Since I left had Browning Andover in the summer I had
been looking for something to do this winter, I had been looking at a couple of
small winter leagues but it appeared that they didn’t want new teams entering
so myself and a few others were all at loose ends. However a few weeks ago a
message popped up on facebook from none other than Mark Harper from PI
Thatchers asking for anglers to compete in the AT South West WL, I jumped at
the chance as I have never fished this part of the Avon before and fancied the
challenge of going against the likes of PI Thatchers and Maver Batheaston on
their own territory. I was also promised lots of info so who could refuse that
offer?
I could barely sleep the night before I was that excited,
even with the added stress of moving house the next day, but it was not long
until I was trying to park up at the draw venue, unfortunately the owners of
the rugby club had heard that I was coming so they had not opened and we were
all parked up the main road. Not ideal.
As I walked towards the main throng of people I bumped
into a few friendly faces from all over the south of England, including Colin
Gittens from Premier Angling, James Carty who is now fishing for PI Thatchers
and many many more.
It turned out that the team I was fishing for would be an
adhoc team under the premier angling banner, it included Colin and the team
plan that we decided on was to catch as many fish as possible in 5 hours. I
missed the team getting called for the draw but soon found that I would be sat
on peg f5….. It meant nothing to me either at the time. I got given some rough
directions but I decided to follow the first car I could to the main car park
for ease. Mark was trying to sort me
some info on my peg but I was basically told to fish for roach as I was an end
peg and that I might get a couple of chub on the wag under the far bank tree.
This was good enough for me and I was soon winging my way to my peg as I was
envisaging a massive walk, I was wrong and it turned out that I was the closest
peg to the car park. Things got better when I got to my peg as you can see from
the photo.
My plan was quite simple and I plumbed up a waggler rig
first, well when I say plumbed I set it to 11ft deep and noticed that it had a
few feet to go so I left it at that for a start, I used a 4 AAA insert waggler
and put a 0.10mm bottom to a size 18 hook in case of the chub. Next was the
pole and on plumbing up I found the flow was at 14.5m, with just over a top 5
of depth a 1g pencil and 2g round bodied floats were set up for that line,
again with decent hooks and bottoms after the Thames the other week. Finally I
set up a small maggot feeder to fish tight across just upstream of the tree
tight to the brambles, as this was an out and out bonus fish rig the hooklength
was 0.14 to a size 16 hook and I had it about 3 feet long for the start.
I was ready for the all in and once it was called out
went 8 cannonballs onto the pole line at 14.5m with little feed in followed by
3 cupped balls laced with caster and hemp, I then sent the feeder across
towards the brambles whilst trying to get my eye in with the catty. The wind
was deceptive and I was cussing the fact that I could not get the bait far
enough across the river when on my third cast on the feeder the tip bounced
back. I struck and a good fish headed straight for the tree taking a little
line, I managed to turn it and after a few hairy moments near the net a 4lb
chub was soon being transferred to the keepnet. It was an awesome start and
with shaking hands I rebaited and cast back out towards the far bank, 5 minutes
later and a twitchy drop back saw a 6oz perch joining the chub. What a start, I
now chinned off feeding maggot on the waggler line as it was difficult to
remain accurate and so that I could reserve my maggot for the feeder line, I
also reduced the size of the feeder with the idea of casting more often to keep
the bait falling through the water.
After only another ten minutes another positive bite and
another chub was hooked and carefully played across the river, and this
continued until just after the hour mark I had 3 chub and a couple of perch in
the keepnet for about 11lb. It had started to quieten down and I was getting
indications from small fish so had a quick look on the pole, this was a good
idea as I had 5 roach in 5 put ins, they were around 8-10 to the pound so I
decided to swap my elastic up from a no.5 to a tight no.6 so that I could swing
them more easily. It worked well but after 15 minutes disaster struck and my
14.5m section shattered inside the 13m section and this prevented me from
fishing at full distance on top of my groundbait line. I decided to start
feeding as close to where I had balled as possible so added a half butt onto
the 13m of pole and rested it by chucking the feeder back across.
I had a quick indication that I missed and then the next
cast I lost a chub in the tree when the hook bent out of shape, it was a 14
B560 so I swapped it to a 14 Carbon feeder and also made some floating maggots
to offset the extra weight of the hook. As I had lost a fish I went back on the
pole and had a quick run of roach and so my day carried on swapping between the
pole and feeder trying to eek as many fish out as possible. I had managed
another chub mid match and then the fishing dropped of and in the last hour was
hard but I did lose one more decent fish on the feeder in the last 30 minutes
when it ran in a weed bed under my rod tip.
The all out was called somewhere in the distance and I
reckoned I had 15-18lb of fish, depending on the size of the chub, as the
scales reached me the Thatchers angler on peg 1 had managed 16lb odd of perch
and chub, then there was another double figure weight and then the 2 pegs
upstream of me both struggled with 2 pounds and odds a piece. I pulled my net
out and it felt good, 17lb 9oz good in fact and this was enough for the
section.
Back at the car park I managed to claim my £1 side bet
from James and then it was into the pub for the results. Thatchers won it by 3
points over Bathampton, and I managed to win the match by all of 5 ounces.
WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENT?
Not a lot really, maybe I should have spent a little more
time on the pole trying to sort out the roach?
I also should have started on a stronger hook as I was
not fishing for bream but it fortunately didn’t cost me.
And I will try not to break my pole again in future.
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