Match Secretary’s Annual Report Season 2022

This season, at Tarka, has provided us with some interesting matches.

The final match of the Covid foreshortened 2021 season was the Christmas match, this proved very tough for some, Kevin Shears won the shallow section with just 14oz, but the overall winner on the day was Steve Craker with a Christmas Cracker weight of 34lbs. Eighteen fished this event on George’s Lake. The 2021 season saw Nathan Underwood take the overall honours with 87 points to Kevin Shears on 83 points and Steve Craker third place with 76 points.

Moving into our new season the first regular, second Sunday, monthly competition proved to be a dour affair, Craig Lamey set the early pace with a win on peg 9 with 22lbs. February's was another typical wet and windy North Devon winter’s day. Keith Mountjoy won this one with a mere 14lbs off peg 15. March’s comp saw the ropes off and a near full house of twenty-three , Keith, once again did the business with 21lbs.

As the waters began to warm April’s competition winner was Tiverton star Paul Elworthy on Golden Peg 11. Some of the shallower pegs were beginning to feature. May’s comp saw a name that will begin to sound familiar, Nathan Underwood had his first win with 34lbs on peg 13, Keith Copland second on peg 26 with 30lbs.

The popular mid-week series of matches also began in May; Kevin Shears won the first leg of our 3-hour Wednesday evening competitions with 18lbs on peg 21. Keith Copland won the second with 19lbs on peg 9, Mike Snudden won the third of the series with 22lbs, Roger Ackroyd took the fourth in the series with 19lbs on peg 6. Our fifth evening comp saw sixteen members show up and Nathan Underwood scored his first victory on peg 19 with 26lbs, just beating Cyril Found. Les Polden sorted out a winning method and took the next two mid-weeks , 25lbs and 29lbs, good weights for a 3-hour evening comp. Kevin Shears had his second victory of the series on the 29th June. Moving onto the last two matches of the summer series Nathan secured league victory with two wins on the bounce, scoring 124 points, Martin Turner came second on 113 points, Cyril Found on 86 points was third overall. Twenty-seven different anglers fished the league, the average net was 11lbs.

Into the summer and our Junior events began. We celebrated the late Queen’s Jubilee with the Thursday Bank Holiday junior match. Nine youngsters lined up on the afternoon, last year’s winner Thomas Scott landed 6.5lbs on peg 23 for victory on a tricky afternoon. Suncream, plenty of drinks and ice creams were the order of the day, fish were decidedly hard to come by.

A rather worrying issue was observed with small bream, other species and swan mussels beginning to die in quite significant numbers. The Environment Agency were called, and oxygen levels were observed to be worryingly low, we eventually addressed the problem by installing an aeration system but at a significant cost in fuel and of course fish losses. It became apparent that the lakes inhabitants were not happy! Fish losses continued as the water began to warm. Keep nets were banned for pleasure fishing and the ban remains in place. It would seem that we have lost all of our larger bream.

The monthly series continued with match assistant and vermin control officer Richard Jeffries landing 30lbs off peg 15 for his first victory of the season, Roger Ackroyd was second. Nathan Underwood took July’s match with 20lbs on peg 24.The August event saw Richard Jefferies win again with a great net, best of the season, with 61lbs 5ozs. Nathan Underwood’s paste on the pole has dominated the last couple of matches resulting in back-to-back victories and is now just edging ahead of Craig Lamey in the points table with one match remaining. Darren Polden won last weeks, November comp with 31lbs.

Mid July and a team of ten anglers representing Bideford travelled down to face Plymouth DCAC on the changed venue, Milemead Tavistock for our annual interclub event. Our top scorers were Sheila Found, Nathan Underwood and Martin Turner. The overall result went our way: 356lbs to 295lbs a lead of 61lbs. The return leg was fished on Tarka in August, ten aside, Colin Cherrington led us home with 33lbs on peg 14 giving BDAC victory over Plymouth 555lbs to 407lbs

The hot weather continued into a very dry spell; talk was of a possible drought. George’s lake maintained a reasonable level dropping only around 10 inches. The Junior events continued with 20 different children taking part, some great prizes were on offer and all competitors went home happy. The standout catch was by Les Polden’s granddaughter, Hope, 18lbs 10ozs of mainly small fish on peg 21, in just 3-hours on a Saturday afternoon putting many seniors to shame. Overall, the most consistent youngster and top points scorer was Imogen Babb who scored 40 points to Hope’s 35 points.

As the nights drew in our evening series was rounded off with a pairs event. Darren Polden and Nathan Underwood combined catch of 37lbs saw victory.

Richard Jefferies and Steve Ashton started a small feeder league which ran on the third Sunday of the month. Earlier starts and a walk off ensured that pleasure anglers were still able to fish, however fishing proved very hard when restricted to feeder and ledger only. Fish just didn’t want to be on the bottom, much speculation suggested that it was probably related to the fish deaths and low oxygen levels detected early mornings. John Lisle accumulated enough points to win this league. We are currently considering a rod and reel league fished to similar rules, maybe with a few away- days.

Hopefully the continued cormorant control and chalking this winter will help to maintain a healthier balance to the water.

Match attendances suggest that there is a strong demand for this form of angling amongst our members, I will continue to promote and report our matches on both our Facebook group and our website, our current booking system on the Facebook group generally works well.

On behalf of all those who enjoyed our matches a big thank you to all the work parties and Steve Bailey for managing the site. I must also thank Richard Jefferies for his continuing assistance throughout the year and Warren and Roger for helping at weigh-ins. A special thank you to Craig Lamey for his help with the Junior events, also those who boosted our Junior prize table: Quay Sports, Bait Tech, Tom Downing, Summerland’s Tackle and Martin Cox. Well done to Mervyn Beal for the excellent club website which he regularly updates, please take a look.

If you are prepared to put up with me for another year I am prepared to stand as your Match Secretary.

Martin Turner.