Commercial House Round 2 - Bristol Avon

 A very busy week for me as I flew to Frankfurt on Monday for an exhibition, after a long week I got home Friday evening and was dog tired. Saturday had to collect my bait as well as Derek Coles, Steve Lovell and Rob Manns, the fridge was full! After watching the disaster of a 0-4 home loss at the Gas I was really happy to see Gloucestershire win the T20, my wife and daughter Lucy were there to celebrate with the players.

I felt very jaded Sunday morning and realised I had got a cold, so got some paracetamol in to me. Got to the draw and I was the only team member present, unfortunately we were going to be one man short today due to an emergency that occurred. Eventually my team mates started arriving after I had paid their pools, in amongst the crowd of anglers I spied good mate Martin Reyatt. This made me laugh as he told me he’d never fish the river again lol.

Team draw done and we had one flier end peg at Swineford, Steve Lovell was on that. I was on D7 at Jack Whites, middle of this section is not good normally. It was a good yomp to get to the peg, including having to negotiate a kissing gate. I walked past some real good pegs and then saw Andy Britt on D6 who was also not happy with the peg. However, when I finally found my peg (I had walked past it) I was properly pissed off, this was a peg I always leave out as it is full of snags. Just to make things better an otter surfaced to my left and then swam downstream.

My options were now very limited and a couple of calls to other anglers confirmed the situation. I set up a 4AAA waggler with 0.15 to 16 N50 to pull hard on any chub. A gbait feeder with 0.17 to 14 N50 and lastly a 6m whip. 

We started at 10:15 and there was no balling in gbait on this peg for me. By casting a long way down the peg I avoided any snags and had 25 minutes on the feeder getting some bait in and caught a chublet and a roach on it. Went onto the waggler (fished 3 feet deep) which I had been feeding and was able to catch some chublets from 4oz to 12oz. But they soon went, I went down to 0.13 and an 18 but it didn’t make any difference as the chublets were now right up under the trees and impossible to reach.

After trying the feeder again for 1 perch I tried the whip line, first run down I had a 8oz perch. Second run down snag and rig ended up in the tree. Poxy peg, I was 2 feet off the bottom and snagged, I gave up on the whip.

Back on the waggler and I started to get the odd bite from bleak and small roach, but I needed to fine down, so 0.10 to a 20 went on which made a difference and I got a lot more bites. I also had to go deeper as the match went on, getting to 6 1/2 feet seemed best. The only problem was the fish were so small, but as I heard the section wasn’t fishing great I just carried on. Changing the colour of the maggot on the hook was needed, but probably caught most on bronze. In the last half hour I had a couple of chublets out of the blue, and they actually started showing themselves under the trees after the match. 

My match was done, I thought I had 9lb, Andy reckoned he had 7lb. I’d had a busy day on the waggler but just not enough quality. In the end the section was quite tight but Leigh Wakefield won A div with 13lb, he had 3 chub with a couple of hours to go to bump his weight up. Mike Kent won my B div with 12lb 9oz, he had a good run of chublets that made the difference. My fish went 10lb 6oz which I was happy with, and was surprised to come third in the section from this peg.

Overall the match was won easy by Lee Warden at the top of Chequers straight who had 12 chub and a bream on the waggler plus roach for 38lb 6oz. A fantastic weight and Lee said it was one of his best days on the river. 

There was a tie for second with Andy Powell and Martin Reyatt, MR drawing the outfall at Swineford and catching 5 bream but not on pellets or meat 😂😂

Full results and team results are below, but that’s enough typing now as I need some sleep. No fishing for the next couple of weeks for me.

Commercial House Winter League Round 1

After a break my Thatchers team put a team back in the league this year. I was personally happy as it meant more chances to fish my local Bristol Avon, though our focus as a team is on the Angling Trust Winter League. Today’s first match was from New bridge down to the trees. Eight teams of 6 are fishing this year, plus a hospital team is available if people want to fish it as an open.

The draw was at the Crown pub in Keynsham and I got their quite early and got the team sheet and pools sorted. Team today was Shaun Townsend, Rob Manns, James Carty, Mat Challenger, Steve Lovell and myself. The river had plenty of colour, and with more heavy rain overnight I was sure this would be a bream match, but they’re not in every peg. I did the team draw today, certainly didn’t get the rub of the green as I avoided all the recent bream pegs, James Carty had the best chance in peg 20. I was drawn in the trees peg 92 which is one below the stream, not a noted bream area really. Wasn’t sure if we were going to get to our pegs as Dean Harvey was having trouble getting the gates to the rugby unlocked and a queue was forming! Thankfully Dean sorted it, but he’s no Houdini 😂.

