It was time again for a pilgrimage up north to Marlborough and after becoming geographically challenged I arrived in good time for the draw (much to my team captain’s relief). I had just enough time to sort out my bait and eat a butty and brew before the draw took place and I was given my directions to my peg. For the second time that day I got lost but was fortunate enough to pull over in just the right place to see a couple of cars full of fishing kit pull down a lane, so I followed them and luckily found my section. D5 was my destination for the day and this saw me with 14.5m tight across and a weed bed at 4m to my right and a fishy looking snag at 13m again just to my right. My plan was simple, aim for roach but set up a skimmer rig and put in at least 1 worm line. I plumbed up my inside bread line and found just over 3ft of water at 11.5m for a groundbait and squatt line, this gave me plenty of time to look around for a worm line and found that it was the same depth next to the weedbed to my right and also across at the snag. For these two lines I set up 2 rigs, an animal rig of 0.19mm line to a 12 Carbon feeder hook and a short length of no.14 latex through 1 section of my power kit, then a light rig of Green Vespe E2 Hollow to 0.15mm and a 0.11mm bottom with a 16 B611. The float was a handmade 4 X 14 Choppy float that had a long cane bristle and wire stem that was really stable in the strengthening breeze.
I was set up with time to spare and at the all in I fed my bread line with a Satsuma sized ball of licky, then 3 balls of groundbait with Squatt, pinkie and hemp went out on the long line. I shipped out to the snag with my animal rig with a tosspot of worm and caster and counted to 100, nothing happened so I tried the inside with the same rig and again nothing. I fed both lines with half a dozen worms and 20 caster, baited my bread rig and shipped out, it took 20 mins before my first fish and 5 mins without an indication saw me feed some licky cloud and this gave me a quick run of 5 decent bread roach. Nothing else happened on the bread line so I had a look on the snag line, the wind was increasing steadily but I managed to hold the rig steady for the full count of 80 before the float disappeared and 3ft of elastic peeled out the pole. After a brief struggle I put the net under a perch of about 12oz, shipped back out and the float went under again almost immediately, but this time the perch was barely an ounce so I re fed with a few worms and 30 casters before a look on the inside worm line saw 2 perch for 2lb in the net. This gave me a nice buffer so with nothing else coming I had a look on the squatt line, this gave me a steady run of small roach all day but with me watching the guys to my right catching skimmers I kept on having the odd look on the worm lines to no avail. With 20 mins remaining I had 4 decent perch and about 50 small roach in the net for what I guessed to be about 6lb but I knew I needed more to beat the guy to my right who had landed 4 skimmers, so I had a last look on my inside worm line (the far bank was all but unfishable with the wind) after 67 secs the float dipped and then slowly slipped away and I quickly struck. The fish was not happy and elastic peeled across the canal and 4 seconds later flew back into the pole tip!!! I was distraught as I has struck too soon and knew it! I dropped the rig back down the hole but nothing happened so I shipped across to my squatt line only to have a boat chug straight over the top of it with a few minutes left. That was the end of me catching and I was not a happy bunny with myself!!
I followed the scales along the whole section and 3 people had caught skimmers to my right for 13lb, 10lb, 8lb squatt weight, 6lb 9oz (the next peg to my right) and I had 6lb 6oz. That lost lump had cost me dearly but worst was yet to come....
On returning to the HQ it transpired that we as a team had 2 blow outs and this had put us well down the standings and into 9th overall in the league with 1 match left. Next week round 4 on the same stretches so it should be an interesting finish to the series.
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