Today saw me pointing the van North East of Devizes to
find the Crown Inn in Bishops Canning for the draw of first AAF Gp2 match of the year and my first match after my
stint away. It is good to see a thriving match circuit in the army, we had 43 anglers
on the bank today, some of which had travelled up from Exeter to fish. I was
saying hello with a few old faces and putting the landlady to rights about
otters until the booking in was done and we were left to wait for the draw. Whilst
waiting to pull my peg when the phone rang and I had to half sort out my van
insurance, ‘I won’t keep you for a moment’ was the quote and she was right as
it was 30 minutes, I need to apologise as I was trying to sort out my life as
people were trying to run a draw but the long and short of it was that I was on
peg A13? And I would need a call back later about the insurance. I around 400m
down from the Bridge at the Bridge inn, and it looked a bit like this:
As you can see by all the features I fancied it for a few
fish so set a target weight of 3Kg, my plan was 4 lines, a worm rig next to the
boat in the track, a worm rig across under the small bush to the right, bread
at 5m and squatt across at 10m in 2 1/2ft of water.
The plan was simple and I was ready with time to spare,
so I had a chat with a couple of guys up the bank before getting settled for
the 1100 start. At the all in I fed a small ball of bread at 5m, 4 balls of
50:50 Canal and Etang (both Browning) with 1/4 of a pot of hemp and a good
helping of squatt on the long line. I also potted in 10 worms and 20 casters on
both worm lines before shipping out an 5mm punch onto the short line, it took
less than 3 seconds before roach no.1 was on its way to hand, and this
continued for 20 fish in the first 27 minutes. It was at this point that the
fear of someone starting one of the boats to my right got too great and I had
to have a look before the fish went, in 10 minutes I added 5 perch from 3 to 12oz
and it was a great boost to my net. They quickly disappeared so it was back to
the bread line where the fish had suddenly turned transparent, I fed some more
bread and that did not have the desired effect so it was out onto the long line
to try and get some squatt fish put together.
Well the squatt fish were there in numbers and the rest
of the match passed quite quickly with me taking a run of squatt fish and then
trying to snag a bonus off either of my worm lines (and another 10 minutes on the phone about insurance!!). The rain that had been with
us at the start eased and dissipated letting the sun through and there ended
the sport. I ended up feeding soft balls of groundbait and fishing straight
over the top for tiny roach with the odd better fish thrown in but in no real
pattern. I did snap up on a decent fish and also bumped off a couple of
slightly better fish ion the squatt line but as I was trying to get back into
the swing of things and fishing as an individual I was not to bothered.
I also spent far too long trying to bag another perch
from either of my lines but again I was fishing as an individual so nothing
ventured nothing gained. I didn’t gain anything but had fun trying anyway.
The all out was called and I managed to follow the scales
down from around peg 4, one thing was obvious and that was that there were
bigger fish at the top end of the stretch with loads of 2 Kilo weights coming
out for far fewer fish. Getting down to my end I had Bri Shuttler pegged to my
left and he had managed 2.130, I scrapped 2.930 and Dave Griffiths to my right
had 1.740Kg. My weight was enough to scrape 2nd in section beaten by
a 3.050 from peg 2, it is now clear just how important those 4 lost fish were!!
It was good to get on the bank again and I hope that I
can continue my run into the second match on the Bristol Avon at Chippenham.
