Monday 7th October 2024.

Yesterday saw the 36th Wye Team Championship take place  on the river stretching from Breinton downstream to Eign. Fourteen teams of 6 anglers took part on a river that looked perfect and was dropping slowly and  running at around 0.7m at the start of the match. The day ws cloudy and cool with overnight temperatures around 6C with scattered showers forecast for later in the day. With the 3 Belmont sections included, the question being asked was, was it going to be a bleak match or would the other silver fish have moved into the deeper water in these sections? In the end the match fished well througout the river with some big bags of chub, dace and perch. The match was fished on a points basis with one angler from each team fishing in each of the 6 sections with the angler winning his section being awarded 14 points with the runner up 13 points and so on.

Winners on the day and defending their 2023 title were Woodys who scored 69 points, 2 points clear of Cadence Bait-Tech, with D H Angling taking 3rd spot with 64 points.On the individual front, former Wye Individual Champion and river maestro Hadrian Whittle (Woodys) drew noted peg 96 between the bridges, and proceeded to catch 76lb of mainly small chub on whip and stick float to weigh in a match winning 76lb 12oz. Runner up was Denzil Thorpe (ABC Baits) who weighed in 69lb of chub from the last peg on the Bartonsham section despite being in hospital recently suffering from a chest infection.Third place went to Charlie Gooch who caught a great 68lb 8oz net of perch and dace from Peg 58 on Belmont 2.

A total of 2173 lbs of fish were caught, which averages out at just under 26lb per angler, leading to speculation that the river will again fish brilliantly over the Autumn and Winter months providing we do not have too many floods.

Next Sunday sees the first of the 2024/25 Winter League matches take place on the Belmont match length, with the eagerly awaited Wye Championship (Individual) taking place two weeks later. Hopefully some great catches ahead providing we don’t get excessive amounts of rain.

Full results below :