Back up the M5 again, off at Tewksbury and on to Evesham for another bash at qualifying. We (Sensas Nomads) have also a Team in on the venue this coming Sunday 3rd July so it's important to stay in touch with the water.
The forecast was light rain showers and a fresh breeze but on arrival the wind was quite strong and blowing downstream.
As I was early I walked up from the Ferry up to pegs 35 and 36 to have a look as these have been the in form pegs, the early 50's looked nice as well.
The river had a nice flow on it as usual but very low and clear.
I spoke to Nomads Team mate Kevin Ellaby while waiting for the draw discussing options for Sundays match. Kevin has a fair bit of experience on Evesham.
For a change I was in the first quarter of the queue for the draw and when it came to my turn A5 was still there. I was going to pick another disc but decided to stick with A5 (Sam picked it in my absence last Sunday and drew a flyer). Could it happen again?
Well not too bad to be honest as when Diane turned the disc over it revealed peg 52. Now from my experience so far peg 52 hasn't featured that much lately, it used to but I believe 50 and 51 are the pegs to draw in this area,
With 50 anglers fishing just about every other peg was left out so 51 was free above me and 53 below, Kev Ellaby was on 54.
I got some advice from venue expert Leigh Gardner before heading off to my peg. He told me it was very shallow across with pandocks coming out a fair way but deep in the middle and the inside.
Peg 50 won the match last Sunday 10lbs so I was in the right area.
When I got to my peg it did look nice but due to the clear water you could see the pandocks on the far side coming out quite a bit.
The wind had more or less stopped at this point so I set up a 3AAA waggler at full depth down the middle, it was about 6 foot deep. I had 2 x No.10's as bulk and another 4 strung out below. 18 B611 hook to 0.11 power line as if I managed to hook a chub they would head straight into the pandocks.
Another waggler (same) was set up at 3 foot deep for fishing the same line or closer to the tree.
Next I set up a 20 gram maggot feeder with a size 16 B611 to 0.13, animal gear for fishing to the snags.
My perch inside line was quite deep, almost match top 3 at 5 metres, the bottom was nice and clean. A 1 gram float went through lovely, a size 18 B560 was at the business end to 0.12 fluro.
Finally a hemp rig at 11 metres.
Starting off I bait dropped in 2 lots of choppy, a few casters and red maggot on the inside and then fed some maggots across as well as pinging a few grains of hemp at 11 metres.
I am conscious of keeping the feed going in on all lines and it can be hard to discipline yourself to do this but I am improving.
I started off on my inside line just inching a maggot through. Second or third trot down a small perch was hooked so up and running. I was getting bites at then end of the trot and felt i was over stretching a bit so put another section on. Much better but wanted them closer so fed another half bait dropper full.
I put another inch on the depth and held back a bit harder, bingo a better perch short and gave me a bit of a run around, a nice fish about 10oz.
I had more small perch and then just before the first hour was up hooked another better fish which took me out into the middle. The 6 elastic done the trick, I knew it wasn't a perch. Lucky as well I had a 4 metre landing net. Chuffed to bits when I netted a chub just under 2lbs, you don't get many of them on the inside.
Another bait dropper went in and I managed a few more perch but by 13:20 the line had died.
I had been feeding the other lines so had a look on the deep waggler line down the middle. The wind had got stronger again but by casting downstream, holding back hard and then controlling it as best I could I managed a couple of small roach.
Time and time again I trotted down and it must have been another hour before I got a bite on the drop, thought it was a bleak but then the line tightened right up, chub. thank goodness I had the strong gear as he went into the pandocks, but not for long. Another nice fish just under 2lbs fish.
The hemp line produces nothing all match.
Another look now and then on the inside gave me nothing more.
A cast with the maggot feeder to the snags gave me 2 more perch, only about 3ozs each but welcome.
The last 2 hours I just swapped around while keeping the feed going in.
A couple more puppy chub were caught, one on the maggot feeder one on the shallow waggler.
Bank walkers suggested it was fishing really hard.
At the end of the match Kev asked me what I had and i said about 5lb plus, he said he had the same.
When the scales came down I walked up to peg 50 to see him weigh in, the best weight from peg 1 to 50 was 8lb 6oz (Mark on 50 weighed 4lb odd).
I ended up with a level 8lb which I was really pleased about, Kev below me weighed 7lb 7oz.
Not a bad effort
Mark Newman on peg 61 (which never wins) had 2 tench !!!!! and ended up with a combined weight of 10lb 7oz and he was in my section.
Luckily he won the match so it was a £40 section win by default.
I ended up joint 5th equal but they pay top 4 on a Wednesday.
It was a really tight match, just one more chub would have helped.
Results and weigh board below.....
1 Mark Newman 10-7
2 Rob McKenzie 8-06
3 Tony Davis 8-03
4 Mark Valentine 8-01
Team match on Sunday which will be rock hard with just about every peg in.
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