In a complete turnaround from last week, this week was going to be bright and mild after a frosty start. Would the fishing be better for me too? At the draw everybody wanted to get Isle Brewers and nobody wanted peg 17 and how I laughed when my nemesis Janders drew it! Martin Heard drew cock on with peg 125 at Isle Brewers (and he reckons I draw well!). I pulled out peg 14 (the tanktraps) and was delighted as I’d framed the last four times I’d drawn it. My only concern was that Janders only caught 15oz from it last week.
I got there and it looked lovely, I set up my usual gram and a half Drennan Carbo with 0.12 mm bottom and size 18 B611 and my elastic was blue hydro. On the whistle I started in the flow running into the traps and fully expected a bite first put in. This didn’t happen and despite trying tight against the concrete traps, after half an hour I was still biteless. I tried to my left in the slack water behind the grass island and in the little cutback below the traps, both to no avail. I tried double red maggot and caught a minnow, so at least I had avoided the dreaded DNW.
After three and a half hours I had tried every inch of the swim I could reach with the pole and all I had to show for my efforts was the one minnow. Feeling rather dejected I walked down to see how the others in my section were getting on. Digger was on new peg 15A and had caught three dace and missed a bite while I was there. Janders was on peg 18 (as he had the choice of 17 or 18) and I fully expected him to say he was struggling and was rather taken aback when he said he’d had four chub and had lost one. As I trudged back past Digger he shouted up he’d just caught another dace and a roach.
I sat back on my box and was just at a loss as to what to do, I tried holding back a lobbie in the flow but all this resulted in was a drowned worm! With a couple of hours to go I was back by the traps with caster on the hook when out of the blue the float went under. It wasn’t a big fish but a roach of around 2oz, still it was a start. I had visions that the fish had switched on and I might do some serious bagging but another biteless five minutes put paid to that. Then fishing in the flow I had another roach, this one about 4oz and that set the scene really, I would get a fish in one place before having to try somewhere else.
While never catching fast I was getting enough bites to keep me interested and I ended with 6 roach, 2 dace, 2 chublets and that minnow. I did lose one fish and missed a couple of bites, it was very frustrating because I know there are loads of fish in the swim but they just wouldn’t switch on. Digger walked up with the scales and I weighed 2lb 15oz and I knew that would get me nowhere, Digger had a similar net of fish but his went 2lb 6oz, so at least I had beaten someone. Malcolm Levy had two chub for 5lb 5oz from peg 23 and Janders had added several more fish to weigh 8lb 14oz and take another pound off me – git.
Back at the results and Martin had won his second match on the trot with a brilliant 16lb 9oz of quality roach, Graham Field was on another good peg at Isle Brewers and had 12lb of roach for second. Janders was third but had won our section to further his lead in the league to four points, I’m still second but with twelve points I am losing ground fast with three matches to go.
Next week is the annual open so at least I won’t have to worry about leagues until the week after!
