After a weekend off last week it was back to the river for me and a match at Newbridge. The heavy rain of last weekend pushed the river up to a very high level, but during the week the river dropped nicely and anglers were catching bream and roach on the feeder mid week. I was half hoping we would have plenty more rain and it would be an out and out feeder match (I do like those now and again) but in the event the river dropped enough that you could float fish it in most pegs.
Once again the draw was at the Cadbury Heath Social club, and they laid on breakfast and you just had to sit down and remember to wear a mask if you got up. Very well done by the club and it is great to have a venue for draw and results close to home. Thatchers team today was myself, Mark Harper, Rob Manns, Paul Isaacs, Mat Challenger and Shaun Townsend. Once again I help the Goodhind's with the draw and I pulled out the peg number for the team draw, whilst Chris Hook drew a letter (these are then used for the draw matrix). Well once again I managed to get a couple of decent draws I thought, pick of them being pin up and bunghole Paul Isaacs on 59, a peg very reliable for bream. I drew myself on peg 50, a peg that often produces bream, but one I would prefer in the summer. My section though would be full of bream pegs as it ran from 46 to 56, and I knew I would be spending a lot of time on the feeder.
Got to the peg and I was where I thought, I had a pain in my shoulder which I had woke up with, and decided to not use the pole as it would be too painful. That meant just a 14BB crowquill with 0.11 to 16 N20 and a groundbait feeder with 0.15 to 14 N50. Didn't take long to set up that, but I did mix up two lots of groundbait, some Sonubait "superfeeder" for the feeder, and river and lake for the crowquill. My section had Lee Warden on 46, Rich Lacey on 48, Graham Hunt on 49, me, Nigel Wyatt on 52, Brian Melksham on 54 and Dave Lewis on 56. A lot of these guys had one feeder rod set up and that was it, couldn't blame them as it is a good bream area.
I started the match by throwing a few small balls of gbait on the crowquill line at about 13m, and 4 balls of my feeder mix down the middle. First run down on the float and very small roach, and nothing after that so onto the feeder. I was expecting to get plenty of taps and bites from small fish, but it didn't happen. I was 30 minutes into the match and it was obvious to me that it wasn't going to be great in my peg as the lack of roach bites was not a good sign. I had another couple of small roach on the float and was soon back on the feeder. Just after the hour mark I had decent indication and felt a bit of resistance, a skimmer about 1lb was in the net. Next cast and a tentative bite which did not develop, when I reeled in I saw a maggot had gone over the hook point. I then found out Graham next to me had 2 skimmers in 2 casts at the same time, then no more bites. It was dead for me after this too.
A good hour passed and I was back on the crowquill, 2 roach and perch fairly quick then nothing, back on the feeder again. I had a tiny indication, then a couple of bangs and struck but nothing, reeled in to find the worm and two maggots gone, damn! Again I was in the doldrums with no bites or signs and it was not looking good. I knew Graham had a bream and 3 skimmers, and Brian had a big bream, and I was looking at a low points results with 90 minutes left. I had no choice but to sit it out on the feeder and hope for some bream to pull me up the section.
With just over an hour to go I had a cast and just as the feeder settled I noticed the rod bent round, looked like a big leaf on the line, so I let some line out. The rod bent round again, no jagging, just bent round so I thought a leaf and struck to reel in. Well there was another skimmer on the end. very weird lol. 50 minutes to go and I get a proper drop back bite at last, it was nice to land a 4lb bream, but I knew I would probably need a few more to do any good. 40 minutes to go and a right pull round, like a carp bite, another bream on, this one landed too, and was a bit bigger than the first. Maybe a few more now.. but no, that was my lot.
I had the board for recording, and along with Rich Lacey who had the scales we started weighing at peg 1 in the section, that was Lee Warden, he had a really good day on the feeder, catching some early small chub, then skimmers then bream for 49lb 4oz. Part of Lee's catch.
Rich was next and had 8lb 11oz mainly on the pole, but he lost two bream in a bad snag in close. Graham had 13lb 8oz and I thought he had beat me (he had a 2lb skimmer late on) and indeed he had as I weighed 12lb 5oz.
Nigel Wyatt never had a single pull from a bream and had 2lb 4oz, then Brian Melksham had a 6lb 8oz bream and bits for 9lb 6oz. Nice lid for the legend that is Brian.
Dave Lewis also managed a bream and had 6lb 8oz. As the Comm house is still two divisions I was lucky enough to be beaten by two B div anglers, so I won the A div and would get my £30 section money, better to be lucky than good!
Back at the results and it was looking very good for my team, in fact it turned out Mark Harper was second in his section, but the rest of us won our A div section, so 17 out of 18 points. That meant we would win the day and are winning the A division by 18 points at present. The B division was won by Bathampton B on the day and they are currently leading the B div by 3 points, and it is very tight in the B div.
First on the day was team mate Paul Isaacs, boy can I draw him some pegs lol. He was on peg 59 and had 12 bream and some skimmers for 60lb 13oz. Picture of Paul when I got him to take his mask off.
2nd was Lee Warden 49lb 4oz
3rd Derek Coles 20lb 10oz, from the top peg at Rotork, all caught on the float.
4th Shane "Kenny" Caswell with 15lb 14oz Rotork
5th Clive Branson 15lb 2oz peg 71 (see his VLOG)
Not a bad match really, some good roach and chublet catches in some sections, bream only caught in odds and sods other than the top two. I won't be fishing next weekend, then it is the next Commercial House round on the river again, Swineford, Crane and Chequers.
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