I had always intended to fish Cider Farm lakes Sunday just gone, but then a late night was planned for Saturday and I didn't want to get up early and drive after a skinful. So it was lucky for me that Tony Rixon had an open at Avalon with a midday draw, fish 13:15 to 19:15.
I had plenty of time to get my gear together on Sun morning and the expected hangover was not to bad at all. I received a call from Glen Bailey who was fishing a CARPS AC match at Viaduct Campbell lake, or so he thought. It turned out the match had grown and went on to Cary lake too, which did not please Glenn one bit as he was on his third bash at Campbell. His call was to advise he had drawn peg 90 on Cary and was now looking to fish at Avalon, and Tony had the space to fit him.
Arriving at the venue the weather was not to bad, none of the promised rain, but a gusty wind was affecting the far end of the match lake we were to fish. I drew peg 28 which was 2 pegs away from where I had drawn last match, and on that day peg 27 had weighed a ton, Clint wykylicylik was on this peg. As I was setting up the wind was increasing and I set up a grip mesh feeder to use to pack soften pellets into. Getting my range with a straight lead I had 6 chucks that were all near perfect, just one more to make sure... let go to soon and up the tree it went... damn! That was to come back to haunt me later. I set up deep pellet and paste rigs and a margin rig and that was all I had time for. On the whistle I deposited half a big pot of 6mm pellets at 14mtrs and went straight onto the feeder. I was not leaving the feeder in for more than a few minutes to try to get some bait in, after about 20 mins the tip banged round, it was a carp but at 1lb one of the babies in the lake. A few casts later and a 4lb fish was in the net, next chuck a 5lb fish. Not long after another 5lb common was netted, so on the hour Mark I reckoned to have 15lb. It then went a bit quiet but a slightly bigger common hit the net and another smaller one came all by 1 1/2 hours. I was using 0.20 hooklength to a size 18 PR36 hook with a fairly long hair, hookbait was a 8mm or 10mm hard pellet. All the while I was feeding the odd pouch of pellet onto the pole line looking for signs of fish feeding.
My casting had been fairly accurate but the wind was getting worse and now the rain had started. Inevitably I lost a feeder and had to set up again. Leigh Nutland walked down and advised that I had as many in the net as anyone else at that stage. My bites had dried up on the feeder, but there were carp showing on the surface so I decided to set up the pellet wag which took no more than 5 mins. A 3.5 Swan Corby got me to the far side, although at this stage I had not fed any bait over as I had tried to keep the fish on the bottom, I had no bites on the wag. I tried to feed a few 8mm pellets over but it was very hard to concentrate the feed, one decent common was my only bite and I decided to go back to the feeder to keep the bait going on. Unfortunately in the next hour I had only 2 bites, but both fish came off halfway back, they didn't feel foulhooked so I was gutted to lose them.
With 2 hours to go I chucked 2 pints of caster and half a tin of corn in down the edge, then went on the long pole, In 30 mins on the pole I had one bite and came back with a scale. I spent the rest of the match on long pole and looking down the margin. The margin produced no bites, but I did manage 2 more commons on the long pole and lost another 2 foulhookers. There were fish on the pole line with fizzes all the time, but I couldn't get the damn things!
By the end of the match I could feel the rain had finally penetrated parts of my clothing, mostly in the groin area! I think I may have caught more if I had persisted with the feeder for longer, but unfortunately that lead I lost before the start of the match had a fair bit of line hanging down from it, and once I caught it I only managed to drag it out further meaning I was catching it nearly every cast and had to throw it up the bank! Glenn had rounded off his bad day by packing up early, wet and completely hacked off, in his own words "I have had a right f..." sorry, I cannot print what he said on this family friendly website, but you get the picture!
I weighed 43lb for 6th place (first out of the money) and nowt else, Clint beat me off peg 28 by 3lb thanks to 3 big carp he had on the paste in the last hour, one of which was around 15lb, well done matey.
Bela Bakos won with 75lb all on the waggler from I think peg 38 (must have been solid), Mike West was 2nd from peg 24 with 72lb (must have been really solid!)
VENUE EXPERT TONY RIXON HAD 29lb, so at least I managed to finally beat him on this venue!
Right now I must go and put all my gear back away, it's been spread out in the garden since 6pm drying out. No fishing this weekend as seeing family, hopefully by the next time I go everything will be dried out!
Monday 27 July 2009
Sunday 19 July 2009
Intermediate National River Nene - 30/9/1989
I decided not to fish this weekend but to have a go at selling some junk at a car boot sale and free up some space in my house. Bad idea, it rained for most of the time and I only made about a fiver and gave everything else to St Peters Hospice (which is a very good cause).
