We were hoping for some rain before this match and we got it just in time, not a lot but enough.
Going into this round we were 3 points clear at the top and needed to do the business to maintain our position.
I checked all my rigs during the week making sure I had enough to fish top 5 with 2.5, 3.0 and 4.0 gram floats in case it was pushing through and to cover the deep pegs.
The pegging plan was published the day before which is always useful and we were going to be well spread out.
Team today was ...
Me
Sam Johnson
Leigh Wakefield
Dave Lewis
Jan Van Myzak
Brian Melksham
When I left home it was hammering down but due to stop around 1030 and then hammer down around 1600.
We were about 3rd to draw and I picked set 1 out of the bag of dreams, then D for the individual sections.
This put me on D4 (a long walk), Sam E3, Leigh F2, Jan A1, Dave B5 and Brian C2.
Arriving at Newbridge the Farmer had his pumpkin picking event all set up and one of his marshals sorted us out for parking to make sure we didn't obstruct the visitors today, it was well organised.
The walks can be long at Newbridge but all on the flat and no gates, note to self though ..... don't have too many layers on !
Walking past Paul Purchase on the way down he asked me what I thought, I said I think its going to be a bream river later, he agreed.
The peg was comfortable even though it was about 3 metres off the water.
I planned to ball it in at the start on the pole line and had 2 kilo of Sensas River and 1 kilo of Sensas Gros Gardons pre mixed. For the feeder I had 50 / 50 Sensas River and F1 dark.
I put 8 jaffa's in on the pole at the start with half a pint of caster and hemp mixed in then 3 down the middle with worm and caster.
I did expect to catch on the pole straight away and I did, a nice 4oz roach. The first hour was really positive, loads of bites and fish but as usual they tailed off a bit. Putting in a couple of egg sized balls again brought them back which doesn't always work but was soon catching stamp roach again and a couple of blade skimmers and hybrids.
Just before the 2 hour mark I phoned Sam who said he was still catching roach but it was very slow. I told him how I was doing and didn't know wether to have a look on the tip. He said it would be worth a look.
Ten minutes later I cast the 25 gram feeder out with double worm on a 14. I started to chop up some worm when out of the corner of my eye saw the tip go forward and then drop back. Bream on, couldn't believe it.
It was a stretch to net it but was soon in the keep net.
Next cast same again within a matter of minutes and another 4lb bream, boom !
Soon after Shane Caswell came down, he was 3 pegs upstream. He said he was catching roach on the pole but had spoke to Mike Goodhind above me who had 5 bream ! He also said Andy Richings above him was having a few.
That information made me stay on the tip the rest of the match but I did keep feeding the pole line just in case.
I was getting plenty of knocks on the tip from small fish and did catch the odd roach and perch.
Around 2 o'clock I had a good bite and thought I had hit it too late but wasn't the case as bream number 3 was netted.
The river was getting more coloured and thought that would be it. 30 minutes before the all out I had another bream so was well happy.
I packed up and started to weigh in from the peg below me. Craig Amos had a nice net of roach and a small bream for 11lb 8oz so I knew I would have at least 2 points.
Craig then weighed me in. We weighed the bream first as the scales only go to 20lb. My 4 bream went 17lb 10oz and the roach and other went 13lb 7oz giving me 31lb 1oz.
No comments:
Post a Comment