Had to prep for this match in the week as Saturday I went to Shrewsbury to watch another away loss for the Gas. A few beers drowned the sorrows!
This match was a practice match for next weeks Winter League third round. Myself, Lee Trivitt, James Carty and Ian Paulley were in attendance from Thatchers. By the time I got to Spencer’s club the draw was already well underway and many anglers had already gone to their pegs. I got in the small queue and hear organiser Rob Kepner say all the chub pegs had gone. When I drew I was told I was at Chippenham above the copse above the blue bridge. On this match last year I was the peg below in the copse and had 10lb of chublets and roach. Mick Gale drew after me and was the last peg in my section end peg on the slipway. He didn’t rate my peg but also said he didn’t expect the chub to show.
I drove to Chippenham and knew where to park and it’s a short walk to the peg. The sun was coming up a mist clearing and with the chill in the air it looked and felt a bit autumnal at last. The river itself looked dreadful for fishing, gin clear, no flow and lots of weed growth.
We didn’t have lots of time to set up so I went with a couple of pole rigs for an 11 mtr line, a chopped worm rig and a 3 AAA waggler. I was just ready on time at 10am and few a few balls of gbait at 11mtrs, and fed maggots across for the waggler. Putting my pole rig in the float was dotted right down as the float just sat there with no sign of flow. I caught a 3oz roach after 5 mins, had a much smaller one shortly after and I was already going through all the different hook bait choices and it was apparent the fish were not really feeding at this stage. After 40 minutes I had caught another roach and a tiny chublet so it was time to feed some chop worm at 6m.
Upstream of me Gary Williamson hadn’t had a bite, in the copse Dave Micklewright had 1 chublet on the waggler. I decided to try the waggler even though Dave was not catching. It was a good move as I had a bite straight away but missed it. Next cast a 4oz chublet that went in weed three times reeling it in. I reckon in the next 10 casts I had seven more chublets, all swung in. Then they were gone and the waggler was rested.
Tried the worm but nothing doing, won’t mention it again as I never had a bite on the worm. On the pole it was dire, virtually biteless other than a tiny roach. Probably went over an hour without a bite on anything. James was a couple of pegs below the blue bridge and after 2 hours he had 1 roach and was going home. I changed depths, baits all to avail and then out of the blue had a bite on the waggler and had hooked a better fish, after getting out of the weed I landed a 12oz Rudd. It was a one off. Dave had gone for a walk has he only had 2 chublets, he walked back to tell me upstream was better with Phil Bendall getting roach and a chub. That was enough for Dave and packed up and went home.
My last 90 minutes produced a 4 or 5 tiny fish on the pole, though I did hook what I think was a perch that weeded me up within seconds and slipped the hook. I did get a couple of net roach and a chublet on the waggler. But there was no pattern. All match I could not fish on the bottom as there was more silk weed. I was quite happy when the all out came, thought I had 3 1/2lb to 4lb.
Gary above me was in the next section he chucked back his 6 fish. I had the scales so set off to find Mick on the end peg. He had a better day with 9lb 9oz of bleak and roach, Shaun Bryan was the third person in my section to have left early. Mick Nowicki had 3lb 14oz, and Dan McDonald just below the bridge had 1/2 oz more than Mick. Getting back to my peg I had to find another angler from upstream to weigh me, my fish 4lb 1oz.
Having the scales and board I had to go back to the results at Spencers. Once there I realised just how hard the whole venue had fished. Below you can see the top 3 and section winners. Phil Bendall added to his bulging wallet after winning last week, by winning again, well done! Mick Gale coming second meant I won the section by default (again). Derek Jarman was last in the money.
Whether we get some rain and enough rain to make the river for next week we will see, but there’s no way the weed will be gone. Will it be another grueller 🤷♂️🤷♂️
No comments:
Post a Comment