Team No Name of Vidar Thomassen and Alan Brown were clear winners of the first round of this year’s pairs league with 627cm.

Teams fished five sections in a new-look format for the pairs league. Section 1 winners were Apgp, the father and son team of Gary and Alexander Palmer, with 409cm. Section two was won by No Wasps Here, Derek Holmes and Steve Wilson, with 424cm. Section 3 was won by Perchinators, Ben Wall and Paul Claydon, with 128cm. Team No Name won section 4. And section 5 was won by Team North West, Balint Koder and Laszlo Feja, with 464cm.

Biggest perch of 33cm was caught by John Wilson of team TBC, and biggest zander of 56cm went to Balint Koder of Team North West. Both teams get a five point league bonus for the biggest fish.

See the full results section by section.

League table after round 1

• Team No Name…………………………………………20
• Team North-West……………………………………..19
• No Wasps Here………………………………………..14
• Apgp……………………………………………………….14
• Perchinators…………………………………………….14
• TBC…………………………………………………………10
• The Outlures………………………………………………9
• The Tug is the Drug…………………………………….9
• The Zander Cartel………………………………………9
• Lucky John UK…………………………………………..9
• Vampires……………………………………………………9
• Top of the Class…………………………………………5
• United Nations……………………………………………5
• Predator Hunter………………………………………….5
• Blank Masters…………………………………………….0
• Monkey Boyz………………………………………………0
• Canal Junkies……………………………………………..0
• The Mongolian Death Worms ………………………0
• Lure Gods……………………………………………………0
• Flingos………………………………………………………..0

Booking is open for round one of our new-look pairs league on more than ten miles of our stretch of the Grand Union Canal.

BOOK HERE

The match will be held between bridge 54 at Hatton and bridge 23 Stockton Road, Stockton, on Saturday May 22. The canal will be split into five sections. Teams will be drawn between sections and will compete to win their section and the overall match.

Read full details of the new format and revised rules and point-scoring.

The water will be closed for practising from Friday, May 14.

NOTE: We will be adhering to the Angling Trust Covid-19 guidelines for lure matches. To help us keep to these guidelines and to improve the efficiency and enjoyment of the competition we will also be using the Score Fishing app to record fish captures, lengths and photos.

If you do not already have the app, you must download it and register with Score Fishing before the match. There is a one-off fee of £1.99 for the app. Find out how Score Fishing works.

BOOK HERE

Pairs league round 1, Warwick.

Saturday May 22, 2021, 7am

7am – Meet in car park at the end of Welton Road.

7.05am – Registration

7.25am – Competition Briefing

7.30am – Competitors can head off to sections on foot or in car

8.00am – Fishing starts

2.00pm – Fishing ends on towpath and competitors return to Welton Road on foot or in car

2.05pm – Deadline to log in the app a fish hooked in the last minutes of competition

2.30pm – All competitors should be back at Welton Road

2.45pm – results and prize-giving

The match will be held on the following sections of canal:

Section 1: Grand Union bridge 54 Hatton down to Lock 25 Cape Top lock.

Section 2: Lock 25 Cape Top Lock to bridge 44 Myton Road, Leamington.

Section 3: Bridge 44 Myton Road to bridge 34 Offchurch Lane, Radford Semele

Section 4: Bridge 34 Radford Semele to lock 18 Welsh Road

Section 5: Lock 18 Welsh Road to Bridge 23 Stockton Road

Teams will be drawn to fish a particular section. There will be a minimum of four pairs to a section. For example, if 12-15 pairs enter, they will be drawn between sections 1, 2 and 3. If 16-19 pairs enter, they will be drawn between sections 1, 2, 3 and 4. If 20 or more pairs enter, they will be drawn between sections 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Where a bridge forms the boundary to a section, teams from both sections may fish under the bridge. However, you should not cast out into the next or preceding section. Where a lock forms the boundary, the first section ends above the lock and the second section starts below it. The water will be closed for practising from Friday May 14.

We’re planning to start this year’s pairs league a bit later to give everyone a chance to get out on the towpath before the first match. Hopefully, it’ll also mean we can take advantage of a greater relaxation in lockdown.

The revised schedule is:

• Pairs league 1 – Sat May 22
• Individuals – Sat June 19
• Pairs league 2 – Sat Sept 25
• Pairs league 3 – Sat Oct 23
• Predator Pairs – Sun Nov 21
• Pairs league 4 – Sat Dec 4
• Pairs league 5 – Sat Feb 19

We’re also going to shake up the format of the pairs league a bit. There’ll be one match where best four perch and best four zander count. The remaining matches will be fished on longer stretches of canal split into sections, with teams drawn into sections. There’ll be points for section winners and for overall winners to make things more interesting. We’ll share full details next month.

We’re pleased to announce some dates for our lure fishing competitions next year.

This has been a tough year, and we don’t expect things to get any easier before the spring.

We’ve agreed to start afresh from April with a new pairs league. We’ll also be hosting an individual championship, our matchplay event, and the predator pairs open.

The dates are provisional for now, and we’ve added a spare date to cater for any disruption.

• Pairs league 1 – Sat April 17
• Individuals – Sat May 22
• Pairs league 2 – Sat June 19
• Pairs league 3 – Sat Sept 25
• Pairs league 4 – Sat Oct 23
• Predator Pairs – Sun Nov 21
• Pairs league 5 – Sat Dec 4
• Spare date – Sat Feb 19

We regret to say that we have decided not to hold our Predator Pairs open competition this year. We are sorry to disappoint everyone, but we feel that the rising number of Covid cases means there are significant risks to the competition, the club, competitors and organisers in holding such a large event on our Warwick stretch.

We still intend to hold our already advertised individual championships on November 7 but will restrict numbers to 20. In the meantime, we will be discussing our future match programme and how we can better adapt to the circumstances.

We promise we will be back bigger and better next year with Predator Pairs.