My return to the bank continues, after last weekend helping celebrate my Nephew’s 21st birthday I was always setting my sights on fishing the poppy match. I’m feeling much stronger and healthier now, and really am happy with my progress. In fact I was offered a short walk draw, but I turned that down and said I would take my chances. Truth be known I didn’t want to have to get over styles or fences, so a draw at Newbridge would be very helpful. It was nice catching up with a lot of anglers at the draw, we were all there to raise money for Poppy despite what the river was like, and it was very high, fast and coloured. After the citation read by Brian Lloyd the draw began, I pulled out peg 44, that was about peg 120 down the trees at Newbridge, happy with this peg as no styles and flat walk.
I was the second person at the rugby club gate, Dean Harvey was doing a poor impression of Houdini trying to undo the chain and locks. Luckily Warren Bates arrived and he knew the code and so I got the gates open. As I was putting the gear on the trolley Andy Gard pulled up and squeezed his van in by the entrance, he said “I don’t like walking too far Tim!” Lol.
A steady walk, slippery at times, got me to my peg. I was quite happy looking at it, a bit of slack to 6m, then pretty fast after that. I set up two feeder rods; one with a size 12 N50 and the other a 14, 0.17 powerline was my choice of hook length. I did set up a 5m whip for bleak, but that was a waste of time. As I was still setting up And Gard walked up from peg 51, he was walking back to his van to get his reels he had forgotten… remember Andy told me he didn’t like walking 😂😂
My groundbait was same as last time out, a mix of Sonubaits Sweet Skimmer and Thatchers original. 45g feeders would hold the bottom at 7m to 8m out. We started at 10am and on my second drop in I got a 3oz roach on dendra and maggot. On my fifth cast I had a nice bite and put the net under an 8oz hybrid. I thought I might catch a few of these today as they can show in dirty water, but alas I didn’t have any more.
I had an early visit from match organisers Ray Bazeley and Paul Benson, and I was able to catch a couple of small roach for their entertainment. They said at this early stage I was going well. After 90 minutes I think I had 5 roach, a small eel and the hybrid, but then went 30 minutes without a bite. I tried a lobworm tail for the first time and after a missed tentative bite I had a good bite next cast and hooked a fish that fought hard. I began to think I had a chub on, but then saw it was a skimmer, fighting so hard because it was foul hooked! I got it out which was a bonus as it was about 2lb.
Twenty minutes later and I’m into another good fish fighting well, but just as it got close in it came off. Was it another fouled skimmer I wondered? Sometimes in fast coloured water the fish can be off bottom and not pick up the hook bait. I was gutted of course, and even more so as bites tailed off again apart from the odd roach.
Tales from the bank were the river was fishing hard, Andy Britt had walked down from 2 pegs above me and said he thought I would frame with what I had! He said Nigel Wyatt at Chequers was best with 3 bream. My match was seemingly petering out, all manor of hookbaits not getting a response, so I thought get back on the lobworm tail. With 40 minutes to go I missed a bite, eel perhaps, next drop in and the tip started twitching about an inch, I left it thinking eel, but after 10 seconds I thought sod it and struck. Boom, into a bream for sure, it was hang on time as it kited down and inside. Everything held firm this time, and I slipped the net under a 4lb bream.
I was hoping for a couple more, but that was my final fish of the day. I hoped I might have 8lb, and would win the section. My neighbours Steve Lovell and Harry had both chucked back. The man with the scales was Andy Pritchard, and he called out 9lb 1oz for my fish. That won the section as 1lb 5oz was next, Andy Britt.
Back to the results and Nige Wyatt was said to have had 5 bream, but after this I was being touted as second. Well after the usual long raffle and various auctions the top 10 was read out.
Winner was indeed Nige Wyatt with 14lb 14oz, his first Poppy match win at the age of 71. Well done Nige!
Nice one Tim. Glad to hear the recovery is going well.
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