I was rudely awoken by my alarm at 0315 this morning so that
I could drive across the country and take part in the Jefferies Cup at on the
Nene in March. It was an easy run at
that time in the morning and I was soon enjoying a breakfast and waiting for the
rest of the Army Teams to turn up. The
morning went too smoothly when I missed out on being a team captain and was
soon having A8 thrust into my hand, in Army B was myself, Rikki, Bri and Gaz so
we had half a chance if it was a good draw.
Kev said he knew the way so Craig, who was pegged next to me
on A7, and I followed him to the wrong section, oh how we laughed, not Kevs fault; he had
been given a bum steer. Five minutes
later we were pulling up in the right section and finding our pegs.
Settling down I decided to fish bread short, groundbait by
the boats and a worm line down the river to my right, my groundbait was the
first job and a mix of Gros Gardons, No.1, Lake and brown Crumb with a few
special bits was soon ready for a rest. I then spent a bit of time plumbing up
and found a few problematic bits of weed in the swim, but after 10 minutes I soon
had 3 areas of the swim earmarked and finished my prep.
I was readyish for the all in apart even though I had been
chatting to Craig for most of the time; we had already decided to go a quid
when we found out that we were in the same section so I was surprised when he
started giving me tactical gems. I repaid the favour, sit on the dry stuff and
use a hook. I fed a small ball of licky bread at 2+2, then 3 balls of
groundbait across to the boat, all quite hard as I wanted them to take a while to
break down and reveal the goodies inside them. I went straight out on the bread
line and started catching straight away. I was on a 0.6g float with a 0.08mm hooklength
to a 20 B511, this was set on doubled 4 again and it was working a treat even
letting me swing 4oz roach with ease but still remaining soft enough not to
bump any off. It was 30 minutes in and Craig had his second bite on the worm that
I had seen and I was swinging my 30th fish to hand for close to 2lb.
It was at this point that my day went wrong as I decided to feed my worm line,
now this could have been an inspired decision and I could have had 20lb of
skimmers or tench but I didn’t.
After feeding the worm line it was back on the bread fish but
they had reduced in size drastically, a small nugget of bread and depth change
sorted it for 3 more fish but then it started to turn into a grind. I tried on
the worm line for a couple of small perch and across for a couple of roach
before they backed off but it was head down time.
I rotated trough the swims taking as many fish as I dare
from each one, a few eels started coming out on worm to my left and right so I
swapped my hooklength to a 0.16mm bottom and a size 13 B711, this didn’t put
the fish off, so is one to remember. I tried loose feeding over the groundbait
line but the fish seemed to spook off to many loose offerings, so a small
nugget of groundbait after every rotation was the plan.
The flow was tricky, it was going left to right, then it
stopped and flowed the other way for 2 ½ hours before going back left to right
for the last hour, odd. The fish preferred it going left to right. The wind and
leaves on the water and bottom were also a pain but I was steadily amassing a
weight.
The last 30 minutes saw a quick flurry of better roach and
then it was all over, I was confident that I had done Craig but the guy to my
left had been sneaking fish in all day from one line down the track, Craig had
6lb odd, I beat that with 9lb 4oz then the guy to my left had 10lb dead. I ended up 7th in section, Craig
was12th and kev was last, I didn’t Hang around for the results as I had to do
the 3 hour drive home.
What would I do different
Not a lot really I could say leave the worm in the car but if
I had done that it would have been a worm day. Next time I will be stricter on
myself for 100 seconds on the worm and if they are small I will come off it as
they were taking longer to catch than the Gustas.
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