An extra hour in bed, or does everyone else wake up the same time? I had plenty of time to get something to eat and get to Melksham for the draw. It was very cold out and the wind was making it chilly in the car park. It was good to meet new teammates Rod Dunsford, I don’t think I’d seen him for about 30 years lol. I was chatting to Lee Trivitt and said how I had drawn in the same area around the blue bridge at Chippenham for a few matches and fancied a change. Ian Paulley was drawing the pegs for the team and he came back with me two below the blue bridge FFS. Last week James Carty was on it and had 1 roach and packed up. The rest of my section were all upstream. At least I knew where I was going.
Got to the peg and the river had a little colour and pace but was perfect for the float. The picture below shows it dirtier than what it was, it was still clear in the side.
Setting up was straightforward, chopped worm rig, couple of pole rigs for 13m with 0.09 to 18’and 0.08 to 22. A waggler with 0.12 to 16 and a bolo 3g with 0.09 to 20.
We started at 10:30 and the wind was a nightmare blowing all over the place and nearly took my top sets into the river! I cupped the usual balls In at 13m but started on the waggler looking for early chublets. 15 mins later I was biteless, so I put some worm in at top set plus two and tried the pole line. Just like last week the pole line didn’t start well and after 15 minutes here I had one roach and 1 bleak. I decided to try the bolo casting around the gbait and also across to where I was feeding maggots for the waggler. I finally hit a nice roach and landed a 4oz fish, next cast I hit another but a bloody pike took it and my hook length. When I hooked another roach the pike took it again.
I gave the worm line a go for nothing and thought I should try the waggler again to get away from the pike, there were a few fish here now, bleak and the odd small chublet. It was ok catching these but I kept thinking I needed the better roach. I tried the pole and finally had what I thought was a bite and hooked something better I thought. Whatever it was I thought it was in the weed so I just kept the pressure on and then I saw I was attached to another piece of fishing line. That was another hook length gone. Onto the bolo and I had a chublet which the pike took but eventually let go and I got it out. I then had a nice Rudd about 6oz which the pike ignored. Then I was hooked up to the line again, this was a nightmare, but I was pulling more line back each time I hooked it. Eventually I got hooked up on the end of the line but it was too far out for me to get hold of it. You can see it below in the picture (you can also see how the river had gone clear again and the level dropped a foot).
Clearly I had dislodged it and now it was just a real pain. The pike grabbed fish 6 times in total I lost 5 times. My waggler line fished off the bottom gave up less and less bleak and I was in trouble. Just 1 4oz perch on the worm all day so not getting out of jail there. With an hour and 15 mins I upped the hook and line on the waggler and blasted the bait in looking for a chub as I knew I was probably last in the section from bank walkers. Sadly no chub showed so the writing was on the wall.
The scales came to me last and the weights were all better than me, my 5lb being last in the section. A poor peg made worse with pike and old fishing line, it happens and you just have to take it on the chin. Below me in the next section was expert river angler Jim Brockie, he only beat one angler in his section so we certainly didn’t drawn on many fish.
My section board, Phil Bendall continues to smash it up!
It seems we had a poor team draw, and only had 21 points which was 5th on the day beating only Lobby’s. Well done Blackmore Vale winning the day after coming last in the previous two rounds. The league now is
DGL 6
Talisman 8
Lobby’s 11
Devises 12
Thatchers and Blackmore Vale 13
It’s going to take 3 match wins for Thatchers to come back from this, next week is round 4 on the canal. I’m not fishing the canal so my next match is the Poppy match.
Well done to the framers
Alex Clements had 20lb of chub and perch at riverside drive.
Phil Bendall had some chub for 12lb
Gary Etheridge 11lb
Ian Paulley 10lb
1st, 3rd and 4th all came from A section.
A break next weekend so plenty of time to forget about my match today 😂
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