The draw was at the Brewers Fayre in-between the M4 junction and Chippenham town. It wasn't until 08:30 but in order to get there and cope with the traffic I left home at 06:15 and negotiated the heavy traffic on the M5/M4 OK arriving for breakfast at 07:15. i was the first one there which is not surprising as the rest except Mike Martin (Newport) all live a lot closer.
I drew peg 20 which was the last peg but one down on the Golf Course at Monkton Park, not sure what permanent peg this was but Colin said in was a ''good peg''......how many times have you heard that.
I followed team mate Mike to a parking spot as he was about 3 pegs away from me by the blue bridge. It was a easy walk on a tarmac path and no fences etc. The river was fairly clear and had a little bit of flow on the inside and at 13 metres. I had fished this area many many years ago with the Bristol P O Angling Club and had 35lb odd of bream and tench but I think it was much earlier in the year.
At the start the wind was not too bad and the forecast was for it to increase with some showers. I set up one 2 gram pole rig for 13 metres, a 8BB crow quill for the inside and a tip rod for across.
At the start I cupped in 4 big balls of chop and caster in a soil, gardons and noire mix and then came in on the crowquill loose feeding maggot. Fishing the quill did not seem right and presentation was difficult as the wind got up a bit plus the depth was all over the place further down the peg. I gave it 30 minutes but there was no sign of life at all. Going out on the pole gave me a small roach within 10 minutes but nothing for the next 15. I re-fed a small ball and had another roach straight away closely followed by 2 more then nothing, it seemed pretty dire.
I was probably about 90 minutes into the match and I could see Nicky Johns above me who did not appear t be catching either.
Out went the feeder about a couple of metres of the far bank with lots of chopped worm and a whole dendra on a 14. It had only settled when I saw a positive knock on the tipping between gusts of wind. I decided to hit it and was met with a nice bit of resistance and a good thud. At first I thought it was a bream as it went deep but instead it was a good perch of around 2lbs. A slightly smaller one followed next cast and I thought I was in for a good day. Sadly I only had another few smaller ones despite trying different spots under the far jetty and up against the rushes. I still kept feeding my two other lines but nothing came from them.
Andrew below me had the scales and board and came up past me at the end as he was going to weigh from 11 down. He said he thought he had 5 or 6lbs wish and ended up fishing off the end of his long rod.
It took a while for him to come back down but the weigh sheet told me it had been really hard for most in the bottom half of the river. There were two 7lb weights and I knew I did not have that.
My mainly perch bag went 5lb 3oz
Andrew won the section by default as I was told the two 7lb weights framed and Gary Etheridge had won it with 8lbs so it looks like I came 5th on the day which I'll take and still keeps me in the running with 4 matches to go. The next one is on the 19th Dec at Melksham.
Here is the weigh board for our half of the river, as you can see its fished very hard.
This coming Sunday its the last round of the UTWL on the K&A at Great Bedwyn to Little Bedwyn. Our target is to stay off the bottom and maybe get a few in the frame, looking forward to it and another new venue for me.
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