Newbridge

Saturday, and I fancied a change from an overly predictable Evesham so turned out for an Open at Newbridge. Unfortunately (and surprisingly), only another 7 turned out for the same match. But at least that meant a decent mix of pegs for us to go at, and to my amazement, I drew peg 18. The first time I have ever been able to park behind my peg at Newbridge. Definitely one off my bucket list.

Not an awful lot of flow and fairly clear but not gin, so I set up to fish at 11m with a 1.5g Sensas Avon for running through, a 2g Colmic Keel for edging through and a 4g Sensas Pawel for full-blown laying on. Hooks were Sensas 3405 20 to 0.08 on the light rig, same pattern in 18 to 0.09 on the 2 grammer and a size 16 B560 to 0.12 on the heavy rig. I set up a Top 5 just in case I needed to go down the hemp route but didn’t rig it up (2 second job if needed). I also assembled a feeder rod.

Cupped in 6 balls neat and 4 packed with caster and hemp. Really I could/should have balled it but I’m not brilliant when I’ve had some practice and stone cold as I was anything could have happened. The mix was probably Gros Gardons, crushed Hemp and brown crumb (I found it in the freezer!!!!). Dropped in with the 1.5g rig and maggot, pinging caster and hemp over the top. And to be honest I wasn’t in the slightest bit surprised to find that Bleak were an absolute bloody nuisance. Switching to caster on the 2g rig and bombing it through was better, but still frustrating, so after 20 minutes I switched to worm heads, and started to have a run of small but welcome Roach.

It wasn’t amazing but at least I was getting bites and the fish were just about worth having. But the disaster struck as I was shipping back on a small Roach and the Top 4 fell off (common Daiwa trait!). As it happend Warren Bates was watching me so I got him to pass me my feeder rod, clipped a bomb on and then discovered that I was wrapped around the tip. Sorted that and somehow managed to get a tangle around the reel. (yes, I was panicking which doesn’t help). By now the Top 4 plus fish had drifted downstream and was obscured by the tree on my left. So with Warren’s help I had to force my way in below my peg and somehow managed to cast over the rig and retrieve it and the Top 4. Somewhere in this process I lost the fish, probably piked, but that was minor irritation in the scheme of things.

It then probably took me fully 15 minutes to recover from this pantomine. Losing a Top 4 is probably the event that will cause my overworked ticker to blow up. The odd thing was that I was no longer getting regular bites on worm, which I put down to the break in feeding, but then the float buried and I found myself playing a decent fish. Nod, nod, nod. Skimmer! About 2 Lbs. I was very pleased to get that netted because It moved me along quite nicely. I, of course, did the obvious thing and dropped in with the heavy rig and a worm/caster cocktail. This actually got me a chunky Roach but no more Skimbobs, so I reverted to the 2g rig and was on this when Geraint showed up to tell me that the anglers downstream of me had a couple of pounds or less. I’d just told him about my Skimmer when the float buried again and I had another Skimmer. Or actually a Bream, a proper one! I can state positively now that although yellow hydro is a thing of great beauty it is not designed for playing 6Lb river Bream. But somehow everything held together and I slipped the net under it. It took ages to recover in the keepnet so it must have been as shagged out as I was.

This of course triggered another look on the heavy rig but with no success. I switched back to the 2g rig and managed to hook another Skimmer/Bream which did tthe normal nodding thing at first but then took an extraordinarily fast run downstream and seemed to surface right under the tree, snagging me in the process. Very odd, only thing I’ve seen similar to that was when commerial Skimmers leap clear of the water. Back on the heavy rig which proved to be a waiting game, but eventually Bream #2 snaffled a worm/caster cocktail and was landed with a little less drama thanks to solid 8 laccie. But that was about it.

It was pretty quiet on the worm now so I thought I’d have another look on the caster and surprisingly I started to pick up Roach, mainly small but with the odd chunkier example. Unfortunately Mr.Pike liked Roach as much as the Roach liked caster, which resulted in a few trashed rigs and numerous bust hooklengths, and then to cap it all I did a re-run of the lost Top 4 jape. Got the kit back with less hassle this time (practice makes perfect) and even recovered the fish but trashed the rig in the process. And finally Mr.Pike got bored or something and I was able to put a short run of small Roach together, until the Bleak returned which saw me end the match back on the worm head.

All of this excitement added up to 14-10-0. About an hour from the end I checked a missed call and discovered that it was from Tim Ford aka ‘legend’. It seemed rude not to respond and when I did we swapped estimated weights and Tim declared me the winner. But then I reminded him that ‘It ain’t over ’til the Fat Lady sings’ and sure enough when the last notes had reverberated around the Avon valley Tim had made a late surge to weigh 14-12-0. Well done that man. And when everyone got back after a protracted weigh-in peg 24 had had 20Lbs plus so that was a clear winner, Tim was second and myself third. I’d already got my wallet out when Kev Dicks explained ‘there’s only 8 of us Mike, so I’m only paying 2’, ‘look, see, I wrote it on my hand’. And indeed, there it was, on the hand of Kev, £75/£50. So it must be right………………………..