Clucker Returns

 It’s been a long time, over 3 months since I last wet a line, and that was at Windmill Fishery on July 16th. Since the op I’ve built up my strength and fitness (not near where I was but ok) and gone back to work, so why no fishing? Well I’m permanently at risk of hernias now I have stoma and so I have been told to not do any heavy lifting or abdominal exercise. Going fishing will certainly test that, and I’m waiting for a protective waist belt to be delivered which will hopefully get me back to normal. For now no heavy trolleys or lifting gear over styles.

Dean Harvey has been running Bathampton matches st Newbridge this season, and he has asked me a couple of times if I could fish, I decided on Friday I would give it a go as Dean said I could have a short walk, and Mat at Scott Tackle was able to supply me with casters and worms. I knew the river was high and so was only going to take a couple of feeder rods, river was .8m and dropping Saturday and it could be a really good match. Of course I went to Rovers Saturday (nice to see a win) and was getting worried as the rain fell heavy, so much so that my wife and I got soaked walking back to the car. I knew that was going to muck Sunday up.

Lovely extra hour in bed, and awoke to see a text from Dean that the river was now 1.2m high and up to me if I fished, well I was still going whatever. After a Golden Arches brekky I got to the river, and yep it was really going through and a nasty colour, but as I said I fished in worse lol! It was great to see Dean and the other anglers, and he called Mike Shellard and myself to draw first, peg 20, 24 and 30 were in the bag (24 the best). Mike got 30 and I then pulled 20, I was happy enough as I parked right behind it and it had a little bit of slack water for about 3m.

The match was starting at 9:30, plenty of time to set up. I mixed some gbait for the feeder, Sonubaits sweet skimmer, Thatchers and brown crumb. Set up two feeder rods with 45g Preston open end feeders, one had a 12 N50 to 0.17 and the other 8 N50 to 0.19. Obviously I am still a bit slow as I only just started on time.

A very gentle underarm swing dropped the feeder on the edge of the slack in 12 feet of water. I was going to have a few quick casts to get some bait in, but on the second drop I had a quick bite and felt a small fish on but it came off. I carried on with dendra and 2 maggots and had a couple more bites but no fish, I changed to 4 maggots and this got me my first fish a roach, not big at 2oz but still I’d caught. A few casts later I had small eel on the maggots and then a 1oz roach. I needed to get bigger fish so went back on the dendra, I was getting fairly regular bites, but missing a lot, but after 2 hours I had 5 roach and 3 eels for about 1lb 4oz.

I had tried a whole lobworm looking for a lump, but all that did was get rattling on the tip as the little fish chewed it up. Fishing smaller bits of lobby gave me a nice run of fish a few roach 2 chublets and another eel, I had only netted 1 fish so you can see they were not big fish, and I missed lots of bites even though I let them develop. 3 times fish were on then came off and 4 times the rod pulled right round and nothing. I think it was little eels.

I tried the whole lobby a lot more last hour for a lump but nothing doing, and it just seemed I had to take the small roach and eels. Come the end of the match I was happy enough having a decent day, no snags and no gear lost.

In my section Craig Pinker on peg 24 (bay of Biscay lol) had a couple of skimmers and 7 roach for 5lb 2oz to win the section.

 

My net of small fish went 4lb 5oz and I just needed one bonus fish really.

Winner on the day was Mike Weston on peg 44 who had 6lb 6oz which included a 5lb+ barbel. Nic Cole’s had 5lb 10oz on peg 56 and Craig was third. I was actually 4th and picked up second in the section (as Dean just paid out 3 sections) so a bit of coin was a nice surprise.

Talking to the other anglers and it seemed all had been catching small roach, though Derek Cole’s did have a few better ones. Craig was the only one to get a skimmer / bream. Once I got in the van to drive home I felt knackered, I guess it will just take time to get used to being on the bank, but boy was I happy to be back. That said not sure if I will be going next week, but the week after it’s the Poppy Match, I’ll be needing a disabled draw for that.