I remember the lead up to this match on the Nene, we'd got some information from I think Chris Cooper and had decided to just turn up and fish. I managed to get hold of some very long wagglers that had been designed for the Nene some time ago, and the info told us to start on these, but look to change to a normal waggler later on in the match when the roach should come on the feed. I borrowed a work colleagues company car that made the journey to Peterborough much more pleasurable than it would have been in my Marina Estate! Andy Britt was the "manager" and had got all the info and pulled everything together, we had some good anglers fishing, like Mark Holbrook and Clayton Hudson, and thought we had half a chance as it was river fishing. I was given peg 212 on the North Bank, and this meant I could park my car behind my peg. When I arrived at my peg I found the anglers either side already talking. One was from Barnsley Blacks, the other from Starlets, great no pressure then!
I was not to happy that these two lads were ignoring me, by talking to each other from their pegs, but I just got on with setting up. I set up the long waggler with a 4 no6 bulk and 3 no8 spread below, this was set at 13ft deep. The normal wag was set at half depth with a few no8s spread out. I also set a pole rig up but was hoping not to have to use it. Whilst setting up I caught my hook in my jumper and this brought a chuckle from the Barnsley lad, after translation I realised he'd said "that's what I like to see". I ignored the comment, but as it seemed he had set up he came down to my peg and asked where I was from as he looked at what gear I had set up. "I been here 7 times practising, ow many times you been up?" he said, when I replied it was the first time I'd seen the venue he was staggered. He even shouted down to the Starlets lad to tell him that "this farmer here hadn't practiced". They both said how could I hope to do any good, and were rubbing their hands in anticipation of giving me a hiding. Now I will admit that I was a tad worried, they both had bloodworm and had practiced a lot, but I was cheered up by a an older guy stewarding who must have over heard some of their comments. "Just get on and fish it how you've been told and don't let them wind you up."
On the whistle out I went with the big wag, and feeding bronze maggot and hemp and it wasn't long before I got the odd roach. I reckon I had 2 hours of catching the odd small roach before bites were non existent. This was where you still had to feed but leave the wag alone for a while, on the pole I think I had an eel and a roach but it was very slow. The steward advised it was fishing hard and that the guy on the end peg was doing the best, but that I was not to far behind. With 40 minutes to go the waggler line came alive again, and a bite on the drop was the signal to change to the half depth wag. I was now catching better roach, and they were stuffed with bait! The whistle went and I was happy, I knew I'd stuffed the guys out of sight either side of me and that in itself was satisfying!
As the scales came down 5lb was winning the section, I weighed 5lb 7oz which 2lb more than the Barnsley lad and 3lb more than the Starlets lad. To be fair to them they both came up to me and congratulated me and I thanked them for leaving the waggler line free for me (they'd been on the pole most of the day). I didn't know what else was weighed in further down but the steward said he would let me know back at the HQ.
Back at the results the team hadn't done any good, we'd even had Clayton Hudson blank, though I recall a car accident happened right behind his peg and the commotion probably pushed the fish away. I was chuffed to find out that I'd come 2nd in the section, only beaten by the end peg, and I was 7th overall in the whole match giving me £64 and a medal for my troubles, that made the journey back home a lot sweeter.
The following day I was on the opening round of the ATWL South West division (Avoncliffe to Warleigh I think), the team was really up for this and we were hoping to start well. Things got off to a great start when Andy Floyd came back from the draw shaking, he had drawn end peg 1. The end peg draw on this round was always a flyer! I found myself pegged at Warleigh bang opposite the boat house which I did not fancy at all, the pegs below me held chub but I couldn't see any chub being in this peg with the boaters in and out all day. I set up a stick float and fished down a third of the way out into 5ft of water. I approached this peg in the same way I had the one at Avoncliffe a few weeks before feeding very little amounts of maggot and hemp. I had the odd dace, roach and perch, but caught mainly gudgeon and so had a busy day for my 5lb 9oz. I was really chuffed when I realised the chub hadn't shown (or were lost) and I won the 13 peg section for the team. It was a great start for me and the team as we won the day and the mighty Silstar Bathampton had only come 5th! For once the start to the ATWL was a good one, and although there was a long way to go we were in front and on a high! Before the next round of the ATWL there was a Commercial House and on the Saturday Team Amalgamation had entered a few teams in the Upper Thames Championship, a match I will talk about next time as I really enjoyed it!
