Thank you to top match angler Wayne Swinscoe for sending us a report on an interesting match on an up-and-coloured River Welland recently.

“When the ‘Town Welland’ is in flood it’s not like any other river, the height of water can change really quick, going both up and down with very little flow. It can also flow both ways and stand still for long periods! So having experience of this is vital when determining how to approach a match on the venue.

When conditions are like this, a number of Pole rigs have to be set up. For myself I like to keep things as simple as possible; the river here is about 12m wide. Breadpunch at 6m down the middle, and a hemp and maggot line at 11m.

I was drawn at the end of the match length where the target fish are quality Roach, at the other end it would be a fish race needing some 300 fish to compete! I set up 5 rigs all on 5 elastics through top two’s of my Acolyte pole. Pole rigs from 2 gram, 3, 4 and 6 were set up incorporating Drennan G Tip 3 pole floats. The 2g was a strung out affair for maggot and hemp to be fished at 11m – this was really a ‘throw away’ line though because it was too coloured to catch properly on hemp (but you never know on this venue!).

The other rigs were bulk shots with two or three no10 droppers. Hooks were Kamasan B511 size 18s and 20s tied to 0.7mm Drennan Team England rig line. Finally, a 1 gram rig was set up to combat faster flow if it happened.

After an hour I’d only caught one roach, but as the flow picked up I began to feed more aggressively with punch crumb combined with the 1gram rig. I slowly started to catch quality roach, as the flow and the water levels dropped I employed the lighter rigs to keep nicking odd fish until the end of the match. Also, I kept changing punch sizes between 3 and 5mm – this made a big difference bringing me instant bites.

I ended up with around 30 Roach for 10lb 11oz and a section win! The hemp line never got going but I was really happy with my days fishing and enjoyed the match in difficult conditions.”

– Wayne Swinscoe, January 2014

For full details on the G-Tip 3 Pole floats as used by Wayne on the Welland, click here.

Also, for full details on the Drennan Acolyte Pole, click here.