To add to that another gesture, Mark Russ handed me a new backlight for my van to replace the damage the unfortunate Brian Shutler inflicted last week. What good mates I have, typical of Pewsey boys the friendly club.
No joy though Bri Shutler had C 5 in front of the pub, and I was down St Johns Lock end. Second field in two pegs up it didn't look promising. Shallow on the inside at roughly 6 feet deep I could see the bottom of the keep net and that being a long river net ! The river was very clear and very static no movement at all until 14 meters out where it was moving but as a slow as an asthmatic ant carrying my van
To make things worse I had a bloody nippy stiff breeze right in my face and slightly downstream. My original thoughts of attack were changing rapidly. 14 Meters was the only weed free line and no cabbages. There was no fish sign at all not even pipping Bleak.
I thought I would get in with the plat form in the hope I could get below the wind. The bank was getting some grief from a Swan and on closer inspection I noted he was grazing on chopped worm, hemp and ground bait. Clearly some one had fished this peg yesterday., not sure if that is good or bad.
There was the inkling of a protruding bush on the far side . So when the match started I baited a small amount of choppy at 14 mtrs, on the basis there would be food in the area from yesterday. Didn't want to ball it in so used a bait dropper and also added hemp.
Whilst that settled I baited a whip swim with a small amount of licky bread and some grains of hemp. Then fired a bomb rod against the far bush with a 10p size bread flake to try and snare a Chubb. To be honest the far side looked the best bet but impossible to get bait too. So after 15 minutes I came in over the 14 mtr line.
The float dipped and a Gudgeon was swung into hand. the next 6 trots saw 6 more Gudgeon. I thought I would risk a small nugget of ground bait walnut size with a bit of dead pinkie in it. One more Gudgeon then nothing. 15 minutes of nothing saw me try the whip line with bread punch then Tares over the licky and hemp, but again a fruitless bite less 30 minutes.
I looked around and no body was catching. It seemed nobody except the House of Angling guy on peg 1 in my section opposite the pill box was catching. The match dragged on the wind increased and clouds gained a moody brooding look.
Holding the pole was difficult and it creaked and groaned as I tried to hold it still and inch through the bait again. One more Gudgeon.
Time to shake it up, not sit there like last week. The tip rod came out and a change from bomb to swim feeder saw it sploosh up stream of the bush and settle at the head of it. Forty five fruitless minutes saw me change to the waggler. The was bait in there from the feeder , but it wasn't enough.
A tug back on the catty saw the elastic snap and the mag caster mix, drop in at my feet bugger. How would I get bait there? A root around in the bag and I found some sticky mag. So I knocked up or so grape size sticky balls that would fit in a smaller "pult" and pinged one after every cast on the waggler.
God was against me though as the wind was now right in my face. A change from 5bb to 7 bb waggler made it easier but the Normark Microlight was struggling against it. What a glorious rod the Normark is and all though the fish were not biting I was enjoying using quality kit.
Surprisingly the last hour flew by and I was hoping against hope now. It seemed nobody even in the section below and at least pegs up from me were catching. Its normally about now someone hooks a a bonus to overtake me. I say overtake as the waggler work against the wind had been rewarded with 5 Bleak. I was sure If I could get into far bank tight I would get a bigger fish. So an almighty heave Ion the whistle I whacked it out...............disaster the unwarranted pressure meant my middle section cracked of and the top section and part of the middle section landed mid river.
Utter shock was only broken by the end of match whistle and I was gutted that I had broken my rod.
Dear Readers if any of you have a middle section for a Mark 2 Normark Microlite I would be grateful if you could contact me. Time to scour Ebay.
So after a lovely start to the day with a gift. A crushing end to it by breaking a precious favourite rod. The scales and boards came down the bank and I wondered just how many fish the bloke on peg 1 had?
Sure enough he had me beat. That was not really the point though ISIS were ahead of us, so had I beat Pete Gilbert below me. I was fairly sure I had, as he had struggled like the rest of us.
Yes I had done enough. I was never gonna beat peg 1 opposite the pill box so had the next best thing. Graham Godwin came by and he had second too, but was bemoaning a lost Chubb, Mark came up from F section and he had third , but most important ISIS had had a bad day.
Had to get away sharpish so don't know the results. Lets hope we are back on level terms. Two matches to go.
Post match brief news. House of Angling had 4 section wins and their guy "Elvis" won the day peg 1 D Section I think. It seems we picked up on ISIS and are only 2 points behind now.
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