Keep up the blogging Mr Rixon, it has already given me a great laugh even if it is just for the bad grammar!
I remember the lead up to this match on the Nene, we'd got some information from I think Chris Cooper and had decided to just turn up and fish. I managed to get hold of some very long wagglers that had been designed for the Nene some time ago, and the info told us to start on these, but look to change to a normal waggler later on in the match when the roach should come on the feed. I borrowed a work colleagues company car that made the journey to Peterborough much more pleasurable than it would have been in my Marina Estate! Andy Britt was the "manager" and had got all the info and pulled everything together, we had some good anglers fishing, like Mark Holbrook and Clayton Hudson, and thought we had half a chance as it was river fishing. I was given peg 212 on the North Bank, and this meant I could park my car behind my peg. When I arrived at my peg I found the anglers either side already talking. One was from Barnsley Blacks, the other from Starlets, great no pressure then!
I was not to happy that these two lads were ignoring me, by talking to each other from their pegs, but I just got on with setting up. I set up the long waggler with a 4 no6 bulk and 3 no8 spread below, this was set at 13ft deep. The normal wag was set at half depth with a few no8s spread out. I also set a pole rig up but was hoping not to have to use it. Whilst setting up I caught my hook in my jumper and this brought a chuckle from the Barnsley lad, after translation I realised he'd said "that's what I like to see". I ignored the comment, but as it seemed he had set up he came down to my peg and asked where I was from as he looked at what gear I had set up. "I been here 7 times practising, ow many times you been up?" he said, when I replied it was the first time I'd seen the venue he was staggered. He even shouted down to the Starlets lad to tell him that "this farmer here hadn't practiced". They both said how could I hope to do any good, and were rubbing their hands in anticipation of giving me a hiding. Now I will admit that I was a tad worried, they both had bloodworm and had practiced a lot, but I was cheered up by a an older guy stewarding who must have over heard some of their comments. "Just get on and fish it how you've been told and don't let them wind you up."
On the whistle out I went with the big wag, and feeding bronze maggot and hemp and it wasn't long before I got the odd roach. I reckon I had 2 hours of catching the odd small roach before bites were non existent. This was where you still had to feed but leave the wag alone for a while, on the pole I think I had an eel and a roach but it was very slow. The steward advised it was fishing hard and that the guy on the end peg was doing the best, but that I was not to far behind. With 40 minutes to go the waggler line came alive again, and a bite on the drop was the signal to change to the half depth wag. I was now catching better roach, and they were stuffed with bait! The whistle went and I was happy, I knew I'd stuffed the guys out of sight either side of me and that in itself was satisfying!
As the scales came down 5lb was winning the section, I weighed 5lb 7oz which 2lb more than the Barnsley lad and 3lb more than the Starlets lad. To be fair to them they both came up to me and congratulated me and I thanked them for leaving the waggler line free for me (they'd been on the pole most of the day). I didn't know what else was weighed in further down but the steward said he would let me know back at the HQ.
Back at the results the team hadn't done any good, we'd even had Clayton Hudson blank, though I recall a car accident happened right behind his peg and the commotion probably pushed the fish away. I was chuffed to find out that I'd come 2nd in the section, only beaten by the end peg, and I was 7th overall in the whole match giving me £64 and a medal for my troubles, that made the journey back home a lot sweeter.
The following day I was on the opening round of the ATWL South West division (Avoncliffe to Warleigh I think), the team was really up for this and we were hoping to start well. Things got off to a great start when Andy Floyd came back from the draw shaking, he had drawn end peg 1. The end peg draw on this round was always a flyer! I found myself pegged at Warleigh bang opposite the boat house which I did not fancy at all, the pegs below me held chub but I couldn't see any chub being in this peg with the boaters in and out all day. I set up a stick float and fished down a third of the way out into 5ft of water. I approached this peg in the same way I had the one at Avoncliffe a few weeks before feeding very little amounts of maggot and hemp. I had the odd dace, roach and perch, but caught mainly gudgeon and so had a busy day for my 5lb 9oz. I was really chuffed when I realised the chub hadn't shown (or were lost) and I won the 13 peg section for the team. It was a great start for me and the team as we won the day and the mighty Silstar Bathampton had only come 5th! For once the start to the ATWL was a good one, and although there was a long way to go we were in front and on a high! Before the next round of the ATWL there was a Commercial House and on the Saturday Team Amalgamation had entered a few teams in the Upper Thames Championship, a match I will talk about next time as I really enjoyed it!
