Originally this match was supposed to be on the KSD, but that venue was completely covered in weed, I saw a photo of it in the week and new instantly it was unfishable as you can see.
The match being transferred to the Huntspill meant some changes in approach, though my approach was based upon my own thoughts from historical matches as the Spill hasn't been match fished for 2 years. Luckily Paul Purchase and his mates set about cutting the grass and cutting out pegs and dragging out weed to make 42 fishable pegs, great effort and made it a match for all, well done chaps.
Onto the morning of the match and the draw was at the 37 club, breakfast and pools paid and then I was asked to do the team draw. Well not sure that's a good idea but I did manage to get 2 end pegs, one for Paul Isaacs and one for Mat Challenger, I was in F section, peg 2 up by the A38 Bristol Bridge. F7 was the end peg and Nick Coles was on that one and would be hard to beat. My peg was the same as most I guess but I had some weed going out to 12m which might be handy for catching some fish next to I thought as the water very clear.
As you can see by the photo it was bright and sunny whilst setting up, I was in my T shirt at 8:30 and stayed in it all day long, amazing really for end of September. Didn't really want the bright sunshine today but it's the same for everyone. I set up a groundbait feeder today with 0.13 to 16 N30, a 3AAA waggler with 0.10 to 20 N10, a 6m whip with a waggler on with 20 N20 to 0.10 and a 0.4g pole float with a strung out rig with 20 to 0.09.
I began the match on the gbait feeder using F1 dark and Thatchers original in the feeder, but I cupped in some balls of black roach and lake gbait at 13m by the weed, and threw the odd small ball out in front for the whip. The feeder line produced bites but only from small roach / rudd, and putting on worms gave me no bites, back on maggot and small fish bites. No bream about here yet and with lots of small fish bites I went onto the whip after 55 minutes, 5 rudd in 5 drops and I thought this could be good, but not another bite on the whip! Onto the waggler where I had been feeding casters and a bit of hemp, not a bite at all. It was on to the 13m pole line by the weed and thankfully there were plenty of small rudd here grabbing the single maggot on the drop. I had bites most casts for an hour and hadn't fed another thing other than the initial 4 balls on this line, then things slowed up so I put another ball in and caught a few more. I then had to rest it and went back on the waggler and had 2 rudd in 2 casts, these were the only two bites I had on the waggler all match!
I started to cup a small ball of gbait over the 13m line and also cupped in some loose gbait to try to keep the rudd in the swim. But listening to Shane on my right and Dean Harvey on my left they were really struggling to get 3 or 4 fish then wait a long time. I was happy enough how I was going, and getting the odd roach, but then it went and stopped dead with 2 hours to go. There was no signs of fish anywhere now and I couldn't get a bite. The wind had blown left to right and then right to left, and the weed I was fishing next to moved in the wind. I changed to 11m as the weed was closer and throwing small balls of gbait over the weed had a little run of fish again before it died, and then the wind turned again blowing the weed out again! Never had another bite here after this and the last hour was drifting away. I had tried the feeder on and off during the match but had not had a bite since the first hour here. But I noticed an odd small fish topping on the other side of the river now, so changed to a smaller feeder with natural gbait and "whooshed" it over to the far bank. I had a few weed problems but did catch 3 roach and a rudd here in the last 30 minutes so better than nothing.
The match was over at 15:30 and I thought I had maybe 5lb, nobody in my section had caught a skimmer or bream, so it was all small fish catches. Shane on peg 1 had 2lb 12oz, then I had 5lb 11oz, Dean had 2lb 10oz and then Sean Partridge had 6lb 2oz (all on the feeder), there was no more weights more than mine until the end peg and Nick Coles had 6lb 10oz. He told me had caught small roach for the first 90 minutes, then again in the last 50 minutes. Undoubtedly without the weed I would have struggled today, as my approach was quite positive on my other lines, but I did enjoy a couple of hours getting regular bites. Walking back Dean Harvey's trolley tipped over, then Nick Lewis did the same lol.
C section at Puriton fished very well as you can see from the board, Paul Purchase was next to the bridge, and basically the weights got lower as you went away from the bridge. Paul caught best on a bomb over caster feed 20m out, hell of a weight.
1st Paul Purchase 101lb
2nd Richard Lacey 86lb
3rd Andy Pritchard 56lb
4th Derek Coles 31lb
5th Gary Webber 27lb
6 Paul Isaacs 10lb 14oz (all roach and rudd)
My team were last in A div after a few poor results (like Gary Webber last in section lol), but we were only beaten by 1 point by Bathampton and 2 points by M&N Electrical, so we still are wining the league by 4 points. B Div is being won by Bathampton B by 8 points.
Had a good few laughs back at the results, can't say to much but I was crying with laughter before I had to go, you can't beat a good get together.
I think I am fishing a match at Windmill lakes next Sunday, then it will be back on the rivers.
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