June 17th Tidal Trent LDAA Vaughn Cup, Laughterton. 32 Fished.After yesterdays disaster i felt i had learnt my lesson and would fish my peg for anything that swims. My destination for today was peg 56. Bill White had won the match from this section the previous day from peg 54 and it seemed like there were a few fish for everyone. The river is very different from what i had experienced yesterday , its nearly 90M wide and very shallow in normal conditions but with all the extra water it looked very fishy! The pace was a lot easier than what i had on the first day, so i could ease off on the weight of the feeders today. Again I set up my usual 13’ & 14’ Shimano Catana with a 3oz carbon tip in both. As the previous day on the 13’ I was using a 5000 front drag stradic with 0.23 sufix elite mainline and a 1oz nisa medium open end feeder with a 2oz “dead cow” attached. On the 14’ I had a 5000 technium reel with 8lb technium mainline with with the same feeder and lead. Both rods were started with a 2½’ 0.17 dia hooklength and a size 14 PR39 hook. My intention was to start on dendra as my best mate and tidal trent KING Dean Smith had caught most of his fish on it the previous day. My groundbait of choice was a less aggressive mix of 1kg Dynamite silver X bream original mixed with ½ a kilo of dynamite silver X black canal & lake, this is a much better mix for targeting everything that swims on the Trent. I chopped up some worms as usual and added equal amounts of casters, maggots & a splatter of Dynamite XL corn.
The match started and my first bite came again after 30 minutes, i picked the rod up and felt some resistance! I played the fish steadily and up popped a roach of about 12oz. This settled my nerves a little and gave me chance to start thinking of adding to this fish. The rest of the section was looking very slow, in fact i think it was only Jeff Margett on my left who had also caught a fish at this point! A couple of minutes later the tip dropper back again and this felt a better fish, after a short battle i landed a 1lb plus skimmer! I’m now in full swing and getting the feeling that i might be in for a few bites today. The next 30min were slow so a change was in order, Swinno had caught some fish on double caster yesterday. So i changed my hooklength to a lighter 0.15 Powerline and a 16 PR39. On my 1st cast the tip came crashing back and i was into another skimmer of probably 2lb. This was a good sign, i caught a couple more skimmers and a couple of roach over the next quarter of an hour. Then i had a couple of casts with no bites, I felt there were more fish there so it was time for another rethink! 3 floating red maggots went on next and no sooner had the feeder hit the water that my tipo started to dance. This was a much bigger fish and after a couple of minute a big golden (i do mean golden) Bream came up in the muddy water. Happy days, i was 1 ½ hors into the match and pushing 12lb in the net. Next drop a skimmer followed and then a roach. I made a few calls to Dean Smith and the word was that my team mate for the teams of four, Paul Moutry was catching bream & skimmers from peg 2 and probably had 15lb or so and Nick Atkins on peg 22 had got some bream and was nudging 20lb. The rest of the field were struggling a bit, so I knew that if i could catch a couple more fish i could be in with a shout of winning. By chopping & changing baits i kept some fish coming in the way of 1 decent bream, a couple of skimmers & roach for the next 30mins but then everything just stopped and i couldn’t buy a bite. I was confident that i was heading up around 18 – 19lb mark, so i was desperately trying to make something happen. I tried everything and got no response what so ever, it was as if the peg was now devoid of fish. I kept speaking to various anglers and it sounded like everyone had stopped catching. I must say i was starting to get frustrated as i felt the match was getting away from me. With about 45 minutes remaining, i was all out of plans, my usual attack of regular casting wasn’t producing nothing. For those who don’t know this is the one thing that is ware by on the Trent, Regular casting. If you just chuck it in and wait you are very unlikely to catch out of this river, the way i fish is very similar to shallow mugging of carp. Most of the fish especially skimmers & bream are caught on the drop on here, so chucking in and sitting with your arms crossed is the kiss of death. Im sure half of the fish ive caught out of the trent have just got P*SSED off with my hookbait constantly falling past them! But back to the match and I just couldn’t see it going again so i got off my box and started riddling some casters. The feeder had been in for about 5 mins when i got back to my bax which is a very long time for me to leave it in when the tip suddenly dropped back. I was into another big bream and my visions of winning was back in my head. This fish was pushing the 5½lb mark which would now put me over 20lb and in with a great chance. Next drop and i continued to sort my casters out. Again 5 mins later and the tip goes! Just goes to show that my wittering on about regular casting isn’t always the answer… this was another skimmer of a couple of pound. I was now sat back on my box expecting another but unfortunately no more were to follow. I was very pleased with how my match had gone and felt i had learnt from the previous day by working your peg there were a few bites to be had. Now i know that i was in the right area to be doing this although everyone else in my section looked to have struggled. At the weigh in coming up to me the best weight was Jeff on my left with 8lb odd so i knew the section was looking very safe but had i done enough to beat Paul & Nick??? 2 weigh ins later and i had got 25lb6oz which i was very pleases with. Back at the headquarters and i was collared as walked through the door by the super star that is John Small and told that i was 2nd, to which i replied who had beat me Nick or Paul? No he replies Julie Abbott had weighed 28lb15oz from peg 8, these England Internationals should be banned!!! the results:

1st 28lb15oz Julie Abbott (Lincoln Whisby AS/Drennan England) Peg 8 bream & skimmers
2nd 25lb6oz Alan Henry (Dynamite/Shimano) peg 56 Bream, skimmers & roach
3rd 22lb11oz Nick Atkins (Chesterfield) peg 11 bream & skimmers
4th 22lb2oz Paul Moutry (Scunthorpe) peg 2 bream & skimmers
5th 16lb3oz Roger Wakenshaw (Lincoln Whisby AS) peg 40 skimmers, roach, perch & hybrids
6th 13lb9oz Clyde Inglis (Lincoln) peg 1 bream & skimmers

Lets see what tomorrow night brings!
😀 😀 😀