This week saw me and the Braintree team head to the river chelmer for the 5th round of the essex inter-club league (essexinterclubleague.co.uk) Its the penultimate round, and we were going into this match leading the league by a point. Heavy rain all week meant the river was a raging torrent and the last thing we wanted was to have a blow out, so bloodworm and joker was in order! There were 3 stretches of river being used, one at Boreham where there would be 3 sections, one at Papermills where there would be 2 sections, and another at Hoe mill where there was 1 section.
Come the draw, it was already hammering it down again, the talk was that there would be a lot of blanks, not the greatest thing to hear at the draw bag. Everyone wanted to draw hoe mill, if there was a chance to winkle out a few fish then this was the section where it would happen. Our captain went to draw our peg no which was 8, yet again im yet to draw either 1 or 10, how lovely it would be to draw an end peg just once. Sections came round and I got the middle section at Boreham, not where i wanted to be as Ive not fished this bit before! But under the conditions it was going to be tough for all so hopefully peoples local knowledge wouldn't be so important.
After arriving at my peg, the river was absolutely charging through, quite simply I had nothing heavy enough to hold bottom in that, I decided to peg my keep-net back so I had some slack behind that, and also fish a small slack over the far bank. Ive fished these conditions before and caught a few fish behind my keep-net when others around me have blanked, so I felt confident fishing here.
Come the start, I decided to feed 2 balls of joker on the far side slack, i opted for 2 because I didn't really feel like this line would produce much, if anything, so I didn't want to waste all my joker, nothing wrong with saving some for the following week rather than balling it in for nothing! After this, I put a bloodworm on my hook and went behind me keep-net, 5 bite-less minutes passed so I decided to feed a pinch of joker, quite literally a pinch in-between my finger and thumb! Yet again 5 bite-less minutes! I knew I had to catch a fish before doing anything else, as the last thing I wanted to do was blank in an inter-club match! I decided to try double joker on the hook rather than bloodworm, as the bloodworm were quite big, I dropped this behind my keep-net and the float just buried, out came a tiny roach, crisis averted, I was going to score some kind of points! I gave it another 10 minutes without catching anything, so went over my main joker line, just for the wind to pick up and almost smash my pole in two. I came back down the edge and fed some more joker, nothing, back out on the long pole, nothing. This trend continued all day. At 1 o'clock an angler walked past and asked how I was getting on, I told him id caught one small roach for him to reply that I must be winning the section. A little after this the river almost doubled in pace, the water rose by about a foot, and was coming through really thick and muddy. I knew at this point I genuinely could win the section with my 1 fish, as I couldn't see a way of me catching another one, my staked keep-net was all over the place so my slack water was all but gone, far side and inside. I braved the last part of the match in the howling wind and rain, only to catch nothing else!
As the scales man walked down I think he was surprised to hear id caught a fish. I was the only person to catch a fish in my section, so 10 points and £40 made my day seem a bit better.
Papermills and Hoe mill had fished much better, with most people breaking the 1lb barrier and winning weights of 9lb and 5lb. On the Boreham stretch I was one of six anglers who caught a fish, 24 had blanked. The only surprise was the very end peg of Boreham who somehow managed 4 Bream for 20lb, 2nd place along this 30peg stretch was 1oz! It would be rare to catch those bream any time of year as there's not many bream in these rivers!
The result came through that our Braintree team finished 2nd, behind CAPS B, but more importantly ahead of Maldon and Does who are our closest rivals in the League.
We now head into the final round on the Maldon canal with a 4 point lead ahead of Maldon. They've won the league for the last 4 years in a row, we now have a great chance to beat them this year. Maldon always put on a true masterclass on the canal, so well have to put in another good team performance if we are to win.
Thanks for reading, next week im off to Hoe Mill, rather unwillingly I must admit, but I like to stick to what ive booked in for and not let people down, so rain please stay away and lets catch some hemp roach!
Tight Lines,
Reece Hearn
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