This time last year Neil Mercer, who runs the Philtone Printing company, ran a team match and I got an invite as a customer of his, and once again this year I was invited again. After my practice on the open on Monday, and having a chat with Martin Rayet I was happy my rigs were right and just needed to tie up some more hooklengths. It was lovely and sunny at home on Tuesday morning and I got all my kit out in the sun to get it dried off from the wet snow.
There was some weather warnings about for Wednesday but according to my weather app it looked OK for Tewksbury. When I arrived at 8am there was still plenty of snow lying on the ground and the lakes had frozen over, not really a surprise. My team Captain was Tony Rixon, and he was soon gathering our pools money and then letting us draw pegs from our allotted envelope that had been pre drawn. Other team members were Martin Reyat, Ron Hardiman, Dave Lewis, Jamie Brown, and finally Clint Wojtyla who was moaning like a bitch about having to fish and break the ice, it was funny as fook. I grabbed a peg and saw 56 looking back at me, that was on canal 2 but I wasn't sure where and then I finally worked out it was on the right hand end peg of the canal, the very same peg I had on this match last year! Back then I came 4th on the day with about 68lb I think, I was only able to catch fishing 14m down to the end bank that day and it was hard work.
I got to my peg and set about breaking the ice with my landing pole and net, the ice wasn't thick and I was able to break all around the peg to my left and in front, and then Neil Mercer who was on the peg behind me on canal 3 came down and threw his ice breaker in a few times to break up the ice in the middle. Cheers Neil, in return I lent him my spare landing net lol.
As I said before, last year on this peg I never had bite on anything bar bread, and all bites were right down to my left as you can see in the picture.
However, in front of me on the far bank was a little reed bed jutting out, and I simply had to try to catch some fish by this I thought, well I hoped as fishing 10m would be nice and easy. You can just see it in the top right of this picture
After I cleared the platform of the excess snow (now ice) I got my box set up and put it at 45 degress to the left in readiness for fishing long that way. I had a 4x12 rig for dobbing bread with 0.13 powerline to 16 GPM-B. A 4x12 F1 float for fishing at 5m, and another for fishing by the reeds if I went on maggots, a 0.11 accu power to 18 GPM-B on both those rigs. That was all I needed today I felt. On my right my neighbour was Martin McMahon, who was sat bang opposite his son Joe. There were some good anglers on my canal, with team captain Tony in the middle, team mate Martin Reyat on the opposite end peg, and also Anton Page, Paul Elms and Phil Mercer, plenty of carp slayers lol.
We ended up starting at about 10:20 and my opening gambit was to dob bread across to the reeds, here there was a nice depth, not much different to what I had at 5m, and I discounted the far bank as being to shallow. At 10m I was a long way off the far bank, and as I dropped the rig bang in front the reeds the float soon buried, yay, oh a 2oz rudd. Back out and another rudd, hmmm no carp here then maybe? Well I went in again and waited a bit longer and this time the elastic came out when I struck, a carp of 2lb, soon followed next drop by an F1. This was looking good I thought, but then I couldn't get a bite here, I tried pushing the rig along the right side of the reeds and never had a sign. I then tried moving the rig to the left, nothing was doing and then as I went past the reeds more left I had another bite and a carp. By dropping the rig in about 2 to 3 feet to the left of the reeds I got another bite and a carp, and to be perfectly honest I had found a decent ball of fish and slayed them here for about 90 minutes, F1's and carp, mostly 1lb to 2lb with a couple maybe 3lb. It was a brilliant start, and the sort of start I've always been jealous of others having, but today it happened to me, I was fishing 9 inches off bottom.
The line across inevitably slowed right up, and when I caught two very small carp on this after waiting a long time I knew I had to change. Rather than feed some bait here I thought I would now dob bread long down my left hand margin looking for the resident carp. I went down to 10m to begin but had no signs, put another section on and had 2 carp and a F1. Went 1/2 metre further and had a few more but then started getting roach which was bad news. I stuck on the 14.5m section and started to explore the bottom bank, and I had a couple next to some brambles but felt the fish were higher up in the water, so I went 1 feet 3 inches off bottom and had a couple more including a ghostie which I saw and semi mugged as I lifted the rig and dropped it by it. Further explorations along the bank were fruitless which surprised me as this was my banker last time. However, by coming back into the left bank before the brambles and getting as close to the bank as I dare I found a few more fish on a 10mm piece of punch bread. The sun had come out, it was really nice and I felt warm, but the sun was blinding me, and I had to fish holding the pole with one arm whilst the other was blocking the sun and reflection. It was hard work and I lost sight of the float a few times, and missed a few bites, but it was worth sticking with I thought.
With an hour to go I had to give up the margin as I was getting a headache and not getting indications. I tried my 5m line where I had been feeding maggots, I had a quick 4 f1's and 3 small carp before this died. I then fed maggots over to the reeds, and dumped some down my left margin. The reed swim was transformed and I could get bites from 4 to 6oz carp, but I'd catch a few and then have to re feed and try the other lines, I did manage 1 carp in the margin but that was it. The match was over and I had been lucky to have a great day, only probably the last 90 minutes were tough, but I could have caught more of those little carp I guess, but wanted to catch bigger fish. Most people were telling me I had won, and I admitted to having 100lb, with 110lb in my mind what I might have.
Neil started the weigh in on his peg as he had the scales, and he had 26lb 2oz, canal 3 had been tough today, and I think Neil might have been the top weight as it got worse as you went down the canal. My turn and after a couple of weighs 109lb 8oz was my final tally, chuffed indeed as never thought about catching a ton in those conditions. Martin Reyat was second on my canal with 74lb.
1st Me 109lb 8oz
2nd Martin Reyat 74lb
3rd Dave Lewis 58lb (peg 49 first canal)
4th Dave Wilmott 55lb 8oz (peg 47)
With my team having the top three on the day it will come as no surprise that we were the winning team by some margin (it was done on weight) and so I had a nice little pick up and a nice way to end my fishing in 2020.
After such a nice day it was a quick drive home, and when I found out South Glos stayed in Tier 3 this was also as good as I thought we could get. My father-in-law has been having chemo for a couple of months now, sadly he has terminal cancer which has been rather stressful for the family and not helped by covid. However, his consultant is pleased with how things are going and is going to let him carry on with the chemo which is again as good as it can be. All in all a good day considering, and my wife thought so to, so she opened me a bottle of red wine which she had bought me for Christmas, so I will enjoy this tonight and toast all those friends and family I am lucky to know. Happy New Year (it has to be) and cheers everyone, good health!
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