Belmont

Tuesday saw me back up in the Holy Land. And why not, because it was superb on Sunday, plus Gethin is making serious tut tut noises and shaking his head so expect some form of additional lockdown after Xmas. TBH having been quite impressed with the Welsh Government’s performance for most of the year I do think they’ve lost it since the Firebreak. Possibly that was too harsh and then followed by what felt like minimal restrictions but it is clear that sustained high infection levels now are essentially being driven by people chosing to ignore key elements of the rules. Confusion? Fatigue? Difficult to know how and where they would clamp down further assuming that the current approach of turning the Pubs into Cafes hasn’t worked.

Anyway, Rugby Club bank (sunny side), peg 55. And in the context of my day, probably worth noting that Spud had taken 1521 Bleak for 51Lbs+ on the Sunday. Unreal!! Personally I’d had enough bleaking myself on peg 63 so today was to be about silvers, so I set up a 4g rig on a 7m Airity to run through over groundbait, and a 6g Bolo on a 15′ Acolyte Plus to run down the middle. Kicked off with a ball of groundbait and run the whip rig over the top. 2nd run through I took a 6oz Roach, then proceeded to catch or miss a fish every run through for 90 minutes. Mainly Roach at first, then more and more Dace with only the occasional Roach, which is a fairly standard response. Lovely fishing!! But then around the 90 minute mark it was obvious that the Bleak were gathering and that was that. The Dace were obviously still there but there was no way of getting a bait near them.

At this point I decided to take some time out to eat my pasty and to consider my options. I hadn’t brought any worm so a switch to a choppie approach was out. But I had brought meat, so I mixed a few cubes in with my hemp and started blasting the middle with hemp, meat and maggot. 4 reds on a size 12 nailed a couple of quick Chublets and, although I hadn’t had any Bleak issues, I switched to meat on a size 10 and basically stuck with that for 3 hours catching Chublets ranging from 4oz to just short of a pound plus some seriously stamp Dace. To prove the point I even dropped back inside for a spell but the only way I could avoid the Bleak was to fish meat, which caught me a few more Dace.

Bad light stopped play at about 4.15 but I was still getting a Chublet every bung. I dragged my net around the platform and managed to lift it out so not a red letter day, just a nice steady 50Lbs or so!!! But what a river, incredible head of fish and the best float fishing river venue in England by some distance. Back up tomorrow, making hay while the sun shines and using up my bait so I can restock in preparation for Sunday.