River looked good when we arrived, probably 4 or 5 inches on, but no colour. Walked the length with Heinzer and we noted all the peg numbers for the draw as its now permanently pegged. Allotted pegs 27 and 28 to our 2 "elderly statesmen", Phil and Tommy, then we all drew. As there were only 14 attendees we fished pegs 22 to 35. I drew 31, which was a short trolley push into the wood. Nice looking peg with a nice stick float flow on the inside, so out with the rods, and plumbing up had quite a shock
These pegs used to be about 3 - 4 feet inside and about 8 ft down the middle, but to my surprise found about 7 foot on the inside and about 12 ft down the middle
Put on heavier floats for both lines, and also set up the pole, hoping for a bit of hemp/tare action later with the Roach. Tk called about an hour in and said Cottee was admitting to about 8oz at the top end. I could only admit to about 4oz, half a dozen baby chublets and a couple of bleak
two hours in and all methods tried, I decided to set up a big lignum stick float and fish further out (about 4-5 rod lengths). Immediately I started to get more action, albeit from 1 and 2 ounce Dace and Roach, but enough to keep topping the net up. Tried different shotting patterns and eventually picked off a few 4 oz roach and Dace. Tricast came up with about hour and a half left and I admitted to about 3lb, which he said was excellent compared to what he had seen on his walk about ::) Had a few more fish up to 3 oclock, all slightly better stamp Dace, when I noticed a distressed looking 4 oz Roach in my net. Lifted my net and noticed the Roach was stuck in a hole in my net.
Lifted the rest of the net out and was gutted to find almost everything undr 2 - 3 oz had gone
. Talk about gutted
I couldn't fish the last 15 minutes, I was so miffed
. My own fault though, after fishing the River on Wednesday and having a couple of pike attacks on my net, I never checked it before the match
. Finished up weighing 2lb, but swear I had put 5 - 6lb in the net
. Ah well, lesson learned. The net was 10 years old, and had a few repairs previously, so its now in the bin, and am going to have to stick my tight yorkshire hands into my tight Yorkshire pockets for a new one