Dorset Stour at Longham

One of my most memorable experiences was when fishing a Winter League match on the Stour at Longham. It was the first time that I had ever fished the stretch before so I did not know what to expect. The only thing I knew from my team mates was that you could catch the usual river species such as dace, chub and if you were lucky you might get a good roach or even a decent barbel. As the main species in the winter was chub I decided that I would try and concentrate my main efforts on them.

Having been given my peg number I drove over to the stretch of river and trooped down to my swim. As soon as I saw my swim, I thought “ No chance”! I had drawn a cattle drink. 

While everyone else had the full width of the river I had a beach in front of me followed by inches deep water and then in the last 6 feet before the far bank a deep gully. The gully was the only feature in my swim. If there were no resident fish there I was done for with no other options to switch to. 

I was not a very happy chappy I can tell you. I remember thinking “Thank you God”. The weather was wet and windy and it was impossible to get an umbrella into the shingle beach, so I had to sit it out in the wet. All it needed know was a herd of cows to decide to share my swim with me and wouldn't that be just perfect. Feeling a bit low and already feeling cold I put my gear together and set my stall out on the shingle beach. I must have looked quite stupid, more or less, sitting out in the middle of the river. 

The water was quite clear and except for the gully you could see every stone on the bottom in about a foot of water. After about an hour after the start of the match I was really freezing and my teeth were chattering a bit. Because the water was being channelled over onto the far side it was hammering through and that made float fishing it impossible, so I had only one option and that was to leger it. I had to use quite a heavy lead to have any chance of holding bottom in the really fast current on that far side.

To my complete surprise after about two hours my rod tip flew round and I had a fish on. I could hardly hold the rod and turn the reel because my hands were so cold, but I hung on and netted a chub of around 2lb.

Even though it was not a huge fish it was difficult to get it from the gully onto the shallows. At least I am not going to blank and that really cheered me up.

That’s one for the team I thought to myself. I still had 3 hours to go. Where there is one chub there are others, so back in with the leger and let’s get a few more. Over two more hours passed and not even a knock. So much for a shoal of chub!

 With only 15 minutes left of the match I felt resigned to my fate. I was just thinking of packing in some of my gear and all of a sudden the tip of my rod shot round. I grabbed my rod and it was all I could do to hold on to my rod. Everything went solid for a moment and I thought that the fish had transferred the hook in some way to a tree root or something. 

Then I felt a kick and it was as if the bottom of the river started moving upstream. I felt the fish shake its head trying to get rid of the hook. It slowly got to the top of the gully, then it turned and shot down the full length of gully. I just could do nothing with it. The rod was bent double and I could not put any more pressure on it. It was like playing a submarine with the fish definitely in charge of proceedings. 

One good thing in my favour was that the fish didn't seem to want to come out of the gully. I felt that if it did it would have just ploughed through my neighbors swim either side of me and be lost.  Before I knew it the whistle was blown to end the match. I had 10 or 15 minutes to land my fish or it did not count, I’m not quite sure from memory, which it was. It came to five minutes left of extra time and the fish was still ploughing up and down the gully. I knew that if I was to land it I had to get it onto the shallows. 

By this time a lot of anglers had packed up and I had a large crowd behind me willing me on to land the fish in the time I had left. I made the final decision that the next time it made its way to the top of the gully run it would be at its tiredness having swum up against the current. I would give it everything and if my line snapped then so be it.

The fish arrived at the head of the run and with a lot of trepidation I gave the old “Heave Ho”. I really expected that either the line would snap or my size 16 hook would straighten, but to my absolute surprise and delight, the fish gave way and wallowed onto the shallows. The fish must have been totally exhausted because it then gave up without any more fight and I was totally relieved when I slipped the net under it. The fish bent double as it nestled into the landing net.

I took the hook out as quickly as I could and guided the fish into my keep net.  I couldn't believe that I had managed to land it in time to count as a match weight.

The gallery behind me cheered as I landed the fish which as you probably have worked out, was a big barbel. It tipped the scales at 11lb 6 ounces and dwarfed the chub which was 2lb 3ounces, giving me a total 13lb 9 ounces as my match weight. What a result!! 

My barbel was the biggest fish on the day and got a special mention after the match. I won my section and came third overall in the match. Something worth mentioning to the reader is that the big barbel was the first one I had ever caught and also the last one to date over 30 years later. It just goes to prove that Winter League fishing wasn't all bad for me.