us met at Lakeside, in the drizzle on a dull Wednesday morning, with little wind and the air temperature hovering around 12C. Lakeside is a very natural water, not overstocked and known to contain a good head of fish.
The day did start to improve as we made our way to the pegs, and the drizzle abated, giving us some brief spells of sunshine, but we had a very brief period of heavy rain at lunchtime, which abruptly stopped, and the sky turned blue again for a short while. This enabled us to finish the match, do the weigh in and return to our cars before the inevitable rain started to fall again.
We had decided to fish ‘Silvers Only’ this week with any Carp caught being returned immediately, counting as 2lbs whatever the size. The lake didn’t fish to its true potential, most bites being very gentle movements of a float tip, possibly due to the large influx of cold rainwater in recent days, falling air pressure and a change of wind direction.
Steve Lathwell was on good form and set his stall out for the bream. Steve fed six balls of Groundbait laced with caster, dead reds and chopped worm at the off, fishing a pole in around 12ft of water, choosing to sit and wait for the fish to move in on the feed, taking 2 bream and a few roach for the win with 9lb 4oz.
Tim watts took second, setting up 3 waggler rods with different presentations for various depths of water. Tim said fishing the waggler worked OK, but he had a lot of slow periods where a pole, with better presentation would’ve kept them coming. He said he also overfed the swim, having one eye on attracting Bream, and also tried to rev up Roach into frenzy (neither of which happened happened!!)
Tim ended with 75 fish for 7lb 10oz saying he had a lovely fish for fish roach battle with Sean Leatherland on the next peg. Tim said Sean fished his pole superbly, using red maggot over groundbait and a few pellets, with Sean taking third with 7lb 7oz.
Colin Holmes took fourth fishing a pole at 6 sections in around 5 feet of water. Colin started with an 18 hook to 2lb bottom using double red maggots, and had nothing for 30 mins, but was aware of others catching to his right so the mind games began! He started feeding 6 maggots every minute, and then his float went under, and he missed it! He then started catching roach for a while and then that also abruptly stopped.
Others to his right were still catching so he changed down to a 20 hook with a 1lb bottom, and started catching again, Colin finishing with 3lb 10oz.
Thanks to Ray Burton for the Admin and Tracy and Adrian Smith who came over to help with the weigh in allowing us to the clear the bank before the rain started yet again!
Results
1st Steve Lathwell
9lb 4oz
2nd Tim Watts
7lb 10oz
3rd Sean Leatherland
7lb 7oz
4th Colin Holmes
3lb 10oz
5th Andy Frankum
3lb 8oz
6th Tony Hickmott
3lb 7oz
7th Terry Vickers
2lb 12oz
8th Chris Howard
2lb 4oz
9th Colin Kidd
1lb 13oz
10th Dennis Hunt
1lb 12oz
11th Paul Carr
1lb 3oz
12thDave Ridley & Dudley Frankland
0lb15oz
14th Danny Worth
0lb 13oz
15th Roger Baker
0lb 10oz
16th Andy Norgate
0lb 7oz
17th Malcolm Ogden
0lb 4oz
18th Les Burton
0lb1oz
Ray Burton DNW (Left Early)
Our next Match is on Wednesday 16th October and is on the GUC at the Globe
Draw 8.30am at the venue, £5.00 optional pools £1.00 Wednesday peg fee, fish 10am till 3pm.
For anyone thinking of joining us for the first time can we ask you message us so we know you are coming before turning up, as we need to ensure we have room as this will allow us to better manage the pegging.
You will be asked to produce your Club book at first appearance, so please have it with you.
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| Lakeside Cublington |
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| Lakeside Cublington |
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| Lakeside Cublington |
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| Lakeside Cublington |
That is all we have this week.
If you would like to send us a catch report from a Luton AC Water and feature on our social media pages and in our weekly news reports, you can send reports and pictures via our facebook page and other social media accounts, the club website or via what’s app message to 07940 229071. Don’t forget every picture we receive is automatically entered into our monthly photo prize which is judged by the committee and you could win £25.00. It’s not always the biggest fish that wins so well worth sending in any of your catch reports.
Tight Lines Until Next Week!
Dave M
