I have not fished here for the best part of 2 decades, so I was looking forward to it.
On Saturday morning I took the kids over for a look, and despite the nippy air and lack of breeze, the river looked appealing, especially the pegs around Bow Bridge, loads of small fish topping, with pike creating havoc amongst them. It certainly whetted my appetite.
So the rest of Saturday (well an hour perhaps) was spent making a couple rigs for the pole, a couple for the 4.5m whip and removing anything that doesn't need to be taken to a river .... 16 pints of pellet being the main removal. Along with a few rigs and some hooklength boxes.
I did put a few stick floats, larger wagglers and some 1g-3.5g pole floats in the box.
Onto today, it was an 8am draw, so the alarm was set for 6:30, which meant a couple hours sleep.
I woke before the alarm and waited for the wife to move before moving myself.
I dressed, had a cuppa and toast (courtesy of the other half), and loaded the car. I made the 20 minute trip over to the industrial estate by the Bow Bridge for the draw. I loaded the trolley and chatted to a few guys, Vic Bush was going down the groundbait road, as were one or 2 others, most people were also likely to be using the reliable hemp/caster combo as roach are the mainstay of catches, though bream and chub may be bonus fish.... the tench and carp sometimes appear in the summer. Everyone seemed to looking forward to a bit of stick float fishing.
We had 14 fishing today, 7 pegs below the bridge on the Stuckies bit (permanent pegs 39-45), and 7 pegs above, which I believe is lower Cocklemoor (pegs 38 back to 32).
The draw for the golden pegs was done, pegs 40, 39 and 43 were selected, decent pegs.
The main draw followed and I put my hand in about 4th or 5th person down, Giffy (Chris Ware) told me to pick him a peg along with mine, so I did. Out comes two tickets, I gave Chris his, peg 43. Nice.....now I never draw golden pegs, let alone 'flyers'. My ticket was peg 40....golden peg......good peg. That's my luck gone for the year...lol.
I headed to my peg and found I had Kev Crouch to my left and Kev Locke to my right, although he had set up on the wrong side of the bridge an had to re-locate himself to the correct swim, he even had his nets in I believe.....lol.
There were less fish topping in the area than on Saturday and the water was a little lower and clearer as well. But I knew I would be getting bites, as should everyone else.
Upstream towards Bow Bridge
My peg - permanent p30
Downstream view from my peg
I looked at my peg and decided to fish a 4.5m whip, on a light-ish 0.5g pencil type float, 0.14-0.10-size 18 b611. I also set up a groundbait feeder for 3/4 the way over, with a size 16 hook to use various baits, more in hope for a bream or chub really.
Lastly I set up a 5AAA waggler, a straight waggler made by Dave Harrell Angling, it is similar to a small pellet wag, but the weight of it allows accurate and comfortable casting plus it isn't easily pulled under by the bottom should I want to drag on. This was on 3lb mainline and a 0.12 hook length on which was tied a b611 size 18.
I did consider a stick float and a pole line, but didn't want to over complicate things, and really couldn't be bothered, thus rendering my Saturday rig-making time semi un-worthwhile.....
For bait I mixed up 2kg of Sensas Matchblend, Sensas Roach and a bit of Sensas Lake, this was well mixed to make it heavy-ish. I also had 2 pints of caster, a pint of mixed maggot, 3pts of hemp and some worms and bread for hook bait changes.
I made up 8 decent sized balls of groundbait, which was amply laced with hemp and caster, sealed them and put them to one side.
The 9:30 all in shouted and I lobbed the feeder out with a worm and caster on the hook, I fed my whip line with a few handfuls of hemp, maggot and caster and catapulted some caster over the feeder/waggler line.
Ten minutes in and no fish, only a few taps on the tip and a chewed worm. So I balled the groundbait over that area and switched to the whip.
Kev C. had started on the feeder and caught a couple small silvers. Kev L. had started on the stick float and also had a couple small fish.
