Bit canalled out to be honest but the alternative was the final round of the Wye WL and although I’m mad on fishing I’m not actually a lunatic. And we were promised decent pegs, in the town. In the event, I did manage to draw a decent peg, 2, in the garage pond. As is often the case with the town ponds, the peg plumbed up the same depth everywhere, so set up was simple: 1 4×14 Drennan Roach for punch, 1 Bloodworm rig and a squat/maggot rig.
At the off I cupped a large ball of lickie at 5m, then double leamed 150 mL of joker at 9m, and finally cupped groundbait and caster at 13m and added 150 mL of double leamed op, then dropped in short with a 5mm punch. Nothing happened for 10 minutes and I was just starting to get a bit twitchy when the action started. It was never solid on the bread and I was scaling down pretty quickly, but at least I was catching . The angler on peg 1 started catching at around the same time but was definitely catching quicker than me, and even more so when I decided to move my bulk up a bit and managed to snap the rig. Doh!! But in compensation I seemed to catch longer than him at this stage, although it got to the point where I was getting little dinks etc. which were off mini Dace. But when Vince came walkabout about 90 minutes in I estimated my catch at 2Lbs (probably over-estimated, to be honest). Eventually, after lingering on the bread for at least 20 minutes too long, I switched to pinkie and picked up a few more fish, but that was short-lived so I dropped in at 9m with bloodworm and started catching Perch. Same result at 13m when I went long so I fed double-leamed joker at 5m and spent the rest of the match switching between lines to pick off a few fish on each, mainly Perch with the odd Roach or Gudgeon. Peg 1 was obviously leaving me behind, as the bread line was now producing again and then he was catching long, and with his unrestricted shipping Vs my double break-down he was able to do 2/3 fish to my one, so I was like a one-legged guy in an arse-kicking contest. When the scales came, peg 1 had done a busy 10Lbs+ of mainly small Roach to take 2nd place overall and comfortably beat my 4-12-0 of mainly Perch which then picked up the section by default. Top weight was Mike G with 11Lbs+ of Skimmers off the RH peg in the Horseshoe, with Nige Evans topping a run of 8Lb weights from up on Darlington. And, surprisingly, it didn’t all fish that well, with ounces winning some sections.
26 Year ITCH 