The annual home international match between the ladies of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales took place on 22nd May 2014 at Lake Trawsfynydd in Wales.
The match started well with Janice Sharp, Eileen Chatwin, Sheena Goode and Hilary Tomlinson all catching early in Club Bay with hardly any fish being caught by other teams. Boat pressure put these fish down, and when other members of the team came to Club Bay after a couple of hours the fishing had slowed down a lot.
It was unfortunate that the back up spot in Walkers Bay did not fish in the new wind as the England team had caught much better than the other teams in this area in previous days. A tequila blob followed by dabblers & cormorants with a sparkler booby or cats whisker on the point was the most successful set up.
England Ladies finished a creditable second place with 37 fish compared to 44 by Scotland. The Scottish team fished a team of flies static on a floating line / midge tip. They found that this was increasingly successful towards the end of the day and so it turned out as they caught a significant number of fish in the last two hours. However, the top individual rod on the day was England’s Janice Sharp who caught 11 fish over the course of the day on a Cats Whisker Booby to claim the coveted Brown Bowl.
Ben Thompson, Senior Competitions & Talent Development Manager, Angling Trust said “Huge credit must go to Wales for hosting and running an excellent Home International and congratulations to Scotland for taking home the team honours. Congratulations to Janice Sharp on her special individual performance in taking the Brown Bowl and well done to all members of Team England Ladies on a very good overall team performance.”
Results
1st Scotland (44 fish) 76 lbs 3.75 oz
2nd England (37 fish) 63 lbs 4.75 oz
3rd Ireland (33 fish) 54 lbs 12.5 oz
4th Wales (33 fish) 53 lbs 8.75 oz
Heaviest Fish
Maddy Kelly 3 lbs 1.5 oz
Top Overall Bag & Top England Bag – Janice Sharp (11 fish) 19 lbs 10.25 oz
Top Welsh Bag – Audrey Williams (6 fish) 9 lbs 14.25 oz
Top Ireland Bag – Maddy Kelly (6 fish) 11 lbs 2 oz
Top Scotland Bag – Anne Boyce (10 fish) 17 lbs 13.5 oz
Next year the Home International will be hosted by England at Grafham Water next June. Any ladies interested in competing for Team England and wishing to apply should enter the National Championship which will be held at Grafham on 31st August.
