The second round of this new league which was once again being held at chequers, Jack Whites and Crane, but as we had 2 hospital teams in Swineford was also in. I had not helped with pegging this time as I had been away on holiday for a week in Zante, and only got home just before midnight Saturday. No preparation done and was getting my bait delivered in the morning by Mat Challenger, thanks Matt!
We met at Wetherspoons in Hanham for the draw, had a nice breakfast, Mark Harper did our team draw and I was going to the Crane, second field in the bay, this peg produced chub first match but none last week on the com house. Mark was end peg at Swineford, Rob Manns at Jackies again and Towner at Chequers but not a great peg.
My peg was lovely and calm when setting up with just a very slight downstream wind. To do well I would need some chub and so set up a 4AAA waggler with 16 to 0.13 powerline and a blockend feeder. Also set up a couple of rigs for the pole at 13m, 1g pencil and 2g both with 18N10 to 0.10 accu power. I also set up a chopped worm rig but never used it.
We started at 11:15 and decided to cup 8 balls of gbait in today (Sonubaits black river and roach) to try to avoid pike problems. I fed caster and hemp over to the boats. Dropping in on the pole and it was bleak soup, I was soon pushing the Olivette nearer and nearer to the hook, eventually it was just above the hook length. Caster on the hook seemed best when it got past the bleak, catching odd dace and roach. Didn’t take long for a Jack pike to start causing me some losses, but after a while it went. I kept plugging away but was still frustrated by bleak, after an hour bites only came from bleak so I cupped in another ball and got a few more fish until another pike hit. This one was very big and I was soon bit off, a couple more fish then lumpy bit me off again. Another roach and lumpy took it, I held firm thinking it might let go this time, it didn’t, and all I ended up doing was trashing the complete rig!
It was frustrating but I decided to take a rest from unintentional pike fishing and try the waggler. I was pretty sure this was going to be bleak soup as I’d seen them boiling on my loosefeed. I was right, double or triple caster or maggots was snaffled. To make matters worse the wind had picked up and was now upstream and in my face, meaning I was struggling to get my casters and hemp by the boats. After 20 minutes of being bitted out I tried a piece of corn on the hook, nothing for a couple of casts then a 4oz roach. A few casts later the float went under again and chub on and it felt like a good un. I played it hard as there are lollies and weed in close, luckily everything held and I landed a chub close on 4lb.
With about half the match left I was sure of hooking some more chub, but despite flogging the waggler I never saw another chub. I did manage to catch a few nice roach on the waggler on casters as the bleak became less trouble, but even then I lost a couple to pike and had a few near misses. I didn’t try the pole again as I was sure I needed chub to do well.
When the match finished I was sure I had double figures but gutted not more. Steve Lovell above me had similar pike and bleak issues he said, and Derek Coles below had major pike issues! However, on the upstream end peg in the long ashtip field Ben Rendall had avoided pike and bleak and had a lovely 17lb of roach on the long rod to win my section, I ended up second to Ben with 12lb 10oz. Steve had just under 10lb and Derek and Gary Cross both had 8lb 1oz.
Hi Tim,
ReplyDeleteIm in the process of interviewing anglers for a podcast about the feeder canal, Bristol. do you have an email address I could contact you on? Don't see one in your bio.