0 of roach and dace on the waggler
Peg 84 on the Quarry Park section of the Shrewsbury match length saw me take first place with 12.14.0 of roach and dace on the waggler. I must admit I didn’t really fancy the draw when I pulled it out of the bag as there were a lot of good anglers on what I thought were much better pegs than mine. The river was more or less at winter level and looked good. The biggest problem was a downstream breeze which made seeing the bites difficult at times. In fact it was so bad at one stage in the match that I had to undershot my waggler by a BB just to see it in the ripple and glare created by the sun. I elected to use a big waggler taking around three swan shot with ten number fours and a number six dropper down the line strung out similar to a stick float shotting pattern. Hook was a size 18 Mustad Wide Gape Power barbless with single and double bronze maggot the hookbait. As the water temperature was low I expected a tough match with few bites. However after the first hour bites started to come regularly and the more loose feed I put in, the more bites I got. By the end I’d fed around three pints of maggots which is a lot more than I expected. The swim was an interesting one. It was deep, around thirteen feet to be precise, and I found most of my bites came fishing the rig about a foot or so overdepth. With most of the fish in the three to six ounce bracket I had a lot of fish for my total. A really enjoyable match this one. Lets hope the river stays good till March 14th!
Next week I’ll tell you more about the new speci wagglers I mentioned last week. In certain swims these floats will help you put a lot more fish in the net than you would using a conventional waggler!!