Waking up to a chilly Sunday morning at 06:30 I soon had the car loaded and headed off to the Rugby Club at Salford for the 08:30 draw.
A few of the Nomad Team were there on my arrival but not the likes of Clive Branson or Richard Candy as apparently there was also a big match on the Wye as well so they were quite stretched. Richard Whitmarsh was the Nomads captain for the day and made me feel welcome.
The League is made up of 5 Teams of 8 but one of the Nomads guys failed to show so we were up against it even before we started fishing, not sure what the problem was.
Richard came back with the Team draw and I was in 'F' Section peg 4 which was about 3 pegs up from the Cattle Grid at the bottom of the Crane so a relatively easy and short walk.
got to my peg in plenty of time and found the downstream angler on the Cattle Grid peg was Derek Coles, could see the angler above me around the corner so plenty of room.
The heavy down pours on the Saturday had not put any colour in the river at all and you could see right down to the bottom ring of the keep net. The peg looked fine with some boats moored over in a bay on the far bank and a decent bit of flow at 10 meters. I had fished the peg some time ago and knew it was deep so set up a top 5 rig, 3 gram float and 2 no. 8's as droppers. Size 18 hook to 0.11 floor carbon line. A 2 gram rig was also set up in case they wanted it running through at the same pace of the river.
Plumbing up was a bit of a nightmare as the bottom was extremely uneven and shallowed up quite quick so adjustments had to be made in order to hold back hard and then kinda lay on towards the end of the run. A Feeder Rod was set up for fishing across.
On the ''all in'' at 10:30 I put 6 balls in on the pole line tightly packed with hemp and caster, normally I would put in more but due to the clear conditions and bright sunshine I wasn't sure how the fish would re-act. After that I put 6 big Feeder full's of chopped worm and caster across and about 1 meter away from one of the boats, it was a good depth across.
Starting on the lighter pole rig it took me about 6 runs through to get my first bite and I missed it. The rig did not feel right so switched to the 3 gram one. This was much better and a bite first run through with it resulted in a 4 oz roach. About 6 more followed over the next 30 minutes, it was certainly not fast and furious. I topped up the line with a couple of golf balls with a bit of worm mixed in and a few perch responded. Double caster went on the hook and a few more tidy roach came to the net but then the pike moved in. I was bitten off twice and lost another 4 or 5 fish to them. You could see them coming up in the water after the small perch which I began to catch with a piece of worm.
Derek came up for a look and to see how I was getting on and he to was having pike trouble and not doing all that well.
I fed the pole line again and then went across on the tip with half a worm. I had a bite straight away and connected with a small skimmer around 5 ozs, sadly that was the only one. I did have a few perch and a couple were about 6 ozs which I was happy with but was getting lots of knocks and not hitting much no matter what bait I used.
After an hour I came back in on the pole line and had a nice 8 oz roach but then more pike trouble and I trashed my rig after one of the buggers let go of a roach when the elastic was very tight.
There was now about 90 minutes left so I decided to stick it out on the tip hoping for a bonus fish. i stopped feeding worm through the feeder and just stuck with caster and hemp with double caster on the hook. I was casting about every 5 minutes and was getting bites but not hitting that many. rather than watch the tip I kept an eye on the bow in the line for movement and had more success.
at around 14:50 the bow in the line went upwards and I hooked something solid, thought it was a bream at first until it started to run upstream and knew it was a chub.
It was that time in the match when you know the fish you had on was going to be really valuable and your bum starts making strange sounds. I was chuffed to land it and it was a good fish.
I kept on plugging away but did not get any more.
The scales came down and 7lb odd was best (Mark Harper) with just me and Derek to weigh. as soon as mark saw my net he said I had won the Section.
The scales registered 8 lb 11 ozs and the Chub went 3 lb 10 ozs.
My bag and the best chub I have had for a few years, worth £50.
Peg F4
My Section
Teams on the day....
1st Thatchers
2nd Bathampton
3rd Nomads and Gerry's tied .......We (Nomads had 3 Section wins so could have done with that extra man)
5th Bristol and Bath Amalgamation
Top 3
1st Graham Hunt 18 lbs 14 ozs
2nd Glen Bailey 17 lbs 15 ozs
3rd Andy Ottaway 16 lbs 14 oz
Hope to be asked to fish with Nomads next week when the second round is at Newbridge.
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