Arrived at the peg and was surprised to see the river was not flowing that fast, but was quite coloured. I was still wondering if the river would rise / get faster as the day went on. This picture was taken after the match, but the river didn’t change.

Although I was not in a good bream area I still felt I would need them to do any good in my section. I put up two feeder rods, one with a size 12 to 0.17 and the other had a size 8 if I wanted to try lobworms. I did set up a crowquill but as I never had a bite on it that will not be mentioned again. I mixed up Sonubaits Sweet Skimmer and Thatchers original for the feeder line. I had some old gbait that I would chuck in at 10m for the float / just in case the river came up.

The match started at 10:15, although some duffer further down in the next section shouted all in at 10 he was soon put right. I threw my gbait in at 10m and then went onto the feeder. After six quick casts I started getting bites straight away from small fish. But the bites were a nightmare to hit, it was little roach, perch and chublets. An hour in and I would be lucky if I had a pound, Jerry Pocock above me on the stream said he had 2lb. Trying big baits resulted in just more missed bites, but after 90 minutes I had a 1lb hybrid that was my first net fish. 

Just over 2 hours in and the small fish bites abated, it was pretty dull now and I started to ring team mates to get a feel for what was happening, not a lot for us it seemed, but James had 1 bream. At 12:40 I was on the phone to Andy Britt when the rod really bent over, bream on. Landed a 4lb fish, next cast and immediately another bream about 5lb. Well the next cast was biteless, as was the next 50 minutes and then I had another 5lb bream. It was the last one though. For the rest of the match I had 12oz eel, plus a few more small perch and chublets. I’d fished the feeder for all bar 10 minutes, so I had given myself the best chance to catch bream.

I had the weigh board but as I was not quite ready Andy Pritchard grabbed it, he was on the last peg in the section and told me he had 10 bream / skimmers, and they ended up weighing 37lb 3oz which easily won the overall section. I was second in the section as my fish went 18lb 10oz. Luckily for me Andy’s team is in A division whereas Thatchers are in B, so I would get the B section money.

Picture of Andy just getting his largest bream out of the net, it went 8lb 4oz. There was a bigger one caught at Newbridge by Steve Hutchinson, his went 9lb 3oz!

As you can see from my section board there were some decent weights here. 

Back to the pub for a beer and some grub, my team results were up and down, Shaun won his section, James was second, but Steve only beat one with 25lb lol, and Mat and Rob were last. That meant Lobby’s won our division and we came second. In A division Bathampton won easily.

Below are the section winners and top individuals. Derek Jarman was one peg below Andy Pritchard by the arch, a good weight of bream from there. Andy Cranston was on peg 40 at the end of the straight. Dave Clapton on the Norfolk reeds. Good anglers on good pegs made no mistakes.

Next week it’s round 2, Swineford Crane and Jack Whites.

Bathampton pairs round 5 & 6

A bit of a catch up on round 5, where both myself and partner Rich Lacey were absent. Rich was watching a gig and Wendy and I were walking in the Mendips. Our two super subs shall remain nameless due to the fact that they both came last in section. 🙈😂. As a result of this we went from leading the league to being in joint second place with everyone in with a shout (bar Derek Coles and Dean Harvey who had been feeding fish repellent). To be fair to our stand ins they both drew the worst peg in each section based on previous matches. Craig Pinker and Jan Mazyk were now leading the league. I think Nick Coles won the match from peg 16 with bream, he and his partner Jerry Pocock were joint second.

Round 6, final match, and we were fishing back in the trees section. After the other two matches here we knew the early pegs in A section were best and late pegs in B section best. Graham Hunt actually said before the draw he wanted to avoid pegs A6 to B3, I couldn’t disagree. Rich drew for us, and for the first time he had a misfire.. peg A7 for him and B2 for me, oh 💩. Worse still the other top pairs seemed to have anglers in the good areas, and I was not sure if we could stay in the top three places overall.

Got to the pegs and we thought we would need a bonus bream to do well as not many roach have shown in our pegs, but it was a long shot. My peg was barren and not inspiring lol.

There was not much flow on the river today so this might slow the fishing down. I set up the usual gbait feeder, waggler, and a couple of pole rigs for fishing on or near the deck. 

