I think I mentioned last time that I was not having any alcohol during this month, I forgot to mention there are two exceptions to this; a pre booked gin festival and a family birthday celebration. The gin festival was yesterday and it was a lot of fun and my wife and I were really glad we went, I was back home by 6:30pm and no more liquor touched my lips.
I was looking forward to fishing Newbridge as the river level had held up well after the rain and I hoped it would be a decent match. Last week it fished well, but that was the first wash through for ages and it seemed to stir the fish into feeding. After the last CH round where I drew for the team and we came last I was not planning on drawing again, running a tad late I called Towner to order me a brekky so it would be ready as I got there, cheers Shaun. As I sat eating my food Ben Matthews wandered up and asked if I wanted to go into the £5 super pool, I did and was glad he asked as I would have forgot. Then it was the draw and when Thatchers were called up to draw nobody was in the pub, so I had to go an pull the peg again, yikes! I was hoping for a draw in A,B, or C (pegs 3 to 52) but I found myself in D section below Newton St Loe bridge somewhere. I ran outside, gave my team mates some Sonubait black river and black roach, and told them the pegs they were on. Off we went.
It is a bit of a walk to from the rugby car park to my peg, but straight forward and pretty flat so no problem. I couldn't see my permanent peg number, but reckon it was about 77. I was happy, but thought the two pegs above me would be hard to beat, as would the peg on the stream. The river was flowing nicely and had a nice colour, looked like it should fish I and many others thought.
I mixed up two lots of gbait, the aforementioned roach mix for the pole, and some thatchers and F1 dark for the feeder. It is a nice peg to fish as you can get your box in the water and the bottom is flat and hard. I set up a crowquill, a gbait feeder with 14 N30 to 0.13 powerline, and three pole rigs; 1.5g 20 N10 to 0.10, 2g 18 N20 to 0.12, and a 4g flat float with 16 N20 to 0.13. I didn't set up a waggler as the wind was upstream and in my face and the river was covered in leaves.
I was a couple of minutes late start and heard Nicky Johns and Leigh Wakefields gbait go in on the pegs above me (Leigh on upstream end peg). I put 10 balls in with some caster, hemp and pinkie, and went straight over it with the 2g rig with caster on the hook. I was pleased to get a bite and 2oz roach first drop in, and had 4 or 5 more before no more bites, this rig was not getting many bites on maggot so I switched to the lighter rig. It made a big difference with bites every run through on maggot from roach, perch and chublets, all fish were swung in (bar one perch about 6oz) so size was not amazing. Of course this soon slowed right down, but a change to fishing pinkie got me some more fish and I had manage to eek fish out for nearly 2 hours before it was dead. I hadn't fed a feeder line yet as I was hoping the pole line would be the best bet for skimmers and bream too, but I now felt I needed to. I put in 6 feeders of bait, then fed 3 balls of on the pole line, and finally tied and attached the 14 N30 0.13 hook length. I then cast out the feeder with 3 red maggots on the hook and settled in and just made sure everything was to hand for fishing the feeder. It couldn't have been in a minute when I noticed the tip jagging quite severely, I struck expecting an early chublet but instead felt a couple of big thumps. Not expecting to hook a bream first chuck I think my heart rate soared as the shock kicked in lol. It felt a good fish and gave a good account of itself, I was glad when it was in the landing net and I thought that must be nearly 6lb, happy days!
I would like to now write and say how I caught more bream and won the match, but I cannot, that was the only bream I saw today, not even a skimmer. I had a few roach and a couple of chublets on the feeder, and just two more perch on the pole line. I did give nearly all the last 2 hours fishing for bream, but when the leaves cleared I cast the crowquill set at 6 feet deep across the river and could catch bleak on this, a waggler would have been better of course, but I had a few fish here resting the feeder.
The match ended at 3:15pm and it had fished a bit harder than expected it seemed, just wished I could have managed one more bream. It turned out that Leigh Wakefield had made the most of his peg and had 7 skimmers and 2 bream for 20lb 8oz, I ended up second in the whole section with 12lb 10oz, but won the A Div. My board here..
Back at the Crown Pub results and as the lads came back it seemed we had all done really well today, and I added up we had 16 1/2 points out of 18, and would definitely win the day and extend our lead in the A div. Here is the team sheet..
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