Baywatch at Lady,s Bridge

Lady,s Bridge

What a day.  Don't let the above sunshine fool you. It was more like October today, than June. This was as good as it got today.  The turnout was the biggest I have seen since my return to Pewsey Club.  I thought it was Pewsey DAA versus Calne AC but actually that fixture is at Lady's Bridge in August.  All attending hoped to draw in the bay.  I wasn't so sure.  I saw Kevin Chubb in the tackle shop yesterday.  He has had this past week of and had fished twice at Lady's bridge barely getting a bite.  Those of you that know, Kevin will know, he is a seasoned superstar and a tidy canal angler so if he struggles.................

Peg 1 was the first corner of the bay and peg 6 the last leading to Peg 20 in Wilcott direction.

The bay has changed considerably since my last visit of 35 Years ago.  There are posts to stop boats turning and as a consequence it is a shallow silt filled lagoon.  Me I drew peg 4 smack bang in the middle of the bay. Waggler everyone shouted. Had a tip rod and pole but no waggler, will anyone lend me one?  That's a no then, draw well and than ask for a rod to fish it , it ain't gonna happen.

Get to the peg to find I am so close to a boat, I can barely get my net in; and have a ash tree virtually bashing my head with the increasingly gale force wind is only just above me.  I going have to get into the edge to give me some headroom. So I test the depth, which is close to wader top depth.  Set up my platform and lower back legs first and then the front via a bungy.  It  works and I have a platform with out getting wet. Put my box on attached the side try, and generally laid out my kit.  Nearly all done with 15 minutes to go, and I note I have left my bread up the bank. Getting off the platform I almost stand in a nasty hole.  Carefully I push my pole to one side.  Don,t want to fall on it. Grab the bread, and then that's when disaster strikes.

Coming down to the platform I slip on some crushed bank side giant hog weed, put me foot in the hole twist my ankle and pitch headlong toward the canal.  Crashing into my platform, I knock tackle box, four top kits, wand tip rod and reel and all my bait straight in.  

Panic sets in and  a hasty de-robbing sees me in my orange boxers and waders getting in a flailing  and fishing around trying to salvage the mess.  I suppose my orange boxers and big boobs really did make it like an episode of Baywatch.  Although my boobs are bigger than Pamela Andersons it was not a pretty site.

So after getting the bib and brace back on (after getting out I sat in some stingers) giving me an itchy spotty ass, for the rest of the day.  

Take stock, disaster. All maggot, caster, pinkie and half my ground bait gone, a quarter kilo of worm, the remainder being soaked through and crawling in all directions.  Leaving me with a quarter kilo of worm some bread crumb and a slice of bread.  

My retrieved box is pouring water out of every orifice in all directions, like a garden water feature, and the draws had come open losing for ever their contents including shot, a brass punch set, some small cage feeders, my choppy scissors. Packs of hooks, plummets and other sundry items.

I do save a couple of buoyant  disgorgers etc. But in short I am in the brown stuff.  My tip wand, is soaked through and the reel is caked in blue clay. Fortunately still has hook length and tiny cage feeder attached.

The guy on the boat announces good morning to me, and he realises after my withering look that it really isn't a good morning in fact its s**t. He then says you don't mind if I start up do you?  Starts his motor and ducks back in.. The engine runs for three hours - Great what a day.

 After trying a little bread on the inside, trying to make my adapted flake as punch like as possible, I had no bites and we are over halfway through the match.  Boats are piling through , and I realize I am at the point in the bend where the boats are revving their engines to redirect on a new line , completely destroying and track swim I have.

This leaves me just the tip rod across into the bay, past the posts in two feet of cabbage / snaggy / silty water. The half a bag of ground bait saved has been a savior; and I eeck it out to last the entire match, the worm is crawling all over me and everything but I am making it last.

To be honest I am being driven to distraction the gale force winds, dropping detritus from the ash tree above, occasionally tangling in the same tree when trying to cast out. I am cold very wet and now to add insult very blotchy and itchy from the giant hog weed that I had crawled over when getting out of the canal and up the bank.  My stinging nettle ass being the worst.

 Then it starts, cray fish!!! Really............... your kidding me, no it really is happening.  These American red signal crays were truly massive, one I measured at 8.5 inches long!!  Its claw alone over 3 inches. I had 13 bites 13 Cray fish.  In all by the end of the match, about 3 lb in weight.  No other bites or fish.

Peg (6)1st James Carty3 lb 2 oz

Peg (20) Kevin Chubb 1 lb 11 oz

Peg(18) Ian "Spanners" Spanswick 1 lb 2.5 oz

A blank, first blank for nearly two years, and disaster no points.  My only comfort being all the dry nets around me.  Kevin was right in his prediction it was incredibly difficult. James Carty (peg 6) won our section of seven with two big skimmers and 3 small fish for 3 lb 2 oz. Dry net on Peg 1, 12 oz peg 2, dry to my right and one Perch in the last ten minutes for half an ounce to my left.

Incredible really, almost July and if not for James's two big skimmers it would have been less that a pound from the entire bay! What is going on.  The best weights came from the end pegs, once again it appears the bank side noise had walked the fish towards Wilcott.

One final piece of bad luck to cap the day.  My platform had sunk a little into the clay bottom as the match had progressed.  Normally when this happens, especially in deeper water; I avoid getting in by hooking a bungy over the front of the platform and pulling it upwards.  Eventually the pressure tells and the platform tilts toward you and you can pull it ashore without getting wet.  Today needed two bungies.  I tugged so hard, and nothing moved.  Eventually and simultaneously the connecting bungy hooks straightened and at 200 mph one bungy whacked me in the head and another rapped my cold knuckles. Jeez IT HURT. If your gonna have a bad day do it in style I say.  Temper meant I ripped the platform ashore somehow without getting wet.

Dry nets and low ounce weights abound, long faces and complaints the order of the day.  Everyone it seems in the bay pegs had at least one crayfish.  For me it really was bay watch, I sat watching the bay in wet orange boxers ( to cover my shrinking modesty). Most depressing of all is that the lads think it will be tougher next week on the Thames at Bampton!!

The usual suspects Left to Right 1,2 and 3 James, Kevin and Spanners.

Kevin and Spanners incrementally increase their Championship cause.