I started the march by putting 8 balls of gbait with just a small amount of hemp and caster in (Sonubaits black roach and river). Then spent 45 minutes on the feeder casting fairly regular to begin. There were a few small fish about it seemed, and I had 2 roach and a chublet and then another small roach. Reeling the small roach in I noticed a fish chasing it, thinking pike I reeled faster, but it grabbed it. As I pulled I saw it was a big perch over 2lb, but just as I got excited it came off. I was gutted but it would have been a bit jammy to have caught it. Bites tailed off, other than a couple of big Ruffe and tiny perch. 

I thought I would let the feeder line settle and get on the pole, confident of a few roach. Well I got that wrong, 30 minutes of trying gave me just 4 tiny perch. Back on the feeder and another Ruffe and no bites, this was even worse than I expected. Rich was in the same boat and we were head scratching. On my right Warren Bates had just a couple of small fish, and on my left Lee Warden had less than a pound. It was rock hard, only Dean on A8 had caught a few fish on the feeder early and had 3lb. Dean has drawn the same peg every time so he was a bit annoyed!

Middle of the match and nothing was happening, no bites on the waggler or anything. I got off my box and got a chop worm pole rig out, 1g rig with 14 to 0.15. Bait dropped some worm and caster at an angle 10m down the peg. First two looks over this line yielded a one ounce perch each time. Another waste of bait? The boredom was interrupted by a good bit of banter, and one of Warrens trolley tyres randomly exploding! Occasionally I’d shout down to Lee to make sure he was still awake lol. Also a strange creature swam across the river to my bank, a snake, no, a rat, no… it was a squirrel, glad I had witnesses!

About 2 hours to go I caught 2 roach on the pole out of the blue, but they were the only ones. Another Ruffe on the feeder, and then an hour to go I decided to give the chop worm line one last look. I waited and had a very tentative bite just as before, expecting another tiny perch I was shocked when the elastic came out of the pole. Maybe it was that perch, but then I saw it was an eel and after a couple of attempts it was the net, had to be a good pound and a half, so a mini bonus. I ended the match on the feeder looking for a bream but it never came. Rich and I both were looking at 3lb, and thought we would blow out.

As I packed up the thunder started and I was hoping that the rain would hold off. Derek was on the scales and when he got to me the sky was getting darker over Bath. My fish went 3lb 10oz, catch shot not great due to apprentice photography 😂

As expected I was the wrong end of the section and got 4 points from 8. As you can see on the section board my neighbours faired worse. Mike Weston found a couple of bream to win the section and he won the match, top man.

In A section Rich Got 3 points, again wrong end of section, Dean did really well.

As we pushed our trolleys back the thunder got louder and spots of rain fell. What we didn’t need was Dereks trolley upsetting… twice… FFS 😂. Got back to the van as the downpour started and didn’t stop for well over an hour! Through the pouring rain the results were done by Dean. Poor weights today, only the top three had any bream. Overall the top pair in the league were Craig Pinker and Jan Mazcyk, well done chaps! Jerry Pocock and Nick Coles were second. Myself and Rich were tied third with Mike Weston and Pete, but we got the verdict on weight. Well we were chuffed with that given the pegs we had today. 

This has been a great league, hopefully more people will join in next season. Now it’s time to get ready for the winter leagues. My Preston Innovations has a team in the Angling Trust league, and a team in the Commercial House. I would love to get a chance on a couple of fliers 😊

Bathampton Pairs series round 4

This round of the six match series was back at the Trees section of the Bristol Avon at Saltford. Saturday was busy for preparation.. an hour spin class at 10am, dash to Scott’s Tackle to collect my bait, tie a few more hooks, check everything was ready and put some groundbait in the carryall. At 2pm I was in the Jolly Cobbler with Glenn Bailey and Mark Jeffries with a pint of Guinness. We met up with Paul Benson and our other mates in the Wellington pub before watching Bristol Rovers finally getting a first day win after 13 years. Some more Guinness rounded off a great day, all good prep for Sunday 😂.

After an early night I was up at 6:30 and soon loading the van (nothing forgotten), and dived in McDonalds drive through. I decided to pay cash to get some change for the pools, but that backfired when I was handed £15 of pound coins, fifty pence and 20 pence pieces!! When I got to the draw I counted out the coins and gave them to Dean Harvey and ran. Let’s just say I guess by his language he was not impressed, Rich Lacey nearly pissed himself 😂.

