I've booked into another match. Dave Harvey had been telling me about the excellent fishing on the King's Sedgemoor Drain when I met him after the Tiverton Christmas match, and suggested that I fish Bridgwater's Christmas Fayre on the same water, to be held the Sunday before Christmas Day. I find these wide, deep venues quite daunting, but they appeal to me massively. I won't be expecting to compete with the venue regulars on the day, but am anticipating an enjoyable day's fishing nonetheless.
I've only fished the KSD on one previous occasion and that was whilst roving the levels a couple of years ago for pike. I managed a pike of about 7lb by Greylake Sluice but it appeared to be on its last legs; all head and a pitiful body. When I unhooked it, I could see another length of braid hanging out of its mouth and entering the stomach, no sign of a trace. Bad pike care and angling is a problem on the Levels and particularly by the access points.
Today I visited an attractive tree-lined section of the drain to try and formulate some sort of a plan for the forthcoming match. Recent matches have been won with over 20lb of roach with plenty of double-figure back up weights. Seven pounds was last in one of these matches!
Peering over a bridge on arrival, I made out the remaining swirls of what must have been a pike attack. And there were small fish topping everywhere. It was a decent walk over bobbly ground to find a swim. I didn't expect to see so many anglers on this water on a Tuesday but after every bush I passed there seemed to be someone in position with a rod or two out for pike. I later had a visit from Bridgwater bailiff Seb Newosiad who revealed that four of these anglers were caught without permits. Buggers - I could have been spared the walk.
After a bit of swim construction, I got started in the late morning. I fished a single line at around seven or eight metres but this took a surprisingly long time to produce a bite. My opening gambit was three balls of dark groundbait, packed with leftover squat, loosefeeding casters over the top. Worryingly, there were no signs of fish at all but I could see them a couple of hundred yards back towards the car still dimpling on the surface.
Then, after half an hour it was as though someone had flicked a switch and my rig just would not settle as small roach after small roach attacked whatever hookbait I offered them. I also added hemp to the loosefeed when it became apparent there were lots of fish in the swim. To be honest, my rig was all wrong and I couldn't be bothered to set up another one so targeted pike with the old faithful spinning rod and small pike float. Drifted roach sorted out two pike, both around 7lb. The first was a sorry looking thing, not at all dissimilar to the one I caught at Greylake, but the second was perfect and must have somehow avoided capture by any angler on this popular drain.
This was much more exciting than the roach fishing as far as I was concerned and even my intermittent efforts on the pole sustained a bite a chuck throughout the session once the fish arrived. I'll have to have a good think about my rigs before the match but until then I think it's about time I got back round to some piking and giving my legs a bit more exercise.
