Last match in the league today, it's been a well run league, albeit one that won't linger too long in the memory for me. League winner Tony Rixon picked me up, nice for him to have it in the bag with one match still to go, proof that a simple approach and confidence in it pays off.
The draw tin wasn't too kind to me, off to peg 81 on Cary, which is usually a bit of a feast or famine peg where silvers are concerned and it's mostly been famine this series looking at the previous weights/points from it.
With the wind blowing into my face and rain forecast to fall all day, the first thing I set up was a small groundbait feeder, to fish out level with the end of the spit. Two pole rigs completed the tackle line up, a MW diamond to fish at 11m, for caster or maggot over groundbait and a rig to fish down to the monk, in the hope that some decent perch or tench were in residence and hungry.
Not much point in fishing negatively today, as a few small roach won't be enough for the section or frame and with Tony Rixon and Tim Pallant in the section on pegs 78 and 79 it would be tough to beat them. I cupped 5 balls of groundbait into the 11m line, some caster down to the monk and then started on the feeder. in 50 minutes I had one bite, which was a skimmer about 10oz. Even with a fluoro maggot on, the tip remained resolutely still, the rain was still holding off so time to switch to the 11m line. This produced a few bites, but instead of the intended skimmers, the pegs occupants seemed to consist of 1-2oz roach. As this was all I could catch, I set up the waggler rod that had lain ready made up in the rodbag, this was effective at catching the roach, but they weren't coming quickly enough to build a double figure weight.
The monk produced a couple of 4oz roach and two perch, one about 12oz, another 8oz, but bites were few and far between. A new line was started at 11m along the spit, this fed just with maggot, as caster had been totally non productive, just one ½oz roach to show for it, this line produced a few hybrids and roach, with the hybrids being of a better stamp than the roach, one of them going just over a lb.
To round off the series, I lost a fish that would have won me the section, a hybrid of at least 3lb, in fairness it was lassoed or fouled, I lifted the rig to lift and drop the bait and it was on, it came to the surface totally inanimately, with it's dorsal fin and a proportion of its back out of the water, one big kick of its tail and it was gone, along with a chance of any sort of redemption for the series.
By rotating the lines and keeping fish, even though small, coming, when they went on the scales the dial pulled round to 10.08, as expected not enough to beat Tony or Tim who both managed to find a couple of better skimmers as they took 1st and 2nd in the section with 12.07 and 12.02.
The trip home was not without event, a dark wet and miserable night and as we pulled away from the traffic lights in Shepton mallet and drove into the dip by the cider factory, a car pulled out of town lane totally oblivious to our presence, Tony nearly managed to stop, but the young lads Audi suffered a crumpled wing as we unavoidably hit him, thankfully at low speed. Then coming out of Clutton and rounding the corner towards Chelwood we came to a halt in a line of stationary traffic with a sight of half a dozen or so blue lights at the top of the hill. Thinking it would be a good idea to turn round and cut through Clutton village and round by the Hunters Rest, we did so, forgetting now that nearly everyone has a sat nav, so many others had the same idea, even if they didn't have that bit of local knowledge. The van got stuck in a soft verge, causing a bit of a jam in the narrow lanes, but with a push from some helping hands we got on our way and at least got home safely.
1. Steve Tucker 21.10 peg 110
2. Bob Gullick 20.13 peg 98
3. Paul Greenwood 17.04 peg 131
4. Keith Mashedar 17.00 peg 119
5. Andy Power 16.12 peg 56
6. Ian Didcote 16.10 peg 98
Overall.
1. Tony Rixon
2. Bob Gullick
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