This time last week I was planning for my week away in Edinburgh and had booked to fish a Windmill Fishery open match. My time away in Edinburgh with my wife was absolutely brilliant, lots of history, good tours and rides around and plenty of walking. The pubs were plentiful and all good and I got to try some great Single Malt Whiskies.
Not more than 30 minutes of stepping off the plane in Bristol Airport Friday evening I had a call from Martin Barrett. One of the team due to fish the winter league on Sunday had taken ill and Martin wanted me to stand in. It meant a number of changes to plans but I was happy to stand in and step up for the team. I had no bait ordered but that was sorted by me having the other lads bait, and I spent quite a while Saturday making rigs and tying more hook lengths! I did waste a few hours going to watch the Gas and that was just pants...
Sunday morning up at 5:15 to get ready for 6:15 when Shaun Townsend was coming to pick me up. A bit of a shock to the system after a week of lie ins lol, but as I am having a "dry October" (no alcohol) I was bright as a button. We had a steady run up and had to make a little detour to get to the McDonalds in Shrivenham where we found team mates Lee Trivett and Andy Ottaway, the Bristol Massive. Got to Ye Olde Swan at Radcot and quickly got my bait from Martin and paid my pools and shivered as the morning was cold. The river was flowing and had some colour after the recent rain but well fishable on a float. Team draw done and I was going to upstream of Grafton Lock (Shaun was downstream) a part I have never fished before.
It was a healthy walk to the peg and after a week of walking it was nay bother for me. I was on B2 and that meant I had an end peg to compete with, Andy Jane was on that. My peg did look nice with a tree opposite and another some way down the peg.
I set up a lot of gear for a change, simply as I know on this river you need to be prepared to chop and change, so I had whips for bleak, 1g, 1.5g and 2g pole rigs, as well as a 4g flat float, a waggler and blockend feeder. My neighbours also seemed to set up a lot of gear, though Troy Weaver below me had nearly twice as much as me lol, Steve Long was on B1, but I couldn't see him as he was a long way above. We started at 11am and I was ready for once, I cupped in 4 balls of gbait (Sonubaits Black Roach and River) at 11m and picked up the 1gm rig. I ran the rig through 6 times and it never went under and so with no resident fish feeding I went out on the feeder casting across towards the tree. I put worm and caster in the feeder and had a lobworm tail impailed on a the size 12. Not long after casting out a boat came down, and I had to dip the rod under the water, bringing it back up I felt a bite but missed it. Cast out again, and no boat but another bite and was pleased to net a 6oz chublet. A couple of casts later and a 4oz perch, then a 6oz perch before all went quiet. I had one more bite and landed my best fish, a perch of 10 to 12oz.
An hour had gone and I picked up the pole to try to catch some small fish, I tried the 1.5g rig in the 7-8ft deep swim. It was awkward as it was shallow out to about 7m and then the river got deeper steadily, but as you went downstream the river got shallower! It was a tricky peg to fish and I needed to get good control over the float, but that was not easy in the very strong winds. This pole line was hard, and I only got the odd bite on this, I did get a 4oz roach, a few tiny roach and gudgeon, one reasonable dace and a few tiny ones. Trying different rigs, and different feeding didn't really do me any good and the pole line just died. I flogged the waggler for 20 mins and had 1 bleak and thought that this was not going to work so binned it.
First cast back out on the worm feeder and I missed a bite, next cast and I had the culprit a 3oz chublet. I missed another bite which I was a bit gutted about as the worm was properly shredded, and that was the last bite I had on the tip. In fact in the last 90 minutes I only had 1 tiny gudgeon and I fished for a bonus for a fair amount of time with no success. Match over, and I thought I had about 2 1/2 to 3lb at best and wasn't expecting many points for the team. However, I soon realised that my section had fished poor and even allowing for anglers under estimating things sounded better than I thought. Steve Long above struggled for just 5oz, I then had 3lb 1.5oz, which was enough to beat Troy below me who had 2lb 8oz. I ended up 2nd in the section getting beaten by Stuart Harrop on peg 5 who had a decent chub of near 3lb and some perch for 5lb 10oz.
My paltry net, with half the fish hidden lol.
Back to the results and my team had done well, all bar Shaun who had a terrible peg on a corner with no room when some anglers had 100 yds...
Teams
1st Blackmore Vale 35 points
2nd Thatchers 34 points
3rd Matrix 27 points
4th DGL 26 points
Winner on the day was Ian Sheppard with a brilliant 18lb of dace and roach from Radcot
2nd Rob Randall 12lb
3rd Kev Bennett 10lb 2oz
This match is always tricky as the river is very peggy here, and it was a relief to get off to a decent start as a team. Next week I am fishing the Commercial House at Newbridge, there was an open there today and it fished well with a 70lb and 50lb of bream.
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