Mixing It Up!
Saturday I was on the Warwickshire Avon for the Individual National and drew permanent peg 66 at Barford. Really nice to be able to park directly behind these pegs. Was told by the friendly steward that I’d get a few bites, but would struggle to beat the last two pegs before the bridge where the better chub live. A quick chat with Jamie Robbins confirmed that as he’d been on the same peg recently.
It was a lovely streamy looking swim, but so clear and shallow that I could see all the way across when the sun came out. With streamer weed out to the middle and no more than around 3ft anywhere I basically had one area I could run a float down and managed to winkle out 2.85kg (6lb 5oz) of mostly little chublets, plus a few tiny roach, dace and gudgeon and two amazing little baby barbel of 3oz and 14oz, which were great to see. Nice day’s float fishing in the sun.
I caught best on a light stick float, but also had a few on an extra long line pole rig. Last hour the peg was finally in shade from the houses opposite. I hoped it would get stronger, but sadly the opposite happened. It did coincide with a bit of hedge strimming going on opposite though! Lovely day on a great bit of river, but I just felt a bit limited as to what else I could have tried on the day… Well done Lee Kerry on the win on a sunny day when the entire river fished a bit below par.
Sunday I was down at Albans Lakes for a Feeder Masters qualifier. I drew peg 9 on the Willows specimen lake, which was on a point and it looked half decent. I’m nursing a bit of a shoulder injury at the moment, so was thankful that I didn’t need to be punching my big bait-up feeder as far as the wider pegs! I really attacked it with loads of bait doused in stinky Sonubaits Krill & Squid Bait Booster. Second cast I was attached to an unstoppable catfish, which sadly broke my 0.23mm hooklength after a 10-minute, very one-sided scrap! I came back with over 2ft of slime up my rig! Some monstrous cats in that lake, but we’ll never know quite how big that moggy was… Sadly no more carp or cats put in an appearance but I managed 10 bream and skimmers for 20lb and a thanks for coming. For some reason those skimmers were the smelliest I’ve ever caught and the wasps can’t get enough of the slime on my nets!?
Another match I nearly forgot about was the previous week at Meadowlands for Round 4 of the Matrix Champs. Disappointed to be sat on peg 38 in a very still looking bowl of Lambsdown with the wind hacking the other way. As well as end peg 36 in my section we were also in with end peg 32 on the opposite bank on the day… With no wind I felt it would be hard on our Pump Bank, but I didn’t think it would fish quite that tough. I felt I did the right thing getting my head down on the little skimmers and had a nice match catching 35lb of them on meat and a very late 10lb carp for 45lb. Kept priming my bomb line but just had two skimmers and a foul-hooked perch on that. Cannot believe I never saw or hooked another carp in five hours!
That was 3rd in section, just 4lb behind Lee Davis’ bomb fish next door and, as expected, peg 32 on the opposite bank comfortably won the section. The better half of the Pump Bank was won with just 60lb which is crazily low for this lake and the standard of angler on it. The other end of the lake fished very well, however, and a big well done to John Nicholls winning with 252lb from peg 1. Disappointed with a section 3rd, but I’ve sat on two great pegs in this league, so was definitely due a tougher one… Next round is at Packington.
