Private Pond – Ruthie’s Cup – 5th October 2025

For the rescheduled final round of Ruthie’s Cup, my group was at a little syndicate lake we were very kindly allowed to fish for this charity series. A proper little Crabtree venue that contains lots of tench and crucians plus some decent bream and loads of quality roach, rudd and perch, even better there are no carp, my idea of heaven!

We met at The Ranch for breakfast before it was time for the draw followed by the groups of four heading off to their respective venues. When it was our turn, we were one angler short with the three of us hoping to draw peg 1 which had won the previous round and Craig was the lucky angler to pluck if from the Tupperware. I ended up with peg 4 at the far end with Parker ‘The Pole’ for company next door so with 2 not drawn, Craig had an empty peg as well!

The pond looked stunning with lots of roach and rudd topping and I couldn’t wait to get started. I set up a little light rig to fish top kit plus two and then rigs for top five and 11.5 metres just off the lilies straight out and then the same distance angled to the left in a channel between two lots of lilies. With the water gin clear and it definitely being a tad chillier than before I went away, I thought we might be in for a slow start. Parker shouted the all in and I just fed a few casters on the short line, a sloppy worm bomb on the top five and 11.5 metres before the left hand swim received a pot of loose groundbait and some casters.

I started short with maggot on the hook while Steve P fished a bit further out and had bites quite quickly from small perch. It took ten minutes for my first indication and I began catching perch and the odd roach, switching to caster produced some quality and I was enjoying myself. The Pole then landed a nice tench and when he added a decent crucian shortly after, I knew I’d need to catch bonus fish so picked up the heavier rig to fish worm on the top five swim.

I was getting plenty of bites from perch, roach and rudd and then the float buried and I was into something a big bigger which turned out to be a lovely tench around 1.5lb. The loose groundbait swim to the left which fizzing like crazy but I decided to leave it while I was still getting plenty of bites on the shorter line. It was just lovely fishing, I was catching some nice roach but the tench would give themselves away when they arrived with blows coming up right over the worm and I’ve landed another seven with a couple getting on for 2-3lb plus several gorgeous crucians around the pound mark.

As we reached the halfway point, bites began to slow a little so I fed another small ball of my choppy worm mix and had my first look on the longer lines. I was expecting them to be really good but small rudd were nailing the worm on the drop and I probably should have opened a tin of corn. Craig was starting to catch some big skimmers along with the odd tench so I’ve come back in the top five line and although it wasn’t as good as the first half of the match, I was still getting the odd better fish and had four more tench (and lost two) plus a couple more crucians, a 8oz skimmer and some clonking roach.

I finished up with 83 fish and it had been just an awesome days fishing, Craig had 19lb 12oz which included some big skimmers, Parker ‘The Pole’ weighed 17lb 6oz and then my fish went 31lb 6oz to win the section and pick up £30 plus a nugget off Steve.

Craig had 19lb 12oz of skimmers, tench, roach, rudd and perch

Parker ‘The Pole’ had loads of fish for 17lb 6oz

I weighed 31lb 6oz which included 12 tench, 7 crucians and a skimmer

Group 1 (Private Pond)
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 31lb 6oz
2 – Craig Lyttle (Stoke) – 19lb 12oz

Group 2 (Hebditch’s Pond)
1 – Terry Morgan (Stoke) – 56lb 14oz
2 – Nick Payne (Stoke) – 50lb 3oz

Group 3 (Dillington)
1 – Chris Norton (Stoke) – 26lb 13oz
2 – Harry Hebditch (Stoke) – 13lb 10oz

Norts had the top weight at Dillington with an excellent 26lb 13oz of chub and skimmers

Harry was second with 13lb 10oz of skimmers, chub and carp

Danny weighed 7lb 6oz which included a big skimmer

John had 6lb 7oz of chub, roach and perch

Group 4 (Clivey)
1 – Roy Worth (Stoke) – 25lb 12oz
2 – Andy Burns (Stoke) – 20lb

Some great weights recorded at all four venues today, so that’s the series wrapped up for this year, we have a little presentation evening coming up shortly so I’ll update this post with details of who won the coveted trophy and how much money we raised for charity.

Nick P donated a very generous £10, Craig L kindly gave me £4 and with £2 from me plus the squid I took off Parker ‘The Pole’, The Nugget-O-Meter shot up to £590.

There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling

Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here