I got to my peg and it looked quite nice with a good pace and a tinge of colour, I set up a gram and a half Drennan Carbo with 0.12 mm bottom and a size 18 B611 and just had time for a cup of coffee before the off. I started off fishing across at about 10 metres in a little back eddy near the far bank. I was feeding casters and hemp with caster on the hook. First put in I had a tiny dace so avoided the dreaded DNW, next chuck I had a small chublet followed on my next put in by a better one of around 12oz. I had a couple more small fish and decided to try double caster in a bid to see if there were any better chub around. This resulted in more small dace and a couple of small perch.
After a couple of hours I was reasonably pleased with my progress and was still hopeful some better chub would put in an appearance. I tried lobworm but this only resulted in a very greedy perch. Then the temperature dropped a few degrees and the bites stopped. Martyn Brook walked down from the in form tank traps peg and said he started off alright but he too was now struggling for bites. He was admitting to 4lb or so.
He left and I started trying all over the swim but to no avail. I tried slightly further down the swim holding back and a bite straight away saw me swing in a roach of 2oz, cracked it I thought but it proved to be a false dawn. With an hour to go I still felt a couple of chub might show and they did but at 12oz and 2oz they weren’t the lumps I was hoping for.
With the weather still bitter, I made quick work of packing up and walked down to weigh in (yes I had the scales yet again!). Andy Welch on peg 24 had caught five chub for 11lb 15oz and it might have been a lot more as he also lost four. Eddie on peg 17 had only caught one minnow and wasn’t weighing in, Martyn had found a few more and weighed 5lb 1oz. My 15 fish went 2lb 15oz which was more than I thought.
We got back to the Crown where an excellent buffet was laid on and then it was time for the results. Martin Heard had made the most of the aptly named Xmas peg to win with 12lb 7oz of chub. Andy Welch was second and Barney Crockett was third with 8lb 9oz of roach from peg 126 at Isle Brewers. As it was the Xmas Fayre everyone received a prize and I was suprised when I was called out in sixth position and collected a bottle of wine and a tin of chocolates for my prize. The day got better when my nemesis Janders had blanked so another nugget was heading my way although he hadn’t come back to the pub as he was so cold!
Well it’s Crown league time again next week so lets hope it warms up a bit before then. Also my charge to beat last years total of £1216 seems to be flagging and I’m currently stuck on £1085, which I’m still pretty pleased with.
