The Suffolk Stour around Sudbury is one of the most diverse venues I fish during the year. By diverse I mean the varying nature of the pegs means you could be fishing the wagg, stick, pole or feeder, therefore you seem to have to bring every item of tackle you own to cover all the potential options! Also, the bait bill is not cheap either and consisted of the following:
3 pints of bronze maggots.
1 pint castors.
2 pints hemp.
1.5 kilos of punch crumb.
bag of gravel
2 kilos of soil.
1/2 kilo of worm and joker.
bag of supermatch.
1/2 kilo of dendras.
Most of this wouldn't be used, but the fishing can be brilliant making the wallet emptying justifiable in my eyes. Combine this with some long walks over natural ground and styles, its normally a relief when you reach your peg.
At the draw the talk was of the river being in good shape, but carrying a bit of extra water due to the rain on Xmas day. I wanted to draw a good peg for gardons and the pegs near Ballingdon Bridge would do nicely as I felt 20lb was needed to frame and I knew these pegs were normally rammed with roach. I loitered at the end of the draw queue (as usual) and picked out peg 13. This was not where I hoped to draw, and was on the "run off" from the chub pools near the Mill Hotel. However, I had drawn one above where I had caught 20lb of roach in an open match the previous year, so was fairly optimistic.
Bad Start
After a 10 minute walk I arrived at my peg and it looked decidedly average, it was six metres wide and did not look as promising as my 20lb peg last year. As I lifted my Rive XT over the barbed wire fence I caught the carrying strap on the wire and managed to scratch the frame to bits. This reminded me of the joys of river fishing! At least there was no dog shite visible!
I got comfortable and plumbed up the pole line and was less than amused to find the deepest water being 2 ft down the middle. I felt I had no chance from a peg like this. The only positive things being the river was bang on colour wise and I had about 50 yards between me and the next angler.
This was not a peg to over complicate things and I set up two pole rigs comprising 0.5 gram and 0.75 gram Colmic Jollys. 0.10 mainline and 0.08 hook lengths to a 20 wide gape canal seed. Both were connected to a number 5 original preston elastic. Also, I set up a light stick float on an eighteen foot rod so I could search the swim fully. I planned to start off on the punch and take it from there.
On the whistle I cupped in a large ball of punch crumb, which was followed by half a handful of hemp. Second run through on the half gram rig at the pace of the river with a 6mm punch bought a 4oz gardon and an 8oz harry rimmer (skimmer) the very next drop. A good start and I continued to feed a ball of punch and some hemp every other run through. I was only catching odd fish but they were all "stampers" and I knew if odd 'uns kept coming I could do a weight.
A switch to the 0.75 gram rig and the further slowing down of the float bought me a few more quick roach before I struck into something more substantial. As the fish bolted towards the reeds under my feet it became obvious I was into a chub. Luckily, the fish moved into mid river where I netted it on my top 4. At about 1.5lbs it was a nice bonus. Soon after I struck into something solid again, which instantly I knew was another "greedius maximus". This one was bigger than its brother and after a few anxious moments I netted a 2 pounder, only just in time though as the hook length snapped as I netted it! Things slowed down after this but I was happy with my start. Time to explore further downt peg ont stick.
The stick float did provide me with some quick roach down the peg, however at 2ozs they weren't the stamp I was looking for. A switch back to the pole and upping the bread to a ball every run through saw me back amongst the quality for a while, but again things died. At the end of 4 hours I had about 45 roach and two chub for low double figures. I knew I had to try to get to 20lb to frame. I made a decision to switch to feeding 30 bronze maggots every minute to try and catch some chub, which I felt were the only option now, also it meant I could get rid of some of my bait mountain!
To cut a long story short the last hour was terrible, with only two roach up until the last five minutes, then I hit into another chub, it was only 1.5lbs, but a welcome bonus so late on in the match.
At the weigh in I was surprised to hear that the river had fished seriously below expectations and anything in double figures was a good weight on the day. I weighed in 15lb 3ozs. About 10lb of pristine gardons and three chub for 5lb. To my delight this was good enough for second, with Mark Roscoe coming out on top with 22lb of chub, nearly all in the last hour. Unbelievably though, I picked up 35 quid for coming second in a 46 peg match! The organisers had decided to pay out 5 sections of £100 and the second angler in section getting £35 and you've guessed it i was in the same section as the match winner, who wasn't even pegged anywhere near me! I was a bit gutted, but I don't do it for the money anyway. The blow was eased slightly by winning a toblerone in the raffle afterwards.
My mate Danny Grimsey (a renowned draw bag bully) won his section with 11lb of roach on punch, worth 100 quid!!!
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