This round saw us off to the Kennet and Avon Canal around
Marlborough, the team was in charge of organizing the round so thank you to
John for doing all the shouting and organizing the draw. I was passed G2 which
put me on the Beeches stretch of the canal around Great Bedwyn, it turned out
to be the swim that won the open the week before with 16lb of big perch, but I didn't find that out until halfway through the match.
We all thought that it was going to be a hard day and
with there having been 32 blanks from 50 anglers the week before I decided to
hedge my bets and try to catch a fish before moving onto bigger and better
things. So my plan was simple, a bread line with 2 rigs down the deepest water
straight in front, a shallow bread line If I needed it and a worm line that I
put in 13m down the canal towards the end peg on my right. My rigs were a
standard bagging bread rig with a 0.6g DS14H on 0.12-0.08 a size 20 B511 and
no.5 elastic through the 2 and 3 of my power match kit, a light bread rig with
a 0.4 DS14 on 0.1-0.07 a size 20 B511 with no.3 elastic again through 2 sections.
My worm rig was a 4X14 Mick Bassett choppy on 0.16-0.12 a size 16 B560 with
yellow browning hollow through 1 section of my match kit. The shallow bread rig
didn’t get used but consisted of a small 4X10 float on the same line as the
light rig but no.2 elastic.
At the all in I fed a 50p piece ball of licky on the
track line and also 10 dendras and about 20 casters onto my worm line, I then shipped out with my
lighter bread rig and proceeded to trot a 4mm then 3mm punch down the swim.
Nothing happened for 30 minutes apart from a tiny indication so I tried my worm
line, third twitch and the float slipped under, I panicked and struck too soon
missing my first bite!! I severely reprimanded myself and dropped the rig in
again this time no mistake as the float twitched and disappeared from view, 1,
2, 3, strike and a 4oz perch was on its way into the net. This was brilliant
news as I hadn’t blanked so I tried again but no indications so I decided to
rest it for a few minutes, I dropped in on the bread line again and first run
through the float positively buried about a yard down the swim. A solid strike
saw a couple of yards of no.3 elastic pouring out the tip and a few nervous
minutes later a 12oz skimmer was in the keepnet. This was followed by a slow 10
minutes or so when Dave Tucker, our bank runner came to visit, but as soon as
he left I caught a couple more roach and small skimmers, the bites were coming
as soon as the bread was settling so I put the bagging rig on to see what would
happen.
As you can see the main difference is the distance from
the hook to the bulk, the bagging rig is to get the bait to a level where I
think the fish are feeding and do it quickly, it is also slightly more beefy so
you can swing bigger fish and also try to boss bigger fish out of the swim.
Back to the match and as soon as I put the bagging rig on
I started to motor with 4-10 oz skimmers coming in one a put in for 15 fish,
but they disappeared as quickly as they came so I fed a slightly larger ball of
bread and looked back on the worm line.
First put in resulted in a positive bite and a 3lb bream
coming into the net, then another run of skimmers before bites again dried up,
I refed and moved back onto the bread line where again I had a quick run of
fish and this was how my match ran until the last hour with me taking a run of
fish before swapping lines.
Coming into the last hour I knew that I had a very big
weight as I had taken 4 3lb+ bream and at this point 2 massive perch as well as
lots of smaller skimmers up to a pound and a half but averaging 6-10oz.
Suddenly though it was like flicking a switch and I had to work really hard
for my bites in the last hour as the
fish all but shut up shop, I still managed another huge perch on the worm line
and a few skimmers off both lines and to get my hopes up 2 minutes before the
end the float dipped and I was hooked up into a substantial fish that I saw
through the clear water was a pike around 4lb that I tried to swing to hand but
it dropped off. The all out was called and I could take stock of what had just
happened, I had caught a skimmer a chuck on more than one occasion and managed
3 perch for around 9-10lb as well as the 4 proper bream that had succumbed to
worm and bread. I had no idea what I had cauight but the scales would tell me,
I was on boards so up to the far end we went and Rich Chave of GBMV was on the
other end peg, he had 3 perch and a few bits for nearly a big 4lb, then there
was another high 4 and a 3lb before the guy ‘~Dave’ from Talisman who was pegged
to my left. He had a boat opposite and had managed to get a few skimmers and
good roach from underneath it on maggot over groundbait, he weighed a total of
22lb but I was confident that I had more. As I lifted my net I thought that the
man flu that I had been suffering with lately was kicking in again as it felt
heavy, it wasn't man flu but 3 weighs later I had 40lb 3oz on the scales, we
quickly weighed one of the perch separately and it went 3lb 5oz!!! I wish that
I had weighed them all separately as they were all of a similar size, MASSIVE.
The end peg had managed 11lb but he lost 2 very big fish
early that seemed to spook the fish out of his swim, back off to the football
club and it turned out that my weight was enough for 1st but another
guy on A1 had managed 34lb of Perch and Bream for second, then it was the two
pegs either side of me for 3rd and 4th overall.
On the team front we managed to win on the day with 2
section wins and only 1 blank but other sections had been dire with ounces
picking up section wins.
The next round is back on a cold Avon so here’s hoping for
another flyer.
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