The Match Fishing Cup 3rd Round!

So we follow the adventures of the infamous Ian Didcote on his quest to become the Match Fishing Cup Champion, so far his campaign has been very successful with him qualifying from the last 2 rounds.
The 16 remaining anglers were to be whittled down to just 8 on this round to be fished on the River Thames at Medley.

The previous years venue winner Neil Mckinnon weighed a monstrous 200lb of bream from this stretch during last years competition, the question is would the bream be as obliging this year? Lets hope so......

So upon meeting Ian at his abode at around 8am me and Terry joined Ian in the journey to Oxford for the draw at 10am. This would Give Ian plenty of time for him to have a walk along the river and get all his gear loaded onto his trolley and walk to the stretch before everything started. Ian is one of those anglers who seem to have a absolute font of knowledge in any area of the sport, from squatt fishing on the canals to sea fishing on the coast looking for Bass. So this gave me the perfect opportunity to ask a few questions, and in that hour and 20 minutes it was like a Q&A session on the MFS website.
We arrived at around 9.30am, the first job was to unload all the gear he would need to fish this stretch of river....I take a lot of gear when I'm fishing a commercial, but I can honestly say that it looked like we were going on a 2 weeks camping holiday with the kitchen sink, as it took Me, Terry and Ian to move all his gear from the car park to his peg.
so looking out onto the river it seemed to have a little colour but very little pace, perhaps the rain we had 2 days previous would have a great effect on how the river would fish on the day.

Quite a few of the guys there were all talking about how well it would fish or how poor. It was suggested that no roach would be on the feed, this was countered by the fact that Steve Saunders had been down the previous few days and caught a shed load of roach...hmmm conflicting reports met with a few interesting comments.

So Dave Harrell arrived at some 10.10am to make the draw, Ian being ready pounced and managed to be about third in the queue and promptly drew peg 4. I asked what he thought of the peg and he was a little worried about its form. This was the peg that Grant Albutt managed to qualify from last year with.....10lb of roach and perch all caught on the waggler. I asked Ian what he thought the target weight for the day would be to qualify, he reckoned 10lb again would see him through to the next round.
We grabbed all the gear with rod bags and pole holdalls galore and started the trek to his peg. The match was to be fished from 12pm till 5pm, which left around an hour and 30 minutes to get himself set up and ready.

Upon arriving at his peg Ian immediately extended all his legs on his Garbolino Super G box so he could sit in the water some 6ft from the bank as the water was very very shallow in the edges. he also set up a platform behind him so he could put all the other bits and pieces he would need during the match without having to get off his box and wade to the bank.
His first line of attack would be the feeder, this was a pair of Garbolino Super G 12ft feeder rods paired with a Daiwa Airity 3012 reels matched to 8lb Technium line. The hooklength material would be Garboline in 0.18mm matched to a 16 Gamakatsu super power hook......animal gear!
Both these were cast to 30 turns on the reel so that one could be exchanged for the other should there be a problem but also so one could be used to lay a large amount of feed down without a hooklength getting in the way.
He also set up a 13ft waggler rod which would be cast down the middle some 10 yards short of the feeder line and would be fed with maggots.

So the pole was the last piece of tackle he set up, this would be fished at 11.5m for the roach and at 14.5m with chopped worm and caster, looking for the bream, tench or perch.
The floats were Garbolino DS4s ranging in size from 1gram up to 3grm for the worm and caster lines. The roach lines were to be joined with number 5 elastics and the big fish line solid 14 latex....just in case.
Ian was greeted then by a bank walker who regularly fishes the area and had a good knowledge of how the area was fishing and where the fish were, we were told that the bream had been showing in pegs 15-12 over the last few weeks in number s and that would be where to expect the main weights to come from.
Ians peg in the last match had only managed a few silvers but no bream.....what a confidence booster.

With all the terminal gear set up and ready to go it was time to mix the groundbait and prepare the bait, his groundbait consisting of Bait Techs new Super G gold and green mixed together, this would be his bream mix, and for his roach mix Van Dan Eynde groundbaits, Supermatch, Superlake and Secret all mixed the night before. The feeder line would receive around 6 large feederful's of groundbait on the whistle, and the pole line would get 6 cupped in balls of the roach mix and then 3 balls balled in. The 14.5m would be getting 2 large cupful's of worm and caster. Lovely.......
So sitting on the bank behind him, both myself and Terry were wondering what would win it, guesstimating i reckoned some 40-50lb if the bream showed up. We were going to be very wrong.

The All In...

So the shout came at 11am for the all in, Ian promptly deposited 6 feederful's of his bream groundbait and chopped worm on this line, then as above fed his pole lines. After this was all done it was time to have a look on the feeder line, he baited up with half a wriggly dendro and sent the feeder hurtling towards the water with a gentle lob.
then it was time to sit back and wait........




And wait..........




And wait...........


Simon Fry had the fortune of drawing next to Ian just upstream on peg 3, this is where the first bream of the day turned up. At around a solid 5lb or so it was a welcome fish and certainly a nerve settler.........as if these guys need to settle nerves?
This was then followed by The Chinaman on peg 6 also landing a bream of some 4lb too. Reports were coming round now that Peg 1 was catching and now had 3 skimmers in the net, Simon Fry had one, the Chinaman had managed one and Darren Frost had snared one too.

Ian was getting a little twitchy at this point....but then out of the blue his feeder tip went over and he struck into his first fish, this was played very very gingerly to the net and was promptly landed....a skimmer of 1lb 8oz...not quite the 5lb jobbies the anglers either side had managed to find. Typical.

So it was time to check the long pole line for any large fish, on went a large segemnt of worm on the heavy rig and we waited....and waited....and waited. Nothing.

So at this point ian decided that the groundbait feeder line needed topping up, so out went a few more feederfull's to top it up. Out went a baited hook and we waited for around 5 minutes before at last the tip wanged over and bream number 2 was on its way to the net, this was a better sample at some 3lb. phew!
The fishing was quite slow for most of the anglers along the stretch, with just odd fish being picked up, the only person to be running away with the match was peg 1, now having some 12 bream and skimmers in the net. (someones got to draw on them right?)
I decided that it was time for a walk, as again not much was happening, I walked down to Simon Willsmore who was catching a few bits and peices on the feeder and pole, but had no bream as of yet, and the ret of the pegs below were also struggling.

Upon my return to Ians peg he promptly struck into another bream, this ione being a proper lad at around 5lb, Simon Fry next door was now on 5 bream and peg 1 had around 18 fish. Funny how bream will say in just one area as peg 2 (Adam Wakelin) could not get a bite, despite spending an hour just putting bait in to try and pull some of the bream out of peg 1.
The match was very slow, with everyone mostly sitting on a feeder hoping the tip would go round.
I got up for another walk to go and see Derek Willan on the next peg, after sitting down next to him for 5 minutes just chatting about a few things he had a great bite and struck into a branch! There were a few laughs as he pulled the branch in, and he always smiles no matter how bad. Next chuck the feeder went round again and finally his second bream found the net at around 4lb it could be a very important fish.

Walking back to Ians Peg i was just in time to see him land another fish, again of some 5lb, I personaally thought he now had enough to get through to the next round.
Now at this point I actually fell asleep, and missed him land the next fish, again another bream of around 5 lb.

The last hour was very slow with just 2 fish on Ians part and one missed bite, whereas peg 1 had managed some 30 odd fish now, and was set to win the match with ease.
Ian managed a very good 27lb for a 3rd place qualifying position, well done mate!

Onwards to the next round!