Saturday and I met up with Shaun Townsend to peg Jack Whites and Chequers, 10 pegs at each. It took us 2 1/2 hours as we needed to dig a few pegs and walk a long way. Shaun did the heavy lifting.
We saw some lovely pegs and both fancied a peg at Jack Whites, but Shaun said he had drawn in the trees the last two years and couldn’t face going there again lol. I watched the Remembrance show on BBC which always brings a tear to the eye.
Sunday morning up early and got to Fry’s and had a breakfast. My table was like going back in time with old team mates, Tony Rixon, Kev Winstone and Paul Lumbard, it was great. Lee Massey a great commercial angler was also on our table giving the river a go after a few practices. I could write another 60 or 70 names of the people I saw and many I didn’t get the chance to talk to, previous winners Terry Ellis and Les Chubhead Williams were present. After the two minute silence it was time to draw, I pulled peg 16 which I thought was the end of the straight at Newbridge, not good.
Arrived at the river to see many good river anglers and friends there, another blast from the past Jon Amato was on 22 behind the pumphouse where I was last year. I pushed my trolley to my peg and was happy to be on peg 45 just above old 46, there’s been a few chub and roach here this year. Nice and easy set up, 14BB crowquill with 18 to 0.12, 4AAA waggler with 16 to 0.13, and a block end feeder, chub or bust!
I started on the crowquill with a single maggot looking for anything and fed everything, maggots, casters and hemp. About third cast I heard a rowing boat and as I can’t see anything to my right had a lean out to look and saw the boat… I struck to wind the float in and had a fish on, nice 1lb chub to start. A few casts later I had a 1 1/2lb chub in the net. Another 15 minutes later I had a 3lb chub and a couple more smaller chub. By the end of the first hour I had 12lb and I was well happy’
The river then stopped flowing and literally didn’t move, so I switched to the waggler fished at 6feet half depth. It took a while but I nailed a 2lb chub on it and then a bomber and another chub. Not long after Ben Rendall came and sat behind me as he hadn’t had a bite, no more than 10 seconds after he left I had another chub. A short while after I was back on the crowquill and had a couple more chub.
It got tough and I went back on the waggler, Lee Massey came to see me as he was blanking and I missed bite while he was there. Probably 15 seconds after he went I had a bite and landed my best chub of about 4lb. I must have had 20lb after 2 hours. The bites now were very hard to get, and when the river stopped flowing I couldn’t see me getting a bite. However, I did get a couple more chub on the crowquill before casting it in to a tree opposite 🙈. Got it back minus the hook length.
The last two hours of the match were very poor, I tried the feeder for 1 tiny roach and had 3 roach on the crowquill in the last twenty minutes. I wasn’t entirely surprised as it’s rare to catch chub all match, but I’d had a lot more than I expected to and was well happy. My phone had been ringing all day and I knew I was not going to win as some bream were showing. Another ex team mate Shay Gillman came up with the scales, and my fish went 27lb 10oz, that won my section as John Gatehouse was the only other person to weigh in and had 2lb of perch.
A few of the chub I caught.
As I walked back upstream the weights improved as more roach showed up, Andy Powell had a great net of 22lb of them. But on the pumphouse peg Jon Amato smashed it with 38lb of small chub, but that wasn’t enough to win either.
Back at the results and bream had showed in the trees again just like last year. On the end peg was Les Williams who paralysed the match with 82lb of bream, well done sir!!
Second on the next peg was Craig Amos with 44lb of bream. Jon Amato was third, Warren Bates 4th with 30lb and I was 5th. Mick Gale was 6th from the top peg at Jack Whites with 23lb of mainly dace.
I never won anything on the raffle but I did buy a poppy Gas badge in the auction.
It was as ever great banter and fun catching up with everyone and Ray Bazeley and Paul Benson always do an amazing job. I always love this match, it’s more than the fishing. I was most pleased when I got home to tuck into a chicken balti.
Winter league round 5 next week, on the same bit of river as today, team are in last place and need a seriously good draw 🤣🤣
