Sunday 26^th January – Kingswood RBL Club Match – Barton Farm, Bradford-on-Avon

First off, I fished the Thursday Costcutter Open at Windmill Fisheries last Thursday. Only 9 crazy fools decided to have a go at this one in gale-force conditions and monsoon rain. I drew peg 21 and on a normal day I would have been more than happy with it but today the wind was heckling me and bashing my face in right from the start. I had to position and anchor my brolly in place with 2 bank sticks and guy ropes. Once again the water looked pretty clear so I ruled out any inside line work. Instead, I settled for a bomb and maggle approach with two 8-metre pole lines as backup. Long story short… Whatever I did was totally futile and not a single bite to be had all day. 4 anglers did manage to catch a fish apiece… end of story.

Swiftly moving on…

The river Avon at Barton Farm played host to the Kingswood RBL club match on Sunday and I don’t think anyone was really looking forward to it. While it’s nice to get back on the river, it had a chocolaty colour to it and with heavy rain forecast it was inevitably going to come up. Only 8 brave souls were foolish enough to tackle this one and each deserve a medal. I drew peg 5, which was the first peg in the field past the gate. This is a dream peg, if ever there was one, and under normal conditions I would have relished fishing this peg to its full potential. This peg produced a match-winning 15lbs of chub the previous Sunday in the Colmic South West King of Clubs qualifier. It was a very different story today…

Well, although the river was up and coloured it had a nice steady pace and so I set up a float rod with a 7BB Crowquill Avon float. I also set up a maggle feeder/groundbait feeder rod, which would be doing most of the work today. I did take a 4.5 metre whip out of my holdall but decided not to fit a rig to it unless I was desperate, and only if I saw any surface swirls from bleak. As predicted by my favourite weather girl, Lucy Verasamy, the rain arrived at 10am and was accompanied by strong gusty winds. I had already pegged down my brolly in anticipation but after an hour it was hit directly by a strong gust of wind, which bent the pole right over at a right angle. As I tried to straighten it, it snapped and so I had to spend the rest of the match fully exposed to the elements. FFS!

Now, with an hour gone, I had given up on the float and was resigned to fishing a groundbait feeder for the rest of the day. So, with 90 minutes gone on the clock, I had a very tentative bite. I wasn’t sure whether to strike or not as it only seemed to be in the early stages of development but nothing else happened. I reeled in to find that my maggles had been totally trashed. So, I shortened the hooklength to just 12 inches, baited up and lobbed it out again. I was only fishing around a third of the way across the river as there was just too much debris coming down the middle and beyond. About 5 minutes later I was netting a small roach of around 3 ounces. Phew! What a relief!

The fooking rain was really hammering down now and it was very uncomfortable fishing to say the least. I felt like packing up at that point but in true Legion fashion I, and everyone else for that matter, just soldiered on. About 30 minutes later, I got a proper positive bite from a better roach of around 6 ounces. I was sure this one had hooked itself. So, with 2 fish in the net, I was now feeling a bit chipper because I knew from Jason’s earlier walkabout that there wasn’t much being caught. After almost 3 hours in, and man oh man oh man! The fooking rain was like a monsoon now! It was getting muddier and more slippery all around me and the relentless rain was really pissing me off big time now.

Still, I carried on… my so-called waterproofs were proving to be much less waterproof than they should have been and I was beginning to feel the cold rain against my skin. I think it was around about this time when I certified myself as being totally insane… and yet still I carried on. With just over 2 hours left, the rod tip went right round and I struck into a small chub of about 10 ounces. Wow! I really needed that, which helped lift the spirits… for about a Nano-second. I then changed to a maggle feeder but had no takers after half an hour so I went back onto the groundbait feeder. In the last hour, the skies darkened and I was certain we were about to witness the apocalypse. I hadn’t had any more bites either! The river only rose about 5 inches during the course of the match so that was a blessing… of sorts.

When 3 o’clock finally came, I was more than happy to blow the all-out whistle. Then within minutes, the rain had stopped, the sky turned blue, and the sun came out! FFS! You couldn’t make this stuff up! It was a slow job packing everything up with puddles and mud everywhere. By this time I was really cold, wet, fed up and desperate to get home. Match secretary, Ian Brice, finally got around to us in the field and told us that Leigh Wakefield had caught a 5-5-0 bream plus a few quality roach from peg 1. His total weight went 7-14-0 but… only 13 ounces was lying in second place. Aha! Did I have a chance for second or third place perhaps? Well, my 3 fish weighed 1-3-0 and I was currently in second place. This was a points and pairs match and I desperately needed to pull back some points, so it was looking good…so far.

Well, the others could only manage ounces. So, Leigh “Long Shanks” Wakefield left us all in his wake today and very well done to him. I was more than happy to settle for second place and Jason, “in the money again” Pitman ended up in third place with 13 ounces. It proved to be a fooking tough day for all concerned and one that I wouldn’t want to repeat again… ever! It’s defo going to take a week to dry everything out!

Well, just a sad day to get through tomorrow and then I’ll be back out to Windmill on Thursday for some vital therapy, and to try my luck at qualifying for the Costcutter 500… keep you posted!

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