08:00 draw this morning due to the clocks going back and a limited breakfast at the Rugby Club due to them having a late one the night before.
Access to the pegs at Newbridge is uncomplicated with only two points and no fences or styles. The draw was on time (it always has been), Mark Harper runs a tight and efficient ship.
The table of results to date came round before hand and I was pleasantly surprised to find that individually I am lying joint 4 along with a few other anglers including Nomads Rich Whitmarsh.
Individual positions after 3 matches
Richard came back with the Team Draw and announced I was in A Section Peg 3 which is in the little field right hand bank upstream of the road bridge. I have never drawn there before but a couple of the guys said I would win the Section from that peg and gave me a few tips.
Parking was straight forward and a short walk to my peg. In my Section I had Tony Gilbert (Thatchers but fishing for Jerry's), Mike Goodhind (Amalgamation), Warren Bates (Bathampton) and Lee Trivet (Thatchers). All good river anglers hmmm.
My peg did look nice and I was able to get down in the water which makes a change after the high banks I have had in the previous weeks.
Most of the flow was on the far side but there was an awful lot of leaves coming down. I still set up a maggot feeder and a waggler just in case and two top 5 set ups fishing to hand with 1.5 gram and 1 gram floats. Depth on the pole was no more than 10 feet and covered the area were the flow was on my bank.
very comfortable thanks to my Rigger Platform
By the time I was ready it warmed up and I fished in a T Shirt all day!
On the ''all in'' I lobbed 8 big balls in on the 5 to 6 meter line full of chopped worm, hemp and caster. It took about 10 trots down before I got my first bite on red maggot which was a small Chublet around 3 ozs. The first 20 minutes was far from fast and furious but after that it was a fish a chuck or a bite most trots down for the first 3 hours. The flow on the nearside was varied due to the lock gates further upstream opening and closing for the boats, when the flow picked up bites were more positive. I thought I was doing OK but due to no bank walkers and limited vision I had no idea how anyone else was getting on but decided to stick to the pole line. I did throw in a golf ball sized ball of ground bait every 10 minutes which kept the fish in the swim but there was a fair bit of pike activity as well, One actually cleared the water and there were many swirls on the surface. Because I was fishing to hand I managed to get the fish out without any pike takes.
It was a glorious day and even a Hot Air Balloon was up.
I was glad when the ''all out'' was shouted at 15:00 as my arm was aching. I had a great days fishing catching Chublets, Dace, Bleak, Perch and Roach but only needed to net about 5 or 6 of them. I knew I was into double figures but not sure by how much.
Tony on A1 was first to weigh and he had a good net of quality skimmers and some big roach, I had nothing of the size that he had. His net went 17 lbs 1 oz and I thought I had not done enough.
Mike was next and weighed just over 7lbs.
I was next and when pulling my net out thought I had around 15 lbs. Lots of gasps when Lee called out 17 lbs 7 ozs 8 arms !
My 17 lbs 7 ozs 8 drams...busy day
Warren below me had a creditable 11 lbs plus and Lee who knew he was up against it from A5 weighed 8 lbs 7 ozs.
My Section Board
While loading the car Darren Gillman asked me what I weighed....I said 17lb 7ozs completely forgetting about the 8 drams. He said Tim Ford had 17 lbs 7 ozs 8 drams and this appeared to be the best weight on the match according to the jungle telegraph. It wasn't until Tim drove up to me and stopped that the penny dropped and I remembered my correct weight.
Back at the Rugby Club the other Team members had not so good a day.
Individuals on the day...
1st Tim Ford and Ivan Currie both 17 lbs 7 ozs 8 drams (£160 each including £50 section money)
3rd Tony Gilbert 17 lbs 1 oz
Teams on the day.....
1st Bathampton
2nd Thatchers
3rd Nomads
4th Gerrys
5th Amalgamation
League to date.......
1st Thatchers
2nd Bathampton
3rd Nomads
4th Gerrys
5th Amalgamation
5th Round next week on the Kennet and Avon Canal out Devizes way..been a while since I fished there.
Well done Ivan, great result
ReplyDeleteThank you mate....nice result in a top class field.
ReplyDelete