This match was organised and run by the Chequers Angling Club. Ben Rendall, Ben Matthews, Dean Harvey and Derrick Cole do a lot to keep the river matches alive and they are well supported.
Team mate Chris Hook and I booked in to fish this match along with 18 other die hards. It was a lovely mild day and no rain was forecast. On arrival the river looked in good nick with a decent amount of flow but the colour had dropped out of it.
A lot of anglers thought the bream would feed but I wasn't so sure but I did expect one or two to get caught.
At the draw I pulled out peg 7 and Chris had 13. Initially we thought we were on those permanent pegs which meant I would be halfway down the Little Field and Chris one peg below the bridge. Then we realised this was not the case as Dean and Derrick had spread us all out and these numbers were not on the respective permanent pegs i.e my peg 7 was actually permanent peg 30 and Chris was on permanent peg 49.
30 is OK but you need a bit of water on it and later in the year, Chris had a better chance of bream.
Peg 30 is nice and comfortable and I was able to get the platform in so sit in the water. There was plenty of flow straight across.
I made the decision to just set up the Ground Bait Feeder for 3/4 the way over on the crease and my 16 foot rod with a 4 gram bolo to fish about 13 metres out and down the peg.
There were plenty of rowers out on the water today and a lot of them were under tuition which is not great for anglers especially when they come in too close or just stop in front of you. It affects anglers more than fish though.
I balled it on the feeder line at the start, 9 big balls of chopped worm, caster and dead reds, 4 of the same mix went in on the float line.
Starting off on the float I had a decent roach second run through. The swim was about 12 foot deep at the start but shallowed up towards the end of the run. More roach followed and I started to feed hemp and caster every second run through.
The roach were not that big, approx 2 ounces but I thought if I could keep catching them I would be in with a shout especially if the bream didn't put in an appearance.
After 2 hours the bite tailed off, I could get bites way down the swim by hold back hard but rarely hit them. The ones I did catch were very very small.
At this point I had a look on the feeder line with worm and maggot on a 14. I did get a few rattles but nothing positive until 30 minutes in when I had a 10 oz chublet.
I put in another couple of balls on the float line and this produced a few more roach but nothing spectacular.
I packed up thinking I may do around 7lbs.
The scales were coming up river and I walked down to see Warren Bates weigh below me (about 4 pegs downstream). Warren done 14lb plus and included a couple of big skimmers.
This was good enough to win the match as the fancied bream pegs did not produce.
Second on the day was Toby Bentham with 11lb 14oz (2 bream and he lost 2 as well)
Third was Jerry Pocock with 9lb 8oz.
The anglers up in the Little Field above Newbridge had a hard day, Paul Purchase won the section with 2lb 14oz.
Other section winners were...
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