As Rich has been doing well in the drawbag I let him go again, he got A4 and me B3. Last match here A section was rank and B section better but down the lower end, so we weren’t really sure how we would do. When I got to my peg I was not that impressed, no far bank tree cover, just reeds. 

Since bream have shown every round the first thing I set up was a gbait feeder with 0.13 to 14 N30. I mixed up the usual Sonubaits Dark F1 and Sweet Skimmer for this. Although the peg was cramped and close to the path I set the pole up as I reckoned it would be best for presenting the bait with a down stream wind. A 1.5 pencil rig and 2gm bodied rig were put up with 18 N10 to 0.10 Accu Power. I also set up a whip and waggler but they were not used.

At 9:30 we started and I had 10 fairly quick casts on the feeder, casting about two thirds across. No lucky early bream for me, so onto the pole where I chucked in 8 balls of gbait (Sonubaits Black River and Black Roach). I started on the positive 2g rig and had 1 roach, onto the pencil rig and it was a struggle. I did manage to pull out some very small roach on single maggot but when this faded I picked up the feeder.

It was nearly 11am and I only had just over a pound I thought, the feeder had not produced a bite. I added some chopped worm and caught a Ruffe, great 😂. However, at 11:10 I had a lovely pull round and hooked a bream. Despite the increased boat traffic I landed it safely, maybe 3lb. Next cast worm and maggot on hook and probably waited all of 2 minutes for another pull round, this one was nearer 5lb. Next cast a perch, then next cast another bream. By 11:50 I had added another bream and a skimmer. About 16lb in aniut 40 minutes, happy days. 

All went quiet, just odd little perch and another Ruffe, but after my last match I was thinking that I would get a few more later. Unfortunately the vibes were not good, and the feeder was now dead. I picked up the pole to try it again but was not confident that I would catch, but I was wrong. By fishing the pencil float and maggot I could now catch 3oz to 4oz roach, I had 30 minutes catching then as soon as it slowed I went back on the feeder. The feeder line was still dead and after 25 minutes I was back on the pole and the roach were back. I caught them steady until 30 minutes of the match was left, and then went back on the feeder, but no last chance bream today.

I hadn’t heard much rumours about what had been caught, but  upstream Derek Coles said he only had 5lb, below me Tony Twist had a couple of bream and a skimmer. Rich had been struggling up in A section. I was packed away quickly and wandered down to see Lee Warden getting weighed in, he had 2 bream and a couple of decent eels, but he had lost 2 bream. He weighed 14lb 6oz which was top at that point. Whilst we weighed Lee in 2 bream rolled in his peg!

Tony weighed 12lb 10oz and then it was my turn. I put 3 bream on the scales for 12lb 10oz and then the rest of my fish also went 12lb 10oz for 25lb 4oz.  That was enough for me to win the section, but I was told that Warren Bates in A section had 5 or 6 bream so it sounded like he was going to win the third match on the trot. When I pushed my trolley back up the bank all the A section anglers were gone and so I didn’t know what was caught until I got back to the car park. The first person I saw was Warren and after winding me up he then told me I had won the match. Turned out the first three anglers in A section all had a few bream, as you can see from the sheet, and they all framed.

1st Tim Ford 25lb 4oz

2nd Warren Bates 22lb 6oz

3rd Craig Pinker 21lb 7oz

4th Jerry Pocock 19lb 4oz

Dean Harvey had the last laugh today, he put all the coins I gave him in my winners envelope! I just knew he would 😂😂😂. (Update, just bought 4 cans of Moretti in my local shop and paid for them with 50 pences 😂)

On the pairs front Rich and I extended our lead to 9 points, but fair play to Rich he was the best in A section without a bream with 3lb 12oz and that was a great result for us. I was really pleased with how my day had gone, I was not expecting to have that good a day but it just shows you never know. I cannot make round 5 but have super sub Matt Challenger standing in for me. Think it might be a few weeks till I get out again due to other commitments.

Bathampton pairs series- Round 3

I had a busy week as I was up in Richmond at my new employers HQ for a week of induction and training. A thoroughly enjoyable experience and my fellow employees were very friendly. Despite having 3 months off I was able to get back into the routine.

Back to Newbridge for the third round of this 6 match series, and I picked up my bait and my partner Rich Lacey’s bait on Saturday. Didn’t need to do much prep as all my rigs were still in one piece. The weather forecast was showing it would be a hot sunny day, so made sure I had plenty of drinks, sun tan lotion and a hat ready.

