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Every one seems to only talk about success stories here’s something Rob Wootton thinks we can all relate to...


The team I’m fishing for this year has had a mixed start to their winter league campaign on the river Soar - a soul destroying team last on the first round on an out of sorts river knocked the confidence a little but when we finished second in the next round we knew that there was still hope of a turnaround. Going into the third round we needed to make a move and as a team we talked about varying tactics in the build up to the big day.

A groundbait approach had worked best on the two previous rounds but usually, as the water gets colder and clearer, breadpunch and hemp seem to work best in the later rounds of the league, As a team we do better when using these baits and as a rule usually fair much better in the latter rounds, why should this year be any different? A practice session in the week revealed that bites could be hard to come by, we had just had a very cold snap and as it turned out bread was out fishing groundbait and pinkies - perfect. I was pretty pleased when team captain Adam placed Sutton Bonnington peg 51 in my hand, this was just three pegs from where I had won the section from on the last round but this was when using groundbait.

On the Drive to my peg I was weighing up the options and on looking at the river decided that the punch will still be the best bait, afterall I’d told a lot of the loads about my mid week practice and a few of them were going to their pegs pretty confident in a breadpunch approach so why shouldn’t I. Setting up was easy - two rigs (a 1 grammer and a 1.5grammer) for 13 metres in 10 feet of water and a slightly lighter 0.8gram float for a short line at seven meters, a line I’d caught really well on a couple of weeks ago. All the rigs were made up with hooklengths of 0.08m Aspire Silk Shock this line mics up at exactly what it is, especially important when using fine lines, the hooks were Drennan Polemasters in a size 20. Even though I was planning on a punch match I still mixed up some groundbait, a 50:50 mix of Dynamite Frenzied hemp and fine brown crumb had worked well the week before so why not again?

At the Whistle two balls of groundbait housing a few pinkies were cupped in on the short line and two baitdroppers of punch were deposited on the longer line. I expected a quick start on the short line and had no hesitation in putting groundbait in over the punch if the seven metre line showed that the fish wanted groundbait. After running a pinkie through for 20 minutes nothing had happened and I don’t just mean for me the guy downstream of me also hadn’t had a bite, he was fishing over groundbait on his longer pole line so the fact he was struggling convinced me that the bread was the way to go.

With renewed confidence I shipped out to 13 metres, a 4mm punch of bread was the bait and despite trying different presentations I couldn’t get a bite- disaster. Each end of the section was catching with what seemed less fish nearer the middle pegs. A quick look on a chopped worm feeder produced a 10 ounce perch which after an hour was my only fish. It was now time to try the pole again. This time the float vanished and did so for the next ten runs down before the fish vanished. A top up didn’t bring the fish back and it seemed that they drifted in and out of the swim at will rather than me concentrating them.

I was losing touch with the match and matters were made worse when the guy on the next caught his first fish, A four pound tench! Topping up and resting the punch line brought some results and also gave me some time to look for a bonus fish of my own, which didn’t materialise. I’d love to say that things changed and I started bagging and ended up winning the section... unfortunately I can’t- my 2.500 kilos was stone last in the section and it was only in the last two hours after introducing some groundbait on the long line that I caught any amount of fish. It looks like I got it totally wrong on the bait front although in fairness because of the the slow start in my area it was difficult to gauge which bait was best. I know deep down though that although I couldn’t of won the section steady points were achievable with a standard groundbait and pinkie attack as when the fish did arrive they would of stayed in the peg a little longer in between top ups.

Elsewhere the rest of the lads hadn’t faired much better, A poor draw in some sections and also a couple of others taking my advice and pinning their faith in bread had been our downfall. We’re now as good as out of the running for the winter league semis. With the team being so far behind though I was sure that the punch route was a chance to take - not only are we good at it as a team but by being the first to get on it we would steal a march on the others and hopefully gained a few points back. Oh well back to the drawing board!

Rob Wootton