RIVERFEST 2018 GOES TO MIKE BEDDING WITH 50lb HAUL FROM TRICKY WYE
Dream day one draw paves way for success
MIKE Bedding took the Angling Trust RiverFest Final’s £13,000 top prize thanks mainly to a superb day one catch of 41-10-0 in a weekend of mixed fortunes on Hereford’s River Wye.
A good day one was followed by a tough second match that saw cold water deliver much-reduced weights and a lot of blanks – but the Shakespeare Bait-Tech man added 8-13-0 on Sunday to win with 50-7-0. He finished 15oz ahead of team-mate Sam Merry, who also enjoyed a great day one with 41-4-0. England star Sean Ashby (Sensas), Sunday’s matchwinner with 26-10-0, was third overall with 37-14-0.
Cold water going into the river on Saturday night wrecked sport for many, leading to a few sections having to be drawn for as every angler dry-netted. After Sean’s Sunday catch, double figures filled the frame, a far cry from 24 hours earlier, when 20lb finished nowhere.
“This was my third RiverFest final and I fish the Wye a bit in the Winter League so I know how tough the river can be – you definitely need to draw well,” Warwick-based Mike said.
“Day one put me on Zone A so I was delighted to draw peg 77 on the railings as opposed to further down the river, which can be blanking territory. The thoughts at the draw were that 77 was a good peg for around 20lb.
“I’d have taken that because on Sunday I was going to be fishing further up in the town, which is holding far more fish at the moment and where a big weight was possible. To catch 20lb off the ‘harder’ zone would be a great start.
“The peg was actually the last one before the old railway bridge and I had a bit of room downstream, which always helps on the Wye, so my plan was to fish the Bolo down the middle and a long whip plus a stick float in the edge for roach.
“There can be a lot of perch in this area too but they’ve not shown yet this winter so I discounted that and started on the whip.
“However, this only produced tiny dace, so after 30 minutes I went on to a 4g Bolo, loosefeeding maggots with maggot on the hook with a view to catching everything that swims.”
Running the float 20 yards down the peg, 33-year-old Mike was soon into dace and chublets, fishing either side of his feed. They were a good stamp too, the new champ finishing with 101 fish for his mega-weight.
“I knew I’d got a good weight, perhaps around 30lb, and I’d have taken that, so to finish with 41lb was more than I could have asked for,” he revealed.
“However, I didn’t know that Sam Merry, who was on the peg above me, had caught well and that I only ended up 6oz in front of him. With Zone B to come and 40lb in the bag I felt I was in a match-winning situation.”
Day two, though, delivered cold dam water from further up the river and those in the know, including Mike’s Shakespeare team-mate and former champion Andrew Murphy, reckoned this would kill sport stone dead.
Taking that into account, Mike decided to fish a cautious match wherever he drew.
“I wanted to draw on the Asda bank, anything from peg 79 to 95, but I wasn’t upset to get 64 in front of the Sea Cadets hut as there can be some big perch here,” Mike said.
“My team-mate Brian Rigby fished it the day before and he put me in the picture. My thoughts were that 10lb would give me a great chance of winning by keeping those behind me at arm’s length, plus Dan Ashington and Pete Morris, who were just behind me after day one had drawn pegs well down the river, where little had been caught.
“However, Sam was three pegs away from me and so a threat. I felt if I could beat Sam I should win it, barring anything spectacular happening elsewhere.” Setting up a Bolo for the middle of the river and the long whip, Mike also rigged up bleak whips and a chopped worm line down his peg.
Opening up on the Bolo produced a small chub and a few dace, but with Lee Edwards next door and Hadrian Whittle almost opposite him, Mike kept a close on eye on those two anglers to try and gauge what was happening. The answer was not a lot!
“It soon became obvious that the river was fishing hard, so with the Bolo and whip not working, I went on to my worm line fished at 11m down the peg,” he explained.
“I only had two bites on lobworm here but they were perch of 1lb 8oz apiece.
“After this I kept trying for bleak at 4m and finally lined a few up, taking 90 fish for around
3lb plus the odd dace on the Bolo, and 8-13-0 was as much as I could have asked for really.
“Once I knew that I’d beaten Sam – although not by much – I then started to tick off the other threats but with little being caught, Sean Ashby was the only one who made any substantial move up the leaderboard.
“Even then, winning by just 15oz equates to just a couple of big dace on this river, so quite literally every fish counted.”
There was an added bonus for Mike at the bookies, as he put £40 on himself at 33/1 to add a few more quid to that big payday.
With Mike winning the day one match, the second day of action went to England ace Sean Ashby from fancied peg 95 next to the town bridge. A Bolo approach down the middle of the river saw him take quality dace on double bronze maggot for 26-10-0
although a large snag and pike trouble saw his catch rate fluctuate throughout the day.
Loosefeeding maggot and the odd ball of groundbait, Sean landed 70 fish to finish well ahead of runner-up Derron Harper, a few pegs away. He ended up with 16-0-0, third on the day going to Mark Halksworth, again on the town centre stretch, with 15-12-0.