Sunday morning and I was at Greggs Longwell Green for 7am, it was supposed to be open but it wasn’t ready, off to McDonalds then. I got to Newbridge in good time, paid my pools and gave Rich his bait. The pegging was going to be a little bit different to the first match due to some boats moored up, this despite a huge sign saying no mooring is allowed. In fact pegger Derek Coles had a bit of a run in with one of these boaters, but it got calmed down. Apparently Dean Harvey has now been on Amazon and has bought Derek a pair of boxing gloves 😂.

Anyway, the draw got underway and as before I let Rich go first, at the moment this boy can draw as he pulled A1 which was peg 18, my favourite peg. My turn and I got B4 which I didn’t know where it was but would soon find out. A nice warm walk along the river and I was soon sweating, I found my peg and I was on old peg 52. In the first match this section was dominated by bream, but with the hot sun I wondered if they would feed, however, the river did have a good colour again.

I set up a feeder rod for bream with 0.13 to 14, waggler, and two pole rigs, but they won’t get much of a mention. I mixed up some Sonubaits Dark F1 and Sweet Skimmer for the feeder, as well as roach and river for the pole.

I had Nick Coles below me on 54 and last match winner Warren Bates on 49, peg 50 in between us had a boat moored up and so Warren had a lot of room as Graham Hunt above him was on 46.

We started as per usual at 9:30 and I kicked off on the feeder having 10 fairly quick casts and did catch a roach and missed a couple of small fish bites. Bream trap set I went onto the pole and cupped in 4 balls, as I did this I thought I saw a bream roll across. Onto the pole and I had bites but it was only from small roach and bleak which were grabbing the bait on the drop. I’d seen another 3 bream roll during this, not over my feeder line but close enough. I wasn’t going to let that go and so went on the feeder again. First cast on 3 red maggots and ragged out, next cast on worm and ragged out. OK on with 2 worms to try to get past the bits, result proper pull round bite and bream on. Put that one in the net about 45 minutes into the match. A few casts later and just as a rowing boat was going in front of me the tip pulled round again, another bream on and had to keep the tip under water as the rowers went over. Fifteen minutes later another bream, and 15 minutes later another bream on, this time a large barge was closing in fast, I had to crank this bream in hard and just got it my side of the barge, phew! The lady on the boat said she’d seen another like that but mine was bigger, I thanked her and said it was nice of her 😂😂😂. Both her and her husband laughed 😂.

Warren must have heard that and rang me up to see what I had, my four bream was less than his 5 bream which he had in 5 casts, the first after 15 minutes! Nick Coles was only getting bits at this stage but did have a skimmer.

My next hour was quiet and I had just a few small perch and a 10oz chub, then a bream. I’d heard that a few bream were coming out, and Rich had started to get them so good news. Nick below me then had 3 bream in about 30 minutes, so after a good start I was struggling, but there was no point fishing for anything else other than bream now.

It was a struggle with no bites, but this is bream fishing and I just had to stick it out on the tip. I think about 2 hours to go when out of the blue I had 2 more bream in 2 casts. Very welcome fish on a worm and red maggot, but no more followed. Sadly other than a roach that was my lot, but Warren had done well and more bream on the feeder and waggler, could I get second in section?

Mike Weston on the end peg in the Norfolk reeds had the scales, and when he got to me Nick Coles was best with 21lb 10oz. My fish went 31lb 8oz, the first 4 bream in the picture went 16lb 14oz.

Warren then obliterated that and weighed 62lb 10oz, a great bag and well done mate. Above Warren the next angler Graham Hunt had 22lb 9oz which included 5 bream. Poor old Dean Harvey was on B1 and the peg I had first match (I beat 1 angler) and it was crap again as he came last in section with 2lb. Yet on A8 and A7 above Dean both anglers had bream. Top 4 anglers are paid out and I got 4th, hers the frame and section default winners. Well done Warren on winning two matches on the trot. 

Weigh sheets are below, and you’ll see that my partner Rich won A section, that meant we were top pair on the day and this has put us on top the league at the halfway stage with 35 points, Mike Weston and his partner Pete have 30 points and Jerry Pocock and Nick Coles have 29. All very close! I am chuffed to finally get amongst the bream after 2 tough matches, it’s certainly proving to be Peggy and so good draws will be needed in future rounds. Not sure if I will be fishing next Sunday, will all depend on the weather as I’m supposed to be watching cricket.