Week 2 - and it was to Appley Bridge we travelled for another match in what is starting to be touted as the biggest winter league in the UK. Deserved titled too, given the number of cars around the Water's Edge when I got there. Carol certainly had her work cut out because the pub was packed to the rafters.
We were fishing either side of the bridge, so there were plenty of long walks to pegs. I drew at the far end of E-section, so I was only three off the 3rd swing bridge - what a yomp that was... I was in good company with Steve (where's the Argo??) Hargreaves on the scales to my right and Jimmy (the luckiest angler alive - more of that later..) Jeffers on the book to my left. I was tackle monitor for the day, although anyone wanting to be on the rob down there needed a fast camel for the getaway...
It was a very cold start to the day and had I not been gagging from the route-march to my peg, I might've stopped to take a few 'atmospheric' photographs. The mist was rolling across the cut and the sun was blazing through the trees - we were fortunate with the weather for the second successive week.
Onto the match, which went pretty much as I envisaged really. A few bread fish to kick-off proceedings at the start, spoiled by the now obligatory boats - then straight onto the far side for squatts. To be honest, it was always going to be a struggle since that pollution incident struck the length in August, so it was likely that fish would be bunched up here and there. In our stretch, there was nobody setting the world on fire in the first couple of hours.
Jimmy & Steve were both finding bites hard to come by like me and it was a virtual dead-heat spread across us. Even Lenny on the other side of Jimmy was struggling. In fact, Jimmy was more than struggling, he was wailing like a banshee 'cos he couldn't catch. I then turned the volume up with a big skimmer on the squatt and it looked like he was ready for home. With an hour to go, I managed to find a couple of fish going over my bread line again, then a couple more across on the squatt, but with the trees overhanging right out as far as 7m, you could ship under them, but you couldn't ship back if you hooked one which limited my options considerably. All I managed to do was decorate the tree with a couple rigs, so that put an end to rummaging around in the undergrowth.
While I was scratching away, Lenny had snaffled a couple of skimmers tight to the bush opposite. Spying this, Jimmy followed his lead and his luck changed instantly as he snaffled a big skimmer, followed by a couple of roach then three more even bigger skimmers to take the section. Lucky for him that Lenny had been so obliging or he'd never have thought to try what ultimately worked. Not only that, but he drammed Jack Rodgers for second in the match too so it was a good day for my mate Jimmy all round. If nowt else, he stopped moaning, so that has to be a result in itself.
I limped home with 8 points after looking set for a better result, but that's fishing and there's no point letting it get you down. If I could've got to the back of the trees, who knows what I might've found, then again if my aunty had nads she'd be my uncle, so it doesn't matter now does it?? Plenty struggled yesterday, so overall I consider myself lucky to have returned single figures - it can happen to anyone and there are still another 4 hard rounds to go. On the team front, we had a very poor day and finished 14th, so there's only one way we can go from there.
We're back for more of Carol's bacon butties and cracking hot-pot at the Water's Edge next week for round 3 which apparently starts at Seven Stars and runs through to Crooke. As Pete said on his blog last night 'figure that one out...'
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