Beardy Paul and I have entered the pairs World Bank Masters at Farmoor for the last few years. It took us a while to get the hang of competition fishing and the method but last year we did okay. However, as Farmoor takes a while to warm up and the fish stay a long way off the bank, there was always a sense that the long distance casters, fishing snakes, held an advantage.

So, when Iain Barr announced that the competition would be held at Elinor this year we thought it be an interesting change. With a smaller, shallower water maybe the fish would be closer in and feeding more on naturals.

After a beautiful, warm spring day fishing at Eyebrook the day before, we arrived at Elinor to a cold, easterly wind with bright sun. Not the best conditions. However, after donning my new waders and tackling up, we set out to our first peg.

Having not fished Elinor at this time I year, we had decided to hedge our bets with two rods; I had a midge tip with lures and a floater with nymphs. The first peg had the wind coming from the left but also slightly in my face. I started with the midge tip, thinking that the cold weather and sun might have pushed the fish down. However, within a few casts I was hitting the bottom so I swapped to the floater. In no time at all the horn had gone to end the first session and I’d had no interest.

The second peg was a little deeper so I switched to the midge tip and fished a black and green lure deeper. I tried a fast and slow retrieve and had one little pluck but nothing else. We then moved round to the dam end where the wind was behind. There is a gentle shelving bank here leading to a deeper section about 15 yards out, so I decided to move back to the floater with a beaded apps on point and buzzers on the droppers. As I could cast further out I tried to leave the flies over the drop off and gently twitch them back. But I had no interest. By this point I’d only seen one fish caught.

We then moved round to the far side bank where the, now heavier, wind was coming from the right. This made casting very tricky and it was difficult to get much distance. On the next two pegs before lunch, I tried a combination of nymphs and lure on both lines with not even a slight tug.

At lunch I had a chat with Beardy Paul. He had managed one on the first peg on a Damsel but nothing else. The next three pegs after lunch would all be on the same bank with the wind coming from the right. As this was difficult casting I thought it would be better to get the flies out and leave them there as much as possible, so I set up the floater with an orange blob on point and buzzers on the droppers. After nothing on the 6th peg, I swapped the blob to a heavy buzzer to get the flies down a bit deeper but still nothing. Over the remaining pegs I tried apps worms, beaded PTN, damsel, cats whisker, black and green lure and various other combinations, with just a single subtle bite. Fish were being caught around me, not many, but enough to wonder what the hell I was doing wrong.

As the final horn sounded, I wondered back to the car with a large, annoying blank. Beardy Paul hadn’t caught anything in the afternoon either so we managed a whole one fish as a pair! Chatting to some of the other anglers, they had caught on orange blobs, damsel, buzzers and worms; all the same things we had tried! The winners, with an impressive 15 fish from 11 pegs were Rob Edmunds and Andrew Scott.

Its a great competition on a great fishery and its nice chatting with the other anglers on the way round. Unfortunately, on a tricky day, neither of us had found a method that worked. In retrospect, I wonder whether a single fly approach would have been better? Maybe the angling pressure from the singles the previous day had resulted in easily spooked fish.