River Nene Match 4th December

Having just returned from a week in sunny Fuerteventura with the wife I was keen to get back on the river and the timing couldn't really have been better. Deeping St James AC had a sweepstake arranged on the Nene at Wansford on the Sunday and so I made the call and booked myself in. On arrival  at the draw I noticed that there were a few anglers less than the last match I had attended before I went on holiday but never the less there were 14 of us which was good as it would allow some of the lesser pegs to be dropped from the match.
Into the draw bag and out comes peg 15 which was about mid point on the stretch and was a park and fish peg not that any of the pegs have much of a walk which is great for match fishing.
The river was very clear and had little flow but there were plenty of fish topping although I suspect most of them were Bleak.


The view from peg 15

I decided to set up the pole first with a 1.5gr Tubertini float and on plumbing up I found I had an even depth of about 9ft all the way from 9 to 13 metres. However I planned to start off at 9 metres as the wind was gusting quite hard downstream and I didn't want to bait up further out and find my presentation was difficult further out.
I also decided to set up an elasticated whip at 4.5m to hand just in case I could get them going close in or I got plagued by Pike.

At the whistle I introduced 4 small balls of groundbait made up of equal amounts of Dynamite Baits, River and Black Roach and to this I added a little Hemp a few Pinkies and some Casters.

Maggot, Caster, Wheat, Hemp and Dynamite Bait Groundbaits

I baited up and ran the rig through the peg about 5 times before the float went under and I promptly missed the bite but at least there were some fish over the feed. The next run through I made no mistake and was I rewarded with a small Dace of around an ounce to open my account. I must admit that given the conditions I thought that 5lb would be a decent weight on the day and decided to adopt this as my target for the four hour match, anyway I got into a steady rhythm catching small Roach and Dace regularly and after an hour I was confident that I had about 2lb in the net already. It hadn't been a bad first hour but the bites were tailing off so I cupped in another couple of small balls of groundbait but it didn't really make any difference so after 10 or so minutes I decided to give casters a try to see if I could find any better stamp fish.

Well funny old thing I had a bite and and I netted a 4oz Roach so I thought that it could be worth a little time to see if I could entice anymore as you don't need too many of them for a pound. After half an hour I had only had 2 more similar sized Roach but I was aware that there was a Pike in the swim and so dropped a small ball of grounbait on the inside and spent the next 20 minute on the whip. The fish were probably only averaging half an ounce but at least they were coming at a steady rate and they all count at the scales.
I then Introduced another couple of balls on the pole line and caught a few fish before the Pike would unsettle the fish again and this was the pattern until half an hour from the end when the Pike grabbed a Roach I was bringing in and after a couple of minutes it broke my hook length.
I know it would have been simple enough to put a new hook on but I decided against it and just came back on the short line too hand. I finished up mainly catching Bleak of about 1/4oz with and odd 1oz Roach amongst them until the final whistle, at this point I didn't really know how I had done but I knew that I had beaten the 2 anglers upstream of me.
I quickly packed my gear away and set off to have a look at the weigh in, I was shocked to see that over 7lb had come off of peg 4 but it looked a different story with the other pegs up to me and nobody below me was admitting to much more than 3 or 4lb.
At the scales I was pleased to see 5lb 5oz register which was enough to put me into second place and with only one more angler breaking 4lb it was enough to secure the place.
All in all things have started off pretty well for me on my return to match fishing with a 3rd and a 2nd place in my first two matches and although they are only club matches there are some good anglers at the club so I am going to need to draw and fish well to maintain this kind off form.
I am not fishing the club match this weekend coming as it is on a commercial so I will probably take a ride over to the canal and see what I can catch this weekend.

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