There hasn't been amything from me for a while as I just have not been out fishing, and have had some quality time with the family. I spent a lovely weekend at Babbacombe when it was baking hot, and I got to swim in the sea a couple of times which is rare for me in this country. It was a wonderful break for myself and the wife.
Over the last couple of years I have found my opportunities to fish these qualifiers restricted to my local stretch of river, and going into one match means you do need that bit of luck at the draw and fish well. I have seemed to draw the trees section a few times and that's always a bit peggy so hoped to avoid that. It was a bit like pre covid times for me, I had a breakfast in Hanham Wetherspoons before rocking up to the draw and a good chat with many anglers queuing for the peg draw. The pegging was shown on the sheet as so...
The spare pegs were in case any boats had moored up overnight, luckily none hadn't I believe. There was though a great peg left out, 61 Norfolk Reeds, as a boat was in there when it was pegged and I fancied 59 and 63 to do well. I pulled out peg 32 ticket, which was 65, so close but yet so far I thought. It is right in the middle of the stretch and so was going to be a long walk, but since I am back to the gym these walks (on dry ground) don't faze me. It took me a time to get away from the draw as many anglers approached me to ask how to approach their peg and what were their chances.
When I got to my peg it was clear the heavy storms from the day before had put a little colour and flow into the river, making many anglers believe this would be a bream fest, but these things are rarely so clear cut in my experience, and I advised most anglers to take a pole to the pegs not just a feeder rod. That said I was in the middle zone and traditionally this is the highest weight zone and bream were expected to win it. My peg is wide and deep (about 14 feet) and used to be OK, but for many years now it is rare for the bream to drop down below 63.
From experience this area throws up bream on the pole line, and so I was going down the one line route, 13m for pole and feeder. I set up a grm float with 16 N20 to 0.12, a 4g flat float with 16 N30 to 0.13, and a gbait feeder with 14 N30 to 0.15. That was all I was going to go with and to be honest the 3g rig was only for catching some early small fish in my mind. My groundbait mix was done on the bank and I went with a mix of natural and a bit of fishmeal to encourage skimmers and bream. So Natural Lake and River, and Super Feeder. I split this up to allow for a heavy mix for balling / cupping and a drier version for the feeder.
There were some good anglers on good pegs and I was sure a decent weight would be needed today, 30 to 40lb. Had the river been clear then a bigger weight might win as the bream may be shoaled up. I began by balling in 16 balls today, plenty of casters, dead pinkie and chopped worms in there. The angler on 63 also gave it a few balls but not so much, would I pull some fish down past I wondered? I started on the 3g and had a dace first run down, then a chublet and then a small roach. I had regular bites was missing a few as I was fishing double maggot or caster trying to get the bigger fish, but the quality wasn't nothing special and the landing net was used once for a roach. As the quality did not improve I went out on the flat float trying worm and triple maggot but this accounted for small fish too. I tried a double caster and had a 4oz hybrid, then nearly an hour in I hit a very good fish that pulled a lot of 11 hollo red elastic out. It took a while to get this fish up and I was beginning to think it might be a pike, but finally glimpsed a bream, it was a good one around 6lb I think. A good start. Sadly no more followed this and I could only catch small perch or chublets. The guy above then had 2 big bream in the next hour to go ahead. I cupped in a couple of rich balls of feed, back on a worm hookbait and a few perch and then hooked a 1lb+ perch, but I lost it when shipping back some walkers wanted to get passed and I let the line go slack and it was gone.
My match petered away after the first hours with an almost blank third hour and it seemed the same for most people, with bankside talk of 2 bream being good. Try as I might I coud not coax anymore bream from my swim, the lad above had 2 skimmers and that was all. I nicked a few roach here and there and then sat out for the last hour for slabs to no avail. I knew I was beaten by the angler above and also James Carty on 56 had 3 bream, and then we heard that Andy Power on 77 had 4 late bream. I was still going to weigh in as you never know what the section money will be won with. However, after waiting a good hour and no scales and chatting to a few anglers I decided to chuck back as I was well overdue to getting to a 60th birthday party. Andy Cranston and Paul Purchase witnessed my fish, maybe 10lb.
I found out later that Powers won with 32lb, and my team captain Mark Harper was second with some bream and skimmers on the feeder from peg 7 with 27lb, the other qualfier from the bottom zone was Nick Chezoy who had the best day's catch in my opinion with 18lb+ of roach and chublets on the pole.
My only pic was my bream in the net. Not great I know and doesn't do it justice.
Well done to the three qualifiers and good luck in the final. I needed about 12lb to get the section money I think, so the lost perch and a few more bits would have been good enough, but I was there to qualify so it matters not.
That's it for another week, I am not fishing again this weekend, but will be back in two weeks fishing the superleague final round at Newbridge.
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