Keep up the blogging Mr Rixon, it has already given me a great laugh even if it is just for the bad grammar!
Tuesday 14 July 2009
Cornered in at Landsend Fishery
I had managed to get one of the last places available on the Tony Rixon float only league at Landsend. It was nice to going back to this venue as I haven't fished it that regularly and that keeps the anticipation high. I've only fished this venue for about 3 years, prior to that I wasn't interested in fishing 16mtrs for 6 hours but soon found out there was a bit more to the venue than this. Strange thing is in those 3 years I have only ever drawn on Match lake, with all 4 lakes in today I felt sure that would change... Nope Match again peg 24! Well as most people will know this a corner peg and it can be very good so I was happy.
I was only fishing this as an open so was fishing to win, but this side of the lake is often the best and so it would be a good test. I was given lots of advice how to tackle the peg, Martyn Reyat suggested worm and caster and kindly gave me a few worms as I had none. However, I decided the worm and caster would be employed at 9 mtrs down the edge and 13 to 14 mtrs down the edge would be pellet. Of course I didn't want to plunder the inside straight away so I started out in the open water at 13mtrs with banded pellet on the deck but also hoping I might get a few shallow. Unfortunately it was a slow start for me 1 skimmer and one lost carp (foul hooked) was all I had to show for about 40 mins, meanwhile Craig Edmunds on peg 22 and Eddie Wynn (another Gashead)on peg 19 were into fish right from the first drop in against the island. I was a long way behind already and went inside at 13 mtrs on hard pellet earlier than I wanted to. It wasn't a bad move as near double, 7lb, and a couple of 3lb fish were soon in the net before it died.
After this the next few hours of the match were a struggle for me, I only had a couple of decent rudd on the worm line, and a couple of carp at 13mtrs but there were hardly any signs of fish. I tried at new line in the open water at 7mtrs and took 3 skimmers and a carp before the fizzing stopped and I was simply falling further behind. With 2 hours I tried the 13mtr inside line and this time was getting some indications, they were cagey, but by constantly feeding lifting and dropping I kept a few going in the net. I ended the match with 68lb (6lb odd of silvers and 62lb of Carp) this was a long way behind Eddies winning 127lb and Triggers 2nd place 112lb, boy I wish I had an island to fish to! Opposite me on peg 1 Gary Etheridge had caught odd fish, by mainly fishing 18 mtrs to the island infront of empty peg 2 this enabled Gary to avoid the long dead spells I had, and Gary admitted he had struggled to catch down the edge and not got the depth sorted. Unfortunately you cannot under any circumstances fish to the island from peg 24 as it is set further back.
I won the section by double default (hee hee!) for a pick up of £35, always nice when Tony Rixon gives you money after the amount he's taken off me over the years.
In all I fed nearly 6 pints of 6mm pellets trying to get the fish to come into the edge, and I stuck mainly to an 8mm on the hook, except for the open water line at 7mtrs where I fished soft pellet. In hindsight I should have gone for silvers because only 16lb won this (Alan Oram) and I had 6lb+ without trying. My problem is I like to catch carp when I go to these venues and you have to make your mind up what you are going to do, had I not been in the corner peg and was getting battered I would have gone for silvers. But hindsight is easy, I doubt nobody before the match would have said only 16lb would have won the silvers!
I really should go to Landsend more as I think I've only failed to pick up money once in all the times I fished there, but maybe I might draw another lake!
Seems like my Thatchers team bombed out in the ATWL final, all I know is they did bad and did not appear in the top 6 teams shown on the anglers mail website. Bad luck lads, I hope you had a good night out on the beer to at least make the weekend a partial success!
Tony Rixon has told me he now has created a blog, to which I suggested his kids must have done this for him. I don't yet know what it's called but when I find out I will add it to mine as one I follow so other people can easily find it and read the load of bollix he will undoubtedly write about me! Those who know Tony will know he does have a degree in pee taking so look out!
I was only fishing this as an open so was fishing to win, but this side of the lake is often the best and so it would be a good test. I was given lots of advice how to tackle the peg, Martyn Reyat suggested worm and caster and kindly gave me a few worms as I had none. However, I decided the worm and caster would be employed at 9 mtrs down the edge and 13 to 14 mtrs down the edge would be pellet. Of course I didn't want to plunder the inside straight away so I started out in the open water at 13mtrs with banded pellet on the deck but also hoping I might get a few shallow. Unfortunately it was a slow start for me 1 skimmer and one lost carp (foul hooked) was all I had to show for about 40 mins, meanwhile Craig Edmunds on peg 22 and Eddie Wynn (another Gashead)on peg 19 were into fish right from the first drop in against the island. I was a long way behind already and went inside at 13 mtrs on hard pellet earlier than I wanted to. It wasn't a bad move as near double, 7lb, and a couple of 3lb fish were soon in the net before it died.
