After catching a few fish on the lower Avon I got picked to fish round 2 of this league, it was on the Avon at Melksham and Chippenham. I spent Friday evening getting the prep done and was ready for Sunday. I did the prep Friday as I was off to Cheltenham Saturday to watch the Gas, and glad I went as I saw a great win! May have had a few beers too, but I was fine when I woke up 6:15 on Sunday.
I grabbed a McDonalds in Longwell Green and then drove to the draw at Spencers club Melksham. Met up with the rest of the team and paid my pool, and waited for Martin “bad news” Barrett to draw for the team. I’m no expert on this part of the river and so needed the lads to put me right on the draw. However, it was quite easy as I was given a peg that Liam Braddel had fished last week and had nearly 9lb of roach. General consensus was that we had a lot of poor draws and there were a few concerned faces.
I was at Portman Road and had a short drive to get to where I needed to park. It wasn’t too long a walk, but quite hard going. I was on peg 2, and peg 1 had Mark Kimber on it, upstream end peg and would be hard to beat. My peg as warned was very difficult to get into and fish, very steep bank, trees overhead, and a branch stuck out to my left. It was very awkward and every step I took was a careful one. In the end I got my platform in a stable place but was sat about 6 feet off the water.
There was a lovely looking tree opposite me, but the only way I could fish it was with a pole, a waggler would be better but I couldn’t strike in this peg.
I put 4 pole rigs up, 1g and 1.5g for fishing at 13m, a 1g for chopped worm by the tree and a 4 x 14 for fishing shallow. We fished 11 to 4 and I was ready in plenty of time. I kept everything as close to me as I could as I didn’t want to have to get off my box. I cupped a ball of gbait in at 6m and 3 at 13m, started at 6m and had a roach and tiny dace and that was it, so I was soon shipping out to 13m. It was better here, and I had a steady run of roach from 1oz to 4oz, plus the odd little chublet. I had a nice first hour but then it slowed and I topped up with some gbait. This kept the fish coming and I was catching as well as Mark it seemed. Topping up became a bit more regular to keep the fish coming.
Just as the second hour passed my 13m line died and I was surprised as I had expected it to slow up but not be biteless! Nothing I could do would bring back bites, meanwhile Mark carried on catching. I tried my worm line across but never had a bite, and despite numerous attempts I never managed a single bite on worm. Annoying as at least 1 perch was in the peg chasing small fish on the surface. The last two hours went past slowly, I caught a few blips shallow and probably 6 roach, and knew I had been bashed up by Mark.
My section board below shows I came third in the section, Mark had all roach and 1 perch caught on maggot over gbait, Mick Gale had 3 chub plus roach. I was ok with my 7lb and had enjoyed the experience.
Back at the results and it was clear the team had struggled, and we ended up 4th on the day and are off the pace with DGL in front with 3 points. I had a surprise getting 2nd in section money by default as Mark came 3rd overall and framed. Apparently the same peg at Chippenham that won last week won again today, Ricky Searle with I think 26lb of chub.
Back up here next week and we will need a better draw and performance to claw back some points.
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