Well here I am again, tapping the keyboard to write up my blog, time flies when you are having fun it seems. I say this as today was a personal milestone for myself, as it was 10 years ago that I got told I had bowel cancer. I was writing my blog before that day, and in some ways having the blog was a good way to focus and share my problem. Unfortunately I have lost quite a few friends to cancer, but then also I have some mates who like me beat it and are still here enjoying life (they know who they are and I have much respect for them), and right now I sadly have a couple of friends who are fighting this shitty disease and I am really hoping they get through it. That's enough about cancer, I live with the physical effects of beating it every day, but mentally I have been good for many years, enjoy yourself when you can.
The last round of the changed superleague today, and I was in D section on permanent peg 22A at Newbridge which is behind the blockhouse. Most of the team met briefly in the layby by Newbridge bridge, and it was good to see some of the lads again, I had two of my squad in my section Martin Barrett and Lee Trivett both seriously good river anglers. I wasn't actually that happy with my peg at all, I'd prefer to be from 22 up to peg 5 in the little field, but at least I was not down on the straight where all the anglers who were going there were having a good moan (it is normally rock hard in summer). I didn't need my trolley to get to the peg it was that close, so a few trips and all was good. For neighbours today I had Andy Pollard on 22, and Steve Stretch Saunders on 24, no mugs there! With the team in second place it was imperative that we had a good finish to stay in this position.
As you can see I had to get down into the water here, but the bottom is pretty sold and no problem at all, though that scaffold tube is a bit of a pain. The boat opposite is a permanent feature and I spoke to the owner quite often during the day, he does a little bit of fishing and mentioned he had caught not a lot last night but pike had taken a couple of fish... hmmmm. He was nice bloke and was kind enough to feed against the boat for me a few times with scraps lol. Time to set up, it is an awkward peg for shipping back, so 11m pole was all I limited myself to. The peg just keeps getting deeper here so no point trying to find a flat spot at 16m. Three rigs, a 1.5g pencil float with 20 N40 to 0.10, a 2g job with 18 N20 to 0.11, and finally a 3g rig for fishing worms. A gbait feeder, and two wagglers one deep and one shallow. The flow on this peg is more across and I was expecting to spend most of the match on the waggler (7lb off it last match on that). In my my mind I had to try to get 10 points out of 17, and 9lb was needed for that last time, but I thought today would be tougher.
The match began and I threw 10 balls of gbait out on the pole containing worms, casters, hemp and pinkie. I went out with the 2g rig with a caster on the hook, had a 1oz roach straight away and that was the last bite on that rig. Out on the pencil and four missed bites on a maggot, uh oh... put a pinkie on and finally hooked a roach, hmm this was not a good sign. I persevered with a pinkie and with the slow flow I was still missing bites on this but I got to 4 roach and then Mr Pike took a fish. He was well hooked and I pulled him downstream and with 11m of pole up in the air he was getting some tooth ache. I had him on the surface a few times, looked about 7lb, amazing how strong 0.10 is, then finally the line broke. This seemed to improve matters and I had more regular bites from the little roach and then had a 12oz roach out of the blue. I wasn't bagging at all, it was hard work, and another pike grabbed a roach, this was a smaller pike and after a tussle he let go, the roach went about 30 feet up in the air.
Not long after the hour mark Stretch shouted out, thought he had a pike, turned out a dog had run through his tackle and snapped a rod, oh dear. He asked the owner to provide her details, she did, but the lying cow gave a false number etc as Stretch rang it straight away. Fair play to him, he grabbed the dog and pulled the ID tag of its collar, so he now had the owners real details lol. Just before this he had 2 bream in 2 casts.
After 1 hour and 15 mins the pole line just stopped dead. Out with the worm rig in case it was a big fish but nothing happened and didn't even have a perch. I fed some more worm here and went on the feeder for a while, this was a disaster, as the area I had picked was a snagpit (despite chucking a lead and not finding a snag). I had to start a new feeder line up and so put some more feeders of bait in across by the boat and went onto the waggler. I had the usual small bleak and tiny chublets and a couple of less than 1/2 oz roach! I thought this might get better so kept flogging it and feeding it but it was just the odd bite that I couldn't hit, and if I did it was a tiny fish. The pole line was completely dead, no roach, no perch and no bream! I then heard that other people had odd bream too in the section, and with me struggling to catch anything I had no choice but fish all out for them, so the last two hours I sat it out on the gbait feeder. Sadly for me all I had was one tiny perch, and my recent bream catching form eluded me.
I was pretty sure I was looking at last in the 17 peg section, I guessed I had 3 1/2lb which let's face it is not going to do well. I was though nice and cool as I had been in the shade all day, can't moan at that! Well my worst fears were not confirmed as I managed to beat two people in the section with my 3lb 14oz ;-) so 3 points and by far my worst effort in this league. Stretch won the section and kicked my ass with 17lb mainly 3 bream and bits, and there was a 16lb in the little field. Those guys on the straight, well nearly all of them had a bream or 2, and there were a number of bream caught all the way up to peg 67. I at least know I did the right thing fishing for a bream for the last two hours, as another pound of bits would have only got me or 2 more points. It was a calculated gamble though as I knew team mates Andy Power and Rob Jones were both winning their sections so I could go for it. Andy Power won the match from peg 61 with 7 bream for 37lb, Derek Coles was 2nd with 36lb from peg 48, Derek Jarman had 29lb at Chequers and Mike Bernstein next to him was 4th wth 25lb.
Team mate Rob Jones had 21lb to win the trees section. Guy had just under 8lb for mid section at Chequers, so we were looking OK as a team with 46 points. Actually Chequers fished well today with a 29, 25, 20, 17, and lots of other decent weights, bream, roach and dace fed.
Picture of a happy Steve despite the broken rod.
Just had the results in and it is congratulations to Daiwa Gordon League Black who with league with 240 points, Thatchers Sonubaits, my team, were second with 225 points, and in third were Garbolino Blackmore Vale Marine 3rd with 209 points. A good result for my team and a few quid to go into the team funds, well done lads.
Once again the river was heaving with people out having fun, and I think this contraption took the biscuit. Looks like a pub "table & chairs" which has had a couple of barrels tied to it, I did laugh when I saw this go through my peg, and I only just managed a photo of it. Sadly swimmers in pegs seems the norm now, summer fishing on the river in hot weather seems to now be a test of patience, a shame as the river still fished well. "I'm an angler, get me out of here!" lol.
I will take a rest next weekend, I did tell my wife yesterday I would not go fishing next weekend, so will see what I do next. Tight lines everyone.
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