Last week I drew 70, last but one in the Café meadow :(.
Pleasure fishing in mid- week I’d found it easy to catch up on the Town, small fish but soon knocked up a weight. Don’t know why, because I wasn’t doing anything special at all. Just had to give it a go in a match, just had to.
I dipped in, left handed and pulled out the disc, wanting anywhere from 1 to upper 40’s, again..
Flipped it over…and saw … seventy one
Couldn’t crappity smakin’ believe it ! Last week the bloke on that peg weighed in 8oz.
Diana saw me out of the office with the phrase
‘there’s fish down there, honest !’
A quick look on the board to see what had been returned on Saturday….
A Crappity Smaking…DNW. Obviously a form peg.
I set up an arraaaay of tackle, popped to the café and purchased a rock cake, 80p. They’d run of their ledgendary …. Bread puddin’, my favourite.
Scoffing that with a cuppa in the other hand, it was time for a walk and a bit of
'Hob Nobbin'
I managed to catch the eye of the angler on peg 68 and told him where I was, bemoaning my draw after last week.He enthuuuused about my peg.
His boyish enthusiasm was a wonder and belied his obvious years of experience.
There’s hole under the tree to your left, bream ¾ over, IF they go, or even …let it swing round to the middle, good for roach too ..and then there’s ‘The Baker’.
We call him The Baker, cos’ he used to be a baker. Every night he comes down and fishes with bread and pulls ‘em out. He gesticulated with a clenched hand and downward pointing foream, struggling with an imaginary rod.
I was feeling better already.
Skipped back to my peg, full of ideas and boyed by the brief encounter. Proper angler I thought, old timer, seen it, done it, still lovin it. Absolute magic.
I went through the card. Tried the lot. Picked up 4 fish, the first a roach on second trot, about an ounce but it was a false dawn. Two more perch throughout the match on the stick line plus a micro dace and that was it.
I persevered with a groundbait feeder ¾ over, in front of a willow but to no avail. Might have pulled out of something and had a nipped maggot, that I was pleased to see register and that was it.
Then … a chap struggled down the bank opposite and chucked in handfuls of mashed bread, either side of the willow opposite and hard to it. The Baker ! (?)
Now…if I could just get a bait, right over there, tight to it, in that hole by the platform…. if only….
It flew like an arrow. I marvelled at my casting prowess and the tip straightened
Then I realised, I was hung up.
I managed to twitch it free, but nothing materialised. Subsequent casts flew shorter and shorter as my confidence waned for fear of bushing up again.
Time dragged and I went through everything.
I wondered how many had sat here before me, over all those years, struggling in this meadow. If ever you’ve watched the August bank holiday matches and walked down that far …
it’s the ‘dead’ end.
A Seagull swooped and nicked a fish from mid-river. Bandit !
I could have done with that. Picked up my waggler rod and fired some maggots out in the desperate, vain hope of catching something shallow.
The angler on my left had an eel, a perch and a couple of somethings which he tipped back, as I did mine, about 8-10oz worth..
The enthusiastic angler on peg 69 had had ‘a few pounds’. In the event he weighed 4lb 12oz, a couple of perch and some eels and enough for 3rd overall as the river had fished completely differently to the previous good day. Well done Mr Godard.
Alan Stephens of Alcester tackle took the section with 3lbs odd of hemp roach, but I never had a touch on it.
I thought what had changed since I made a few visits there back in the 70’s ?
Well I noticed there seems less moaning, non of the bad feeling I remember seemed to surface back then, when the café was the hut with the sliding doors.
Only proper anglers here now and a good atmosphere.
With tickets hard to get for 70 peggers, alls well down at the Ferry and if they’d let me fish the final, I’d fish it ! I would …. Honest !
