Upper Witham Open

Mon 08 December 14

Event: Bottesford and Grantham AA open match, Upper River Witham. November 30th 2014.

Anglers fished: 26

Anglers Name: Amer Jawad

Sponsor : Daiwa

Venue: Upper river Witham around Grantham.

Peg drawn: Peg 16 at Winters Lane.

Tackle/Bait.

Rods: 2 × 13ft Daiwa Tournament Pro waggler rods.

Reels: 2 x Daiwa TDR 2508’s.

Mainline: WB Clarke 0.14 for both reels

Hook lengths: Reflo Powerline 0.9 and 0.10

Hook pattern: Kamasan B520 in sizes 20 and 18

Floats: Dave Harrell dome top stick floats in sizes 4 number 4 and 6 number 4.

Set up

As I arrived at my peg with little time to spare it decided on a simple two rod set up of two DH stick floats, one was slighter and the bigger more positive set up was to hold back and let go if this I found to be a better approach.

The session:

The match started and it was easy to see where the flow was in this narrow river, most of the flow was further over as I was pegged in a cattle drink peg. The depth of water was 4 ft deep in this channel with it shallowing up around 20 yards down my peg which seemed ok. I noticed the bottom had patches of weed which made running the float through a bit more difficult. First run through the float dipped and I had my first roach of about 4oz on single bronze maggot. I fed casters closer in and maggots across in the main flow and depth. Bites we’re hard to come by and could see the anglers below me struggling to catch anything. Coming into the second hour I cut back on the maggots which seemed to work with a few more small roach. Problem was the bites came so far down the peg by now, I was a bit concerned. A quiet third hour and this forced me to making a change as no anglers near me had caught much and I knew there was a few roach about. I switched to the bigger stick and held it back whilst feeding more maggots but up my peg instead of what seemed right. A roach on my first drop and I was confident I might have a decent end to the match. Holding the float hard and letting it go with a few more maggots was a lot better.

Final Hour:

Into the last hour I felt I could win the section as talk along the bank was that my section was very hard with two or three anglers packing up! A Pike came after a roach on my hook and quietened things down a bit then they came back with a fish every run through for the last 20 minutes. The scales arrived and 3lb 4oz was top weight, my all roach and 1 perch pulled the scales around 6lb which was pleasing as I felt I had managed to turn it around and into a good match. Really enjoyed fishing the river today, its a lovely stretch of water and has some quality fish in it. The lower section at Foston produced the top 5 individuals with 29lb of chub winning! I managed 6th with my roach net from the more difficult sections…I will be back.

Reflection:

On my longish drive home it gave me time to reflect on my match today. First thing was how much I enjoyed being back on the natural rivers, and how quick it all comes back to me when using methods I love to use. I don’t feel I could have done any better on my first visit which always pleases me.

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