After even more rain (will it ever end?), this was another match I wasn’t looking forward to. I did the draw and yet again avoided any end pegs. In three matches I’ve managed one end peg for the team – not a good ratio. My destination for today was peg C2 at Cocklemoor, I got there and the river was chocolate and pushing through with lots of weed coming down the river, not pretty! On the plus side there were quite a few fish topping.
I set up a five metre whip with a 1.5 gram Drennan Carbo, 0.12 mm bottom and size 18 B611 hook. I also set up the pole with an identical float etc to fish at nine metres, although I didn’t really expect to use this much. I mixed up a bag of Sensas Roach Noire and on the whistle threw in two balls at nine metres and six on the whip line. I started catching small roach and skimmers and after an hour I had 31.
The two anglers below me were concentrating on the feeder and when two bream rolled in my swim I wished I’d set one up too! The angler on C1 was catching faster than me and getting the odd net fish as well. The second hour was much the same and I got to around 60 fish, by the third hour things were slowing up and a brief try at nine metres resulted in no bites whatsoever. I was still getting the odd fish though and the feeder anglers hadn’t had any joy so I perservered.
The river came up about four inches and by the fourth hour I was struggling and to make matters worse Danny Blunn two pegs below latched into a bream. I started feeding further up the swim and with caster on the hook I slowly started to catch a bit better although the size of fish remained the same. By the end of the match I had 115 fish and I knew I would struggle to beat the anglers on the end pegs, Danny didn’t add to his earlier bream and the Weston guy next to me had struggled I think.
I had the weigh board for the section so walked down to start the weigh in at C8. Mark Hollister had just over three kilos and when the next angler plonked three and half kilos on the scales I feared the worst. I did beat the Team Amigos guy but then Ashley Tomkins put another three kios on the scales to push me even further down the section. Danny and his bream went just over two kilos and the Weston chap had just over a kilo. My fish weighed 2 kilo 730 grams and after the angler on C1 weighed a level 4 kilos I ended up with 5 points (out of a possible 9).
Then my day took a turn for the worst when I locked my keys in the car!!!! I got Dave Lawrence to give me a lift back to Chard and then back again with my spare set of keys, cheers Dave you’re a star! I got back just as the anglers were leaving after the results, Andy was last in his section with 2 points, Dave had 3, Nicky 5 and Dunner won his and had 9 points. Our total of 24 meant we were second from last on the day and we are now bottom of the league. With the last three matches on Stathe Drain the best we can hope for is to have a good run in the knockout.
Next week is the Summer League on Dillington and it’s all gone a bit pear shaped for me there as well so wish me luck ‘cos I think I’ll need it!
