The RIVER ARROW at BROOM - Sun/ Feb 22 /09 I had a quite enjoyable mornings fishing on the tiny River Arrow,fished a club match on the Broom Angling society stretch of water at Broom village to record only my 2nd match win of the season. I,ve only fished this stretch of the river twice before even tho its only a couple of miles or so from my house but its an interesting little natural river, a stream really, barely 20ft wide in places but holds a good variety of fish but they can be very hook shy in a cold,clear winter river .At the match draw I paid my fees and put my hand in the drawbag to pull out peg 16 only a shortish walk from the car park,nice
,gettin too old to heave all my gear too far these days,got to my peg which I,d never seen before and sat down on my box to survey my allocated spot,'reading the water' as the old timers call it.On the opposite bank there,s a submerged tree stump a couple of yards upstream which I,m certain will hold a big chub or 2 [not Bermuda chubs
]Ideally I would have liked to have drawn the peg upstream, no.17 so that I could run a stick float down to the stump [you can only fish from in front of you to the downstream end of the peg-match rules]looking down the peg I could see that it shallows up about 15 yds or so downstream and its quite turbulent with swirls indicating an uneven bottom-a 'washing machine' peg as I call it ,also there,s a small bay,a backwater about 8-10 ft across directly opposite my platform and behind the tree,this area should hold fish but sometimes experience has taught me that they dont always,so I opt to run a wire-stemmed stick float [more stable than a normal stick float in turbulence] the full length of the swim.9am whistle blows and we,re off I ,m loosefeeding maggots by hand cautiously at first about 10-12 per cast, dont want to overfeed if theres not many fish in the swim,float,s going under halfway down the peg and I,m pulling in tiny dace in the 1-3oz bracket,better than nothing I can build a weight of these even if nothing bigger comes on to feed,this carries on for nearly 2hrs all this time I,m upping the loose feed to a good handful of maggots per cast,to feed off the dace and get some of the bigger chub over my 'carpet' of feed,bites tail off,I,m thinkin can this be bigger fish movin in to the peg?Next cast,float buries,the solid thump of a reasonable size chub-my thoughts answered,I play him gingerly,on 2lb mainline with 1lb 4oz hooklength[leader]and size 20 hook dont want him to head for a root/weedbed and bust me off,they dont fight fantastically hard,just a slow steady pull but they,re notorious for shedding the hook on even a single blade of reed ,anyway this ones beaten once i get his head above the water,I net him then transfer him to the keepnet and continue to run the float downstream occasionally tweaking the shotting pattern to give different rates of fall of the single maggot- hook bait thru the water,I keep doin this as time passes and again the float buries and its game on,this fish is bigger,feels solid, plodding thru the water right at the end of the swim,gotta coax this boy upstream avoiding the sunken debris which he will invariably head for,gently easing him up the peg takes about 5-6 minutes but seems longer,got his head above the surface,just guide the f,er slowly into the landing net mickey...and he,s in!About 3 and a half lb+ and I,m fairly confident of getting in the prizes now,carry on trotting the float thru and 10 mins later I,m in again,this feels at least as big as the last one,just a solid plodder,but no this one goes on a run,he,s havin none of it and he,s in the reed bed at the end of the peg and the inevitable happens.ping!hook leader breaks,goodnight Vienna!
that line of attack is totally blown now as once you lose a good un it spooks the rest for a while and there,s only 15 mins left now,so I pick up my lead rod and half a lobworm on a size 12 goes into the bay opposite [which I have baited up with 3 o r4 chopped up lobworms [nightcrawlers]earlier] This line yields exactly....nothing!Whistle blows-end of match,the scales arrive as I pack my tackle away,9lb 11oz my total,might just scrape into the prize list I think
but all the talk at the draw was for big nets of bream 25-30 lbs had won previous matches recently from pegs 7,8 and 9 but these failed to materialise on a hard day ,so I go home ever so slightly richer!
If anyone reads this-apologies for my lengthy ramblings-I got time to kill today
Sorry dude,jus killin time 
can only fish for whats in front of you -right?
my plan is working,get fishnfool to reveal his spots 
-good local knowledge is the key for the travelling angler- back soon, just not sure when.
-who knows we may even get a sighting of el mono skunk