Gloucestershire angler Tim Frampton contacted me via Facebook regarding the venue and after some messages back and forth he also booked himself in. Team mate Clive Branson done a road show last Friday night in Bristol and I bumped into Ben Rendall who also told me he fancied it. I gave him some info and he asked me to book him in. On Saturday 11 were booked in but this dropped to 10 on the Sunday morning.
The forecast was 45 mph westerly winds up until about 11:30 and then an average of 23 mph after that but the good thing was there was not much chance of rain.
Driving over it was quite difficult and the Prince of Wales Bridge and most of the M4 to Port Talbot was restricted to 50 and 40 mph. Last week the wind was stronger but a south westerly which was ok to be honest.
Bro's Cafe done the business again and Draw Master Steve O'Mara got the draw underway. One of the waitresses pulled out the Golden Peg which was peg 20 and worth £50 on top of the £80 first prize.
Venue virgin Tim Frampton pulled out peg 20 and had every chance of winning from there.
When it came to my turn I drew peg 6 which I haven't been on before but was told that its very deep close in and I wouldn't need a long chuck.
Paul Cole was on the next peg to my left (peg 8) and Steve O'Mara to my right was on 2 so plenty of room.
The peg was very comfortable and I was able to get the box right down in the water. There was a bit of a chop but more than manageable.
I bought a few bags of Clive's Gold Medal Ground Bait ''Black Bream'' on Friday night so mixed 2kg up with some left over green fish meal. I put enough aside for the feeder and then added leam to the remainder making up 8 big balls for putting in on the whistle laced with corn, dead reds and caster.
I had plumbed up one feeder rod at 20 turns and the other at 12, 4 balls went in on each line at the start.
Starting off on the longer line with 5 red maggots on a size 12 B560 it didn't take long to get a pull which I hit, result a 1lb skimmer. I was feeding caster and corn through the feeder and 20 minutes in after casting every 5 minutes I felt the swim was coming on nicely after catching a few hybrids. I stuck with the red maggots for the first hour just to keep putting something in the net pretty fast.
Paul to my left was having a bit of a nightmare with his tackle, line breaking, line tangling within the reel etc.
I rang the changes by putting a worm on the hook tipped with a maggot or caster and the quality of the fish improved. A few baby bream appeared along with net skimmers. I had to compress the ground bait and particles in the feeder quite a bit to prevent in emptying part the way down and thus attracting roach which would hit the bait on the way down.
After a couple of hours Paul came up and asked if I had much. I said into the teens and he seemed surprised. He walked up to Steve and came back and told me he'd had quite a few bream and skimmers. No worries as still half the match left.
I was thinking about coming in on the short line when the tip went around and stayed there, bream on, lovely. I decided to simply stay on the longer line and upped the feed a bit. Good move as more big skimmers followed along with a cracking rudd. I lost two bream at the net after the hook pulled out, always a risk as you bring them up in the deep water and I thought that this would cost me.
I had a great days fishing and weighed 26lb 6oz. Clive easily won the match on the tip from peg 16 with 52 lb 2oz, Steve O'Mara was 2nd with 29 lb and Martin Thomas was 3rd with 28 lbs.
So I narrowly missed out on a pick up.
Lovely net
One of the rudd
Clive with his winning bag
Steve had a nice net for 2nd place
Full results
Tim and Ben enjoyed their first visit to the dock and I think they will be back again, after all where could you go to have a bath provided behind your peg lol!
Hope to get out on the river on Tuesday so watch this space.
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