My first drop on the whip bought me a 2oz roach, followed by another similar and then a ruffe. So I stuck with it for an hour or so. Sport was not hectic, but I was trickling the odd fish up to 4oz into my keepnet. I did hook a lump of a fish, which hung on for 20 seconds, before the hook pulled out, possibly a perch, maybe a chub, but it felt weighty.
I had another look on the feeder at around 11:30, so I could have a cup of tea, but again I was getting 'bitted out', even on bread flake.
It was back onto the whip and the small fish continued, slowly to come, I was being bashed up by a pike or 3, infact by 1pm I had lost 3 fish of at least 6oz to them and I was getting swirls, follows and even acrobatics by these predators in an attempt to rob me of my fish.
I tried the waggler, and this bought a run of 3-5oz fish before going quiet.
By 1:30 I had maybe 4lb of silvers, including roach, rudd, perch, ruffe, dace, silver bream and chublets. Dave Nash had landed a near 5lb chub on the whip and Kev C. next to me was getting a good few better roach. Kev Locke had landed a nice skimmer, but cant be sure how nice....
My whip line had pretty much died due to the pike and the feeder had finished it's work for the day (all 30 mins worth), so the rest of the match was to be spent 90% of the time on the waggler, feeding maggots and caster over that area.
2pm came and everything went wrong, I managed tangles galore on the waggler and had to re-tackle. So I also had a cup of tea and a choccy bar. It did seem like I was doing kind of poo, but I persevered.
The last 90 minutes saw a bunch of rudd appear, I had a run of about 20 fish up to 6oz+ and these boosted my weight. But no signs of any bream or chub. Peg 39 had quietened too, but Crouchy on 41 was still getting decent roach. Elsewhere, Dave Nash had landed a 3lb pike, which don't count, but the others, so it filtered down, had a few small fish, not much else.
The all out soon sounded, it seemed pretty dark, so I packed up as quick as possible and went an loaded the car. I admitted to around 4lb or so to those who asked.
As Mark had to get the weigh board I walked back to end peg to begin the weigh in with him.
He was 1st to weigh and plonked 7lb dead on the scales. Brian G and the Giffy weighed in 7lb 7oz and 5lb 13oz.
Dave Nash's chub went 4lb 13oz, which is exactly what I said it would....we had guesses from 3lb to near 6lb!!! He totalled 15lb 6oz to go well into the lead, Kev Crouch pushed him close with 14lb 7oz of nice roach mostly.
Next to weigh was me, my 4lb weighed 11lb 7oz....ooopps. Those rudd weighed ok I guess.
Kev Locke weighed 7lb 5oz. So it kind of looked like any form of pay out was gone for me.
We ventured to the other section, the first to weigh was peg 38, Kev Hunt, he put 15lb 6oz on the scales, all small fish, to go joint leader with Dave Nash. We weighed a couple more guys before we got to Vic Bush on peg 35, had his groundbait (and leam) attacked worked? well he put 20lb 13oz on the scales to take the lead and with the last 3 admitting to nowhere near that it looked like he was the winner.
So it proved with Pete Manning on the upstream peg next to him weighing 14lb and the last couple of guys totalling around 12lb between them. Vic's catch looked like it was made up with small silvers, no bonus fish of note, so he must have had a busy day. But he did well, so fair play.
Weigh Sheet.....
So the results were like this:
1st from peg 35, Vic Bush - 20lb 13oz
2nd= Dave Nash, peg 42, - 15lb 6oz
2nd= Kev Hunt, peg 38, - 15lb 6oz
Section winners were Kev Crouch and Pete Manning with 14lb+ weights.
So it was an enjoyable day, I don't get to match fish running water much, but I do hope there is a few more matches in 2014 on rivers and drains.
Perhaps if the pike in my swim had bogged off and not stole a couple pounds of fish, then I would have definitely had enough for 2nd as my whip line will have given a few more pounds. Vic said he never had pike problems, so maybe his fish never became unsettled as much?
Maybe a pole line could have been a better choice? Always if's and but's...!! lol.
Next up for me is a match, with Clevedon, next Sunday at Apex. So another non-carp match. Cool.
Until then take care and stay warm
Lee
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