Kennet and Avon, Spring league, Round 1

So it is that time of year again and round 1 of the K&A spring league saw me fishing for Browning Andover A with Keith, Dave and Phil. We all met up at the draw in Marlborough football club and had statutory bacon and egg roll and a coffee, as well as planning on where we would like to draw among the 88 pegs. My destination for the day was B8 and this put me mid section along the Brimslade stretch, not the best place in my mind as the end pegs were bound to dominate, however, there was a silver lining in that the 22 peg sections were split into 2 smaller sections of 11.

So it was 15m wide with a small bunch of stickups in front of me that were just asking to be fished, so I set up the following rigs:

0.6g DS14H on 0.12mm mainline and a 0.08mm bottom, size 20 B511 rigged on no.5 elastic.

0.2g Classic 6 on 0.09mm mainline to a 0.06mm bottom and a 22 B590 on no.3 elastic
A 4X8 Handmade on the drop float with the same line, hook and elastic as the previous rig.
4X12 Carpa Chimp on 0.16mm to a 0.14mm bottom and a size 12 Carbon Chub hook on medium hollow elastic through one section of my top kit.
I also set up a 4m whip rig with a 2BB waggler that did not get used and also a waggler to fish over the squatt line if it was tricky.

 At the all in I fed a Satsuma of licky bread with a bit of loose at 5m just to my left where I found 4ft of depth, I then shipped out 4 balls of Browning Canal groundbait with a pinch of squats mixed in and then I chopped up 4 lobworms into 4 chunks each and put these in next to the stick ups with about 20 casters. After this was done I put a 4mm punch onto my 0.6g rig and shipped out over the top of my feed, it took about 5seconds for my first bite and I was off the mark straight away, next put in however, I missed a bite and then had to work harder at trying to get and keep the bites coming and at the end of the first 45 minutes I had caught around 10 fish but I had been regularly loose feeding 10-20 squatts over my long line at 11.5m, so it was almost time for my first look on the squatt line, but it would be the worm line first. I shipped across through the strengthening with about a third of a decent lob on the hook and had to wait all of around 20 seconds before the float disappeared and a hefty strike saw 3ft of elastic come out followed by me wrestling with my pole in the wind whilst trying to ship a decent skimmer back from the far side. At about a pound it was a welcome fish but I had obviously spooked the rest off with the heavy-handedness as no more bites were forthcoming, I topped up with 4 more lobs and some caster then went onto my squatt line.

I shipped my squatt rig across to my far bank line and again the first two put in saw two fish coming to hand but then it was a case of working the swim to try and keep the bites coming, and this was the case for the last 3 hours of the match. The wind was tricky as it kept swapping directions and was very strong at times; there was a lock at each end of the short stretch so the water was constantly moving and when a boat went through the left lock it flowed like the Trent. So it became a case of trying to figure out the best way of presenting the rig through the changing conditions, this also saw me trying to use the waggler but the presentation was not right on the day and I did not get a bite on it. I started a new bread line down the inside that gave me 2 small roach in the last hour and I also managed to catch a 4oz perch off of my worm line. It had basically become a case of rotating through my swims and trying to catch a fish at a time off a line although, I did manage a half decent run on the squatt line when I started to drop loose feed through a kinder pot just to make sure that I could get it across the canal.

After an eternity the match ended and I was able to pack up before the scales came round, here are the results from my 11 pegs:

Peg	Team	Name	lb	oz	Pts	Ind Pos
B1	J Davies	Oakwood Blue	17	6.0	11	1
B2	Daniel Webb	Black Horse	5	14.5	10	6
B3	Gary O'Shea	Thatchers A	3	3.0	8	26
B4	Pete Harrod	Tubertini Red	2	2.0	6	44
B5	Kevin Rowles	Devizes Match Group Red	3	12.0	9	22
B6	Steve Cousins	Shakespeare Team Hansford	0	13.0	3	70
B7	Darren Fordham	Devizes Match Group White	1	8.0	5	55
B8	Ben Bentley	Browning Andover A	3	1.0	7	30
B9	Matrl Lloyds	Sensas Wiltshire Angling	0	12.5	2	73
B10	Les Humphreys	Oldboys	0	11.0	1	77
B11	Mick Hurst	Thatchers B	1	4.5	4	61

That skimmer was the main difference between myself and the guys around me so I was very happy that it had turned up, on the team front the top three spots were filled with Drennan Banbury Gunsmiths, Swindon Talisman and GBMV Marine, we were down in 12^th position as myself and Phil had decent results but the other 2 had struggled in difficult areas. Still 3 more rounds to go so we shall have to see what happens.