It was a pilgrimage back up to the Swan at Radcott for
the Thames Champs this week, 17 teams of 6 were in the pot fighting it out for
the title. I was fishing for the
Southwest Nomads and the team also consisted of John, Dave, Kev, Ian and Trev
so we had a half decent team, all we needed was a good draw. John managed to
deliver on that front and all but one of us were close to the end of a section,
I had E15 and this turned out to a couple of hundred yards upstream from where
I was last week. In the middle of a field of cows I found my peg and was quite disappointed
that I didn’t have a feature but as people turned up it appeared that I had
around 8 pegs downstream without a person.
Looking at and plumbing around the swim I decided on a
simple plan of a pole line in the flow, a worm line against the reeds to my
right and the waggler across, there was a nice little depression just
downstream of my peg and this is where I decided to put the groundbait at
11m. I was ready well before time even
though I had set up 2 rigs for roach, a rig for hemp the worm rig and I also
set up a feeder rod just in case it was really hard or a breakage.
Bait was simple as well with a couple of pints of maggot,
caster, worm, hemp and some groundbait, I also had some pinkies tucked away in
reserve just in case it was a tiddler day like last week, this all tied in with
the rough team plan of catch as many fish as you can in 5 hrs. As the all-in was called I cupped in 6 balls
of groundbait at 11m and fed a pinch of worms and caster in next to the reeds,
I shipped out over the pole line and ran a maggot down the swim, on the second
run through I was greeted by a gudgeon, next run a small chub, I thought I was
I for a good day when I had another chublet and small roach all within the
first 15 minutes and then it was time for the first boat of the day. As soon as
it passed I dropped my bait into the still churning water and the float buried,
as I struck the elastic poured out of the pole and I knew that I had something
special on, judging by the head shakes it was another chub but his time much
bigger but I will never know as it swam off downstream and the 0.08mm bottom
was not man enough and parted. I was
gutted but carried on, I rested the main line and took a few small perch from
the worm line but that died quickly like last week. I topped up both lines and
tried the feeder to no avail for 15 minutes so it was back onto the main pole
line again.
This is where the day started to go wrong as I could not
catch enough numbers of fish from that line and they were all about 60 to the
pound I decided to try and make something happen so I topped up with 3 balls of
groundbait with no feed and then left this to settle by chucking the waggler
out. I managed 2 small chub over the next 15 minutes but it was hard work and
again the fish seemed to back off, this wasn’t helped by most of the boats that
were coming through chugging over my waggler line. Anyway, I persevered and
swapped between the pole and the wag for the rest of the match, I managed a
couple of wasps of the worm line, they were about the same size of the
hookbait, and then it was a case of getting my head down on the tiny fish from
the pole line.
The last hour was better with a 3oz perch on the wag and
another a bit bigger on the worm line but really I was happy to hear the
all-out. I was frustrated and fully
expected to be last in section as the scales started their journey up the
section, I was really rueing the lost fish. I weighed 3lb 4oz again and this
was enough for not last so far and I beat the guy to my right which is always nice,
I drove up the section after packing up asking others how they had done and it
seemed as though I would be about halfway up the section, so I felt a little
better.
Back at the pub I reported in and the rest of the team
arrived to give us an idea of where we had come and it seemed as though we had
done alright, but due to work commitments I had to disappear off before the
results were read out. A text later told me that we were 4th by a
point, so yes I regretted that lost fish but there is always next year.
What I would do different:
In future I will be stepping up my hooklengths at the
beginning of a match and lightening up if I have to after that. That is all.
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