After this the next few hours of the match were a struggle for me, I only had a couple of decent rudd on the worm line, and a couple of carp at 13mtrs but there were hardly any signs of fish. I tried at new line in the open water at 7mtrs and took 3 skimmers and a carp before the fizzing stopped and I was simply falling further behind. With 2 hours I tried the 13mtr inside line and this time was getting some indications, they were cagey, but by constantly feeding lifting and dropping I kept a few going in the net. I ended the match with 68lb (6lb odd of silvers and 62lb of Carp) this was a long way behind Eddies winning 127lb and Triggers 2nd place 112lb, boy I wish I had an island to fish to! Opposite me on peg 1 Gary Etheridge had caught odd fish, by mainly fishing 18 mtrs to the island infront of empty peg 2 this enabled Gary to avoid the long dead spells I had, and Gary admitted he had struggled to catch down the edge and not got the depth sorted. Unfortunately you cannot under any circumstances fish to the island from peg 24 as it is set further back.
I won the section by double default (hee hee!) for a pick up of £35, always nice when Tony Rixon gives you money after the amount he's taken off me over the years.
In all I fed nearly 6 pints of 6mm pellets trying to get the fish to come into the edge, and I stuck mainly to an 8mm on the hook, except for the open water line at 7mtrs where I fished soft pellet. In hindsight I should have gone for silvers because only 16lb won this (Alan Oram) and I had 6lb+ without trying. My problem is I like to catch carp when I go to these venues and you have to make your mind up what you are going to do, had I not been in the corner peg and was getting battered I would have gone for silvers. But hindsight is easy, I doubt nobody before the match would have said only 16lb would have won the silvers!
I really should go to Landsend more as I think I've only failed to pick up money once in all the times I fished there, but maybe I might draw another lake!
Seems like my Thatchers team bombed out in the ATWL final, all I know is they did bad and did not appear in the top 6 teams shown on the anglers mail website. Bad luck lads, I hope you had a good night out on the beer to at least make the weekend a partial success!
Tony Rixon has told me he now has created a blog, to which I suggested his kids must have done this for him. I don't yet know what it's called but when I find out I will add it to mine as one I follow so other people can easily find it and read the load of bollix he will undoubtedly write about me! Those who know Tony will know he does have a degree in pee taking so look out!
Saturday 11 July 2009
Friday fishing 10/07/09
Due to currently being on a four day week I had the chance to get a few hours out on the bank in Friday. I was undecided where to go, but it had to be close to home as I had to be back for about 4pm latest. I drove to Avon Angling to get some bait and pretty much decided to have another pop at Conham (although the river up at Bath town had been on my mind).
There were a few people in the shop, Craig "Trigger" Edmunds and Bob Warren, both of whom had tales to tell of recent exploits. Trig had come 3rd up at Colemans Cottage with over a ton (boys match) and Bob told me about Mike Nicholls new match record at Hunstrete Bridge pool. I also knew that Tony had won (again) on Wednesday at Landsend, but I didn't want to ask him as I'm sure he gets fed up talking about winning all the time. Despite all this commercial fishery talk I was still going on the river! By the way Tony is thinking of creating his own blog, but he told me he needs to know where the "ON" button is for a computer first. I think a blog by Tony would be of great interest, especially if he revealed his match winning tactics.
I was soon at Conham mixing just a couple of kilos of gbait, I did not fish the same peg this time, I went a little further toward the rowing club where there is platform peg engraved with "fishy" things. I noticed there was a lot of muddy water (plumes) coming down the river, and this carried on all day so can only assume there is some work going on upstream somewhere? Just before I was about to ball in a dozen jaffas, work mate and Corby Pellet wag producer, Paul Corbett came down for a quick watch. As I balled it he said to me "none of your balls went past your float, was that on purpose?" Now this is the kind of thing I take for granted, but anglers not used to those methods don't. The reason for not balling past the float is two fold 1) The gbait balls when thrown in will hit the water and move forward a bit further due to the momentum and trajectory (unless you throw them 20 mtrs up!) and 2) By feeding the gbait short of the float you create a clear feeding zone, and you can sometimes add another pole section and go past the zone and find other fish when it gets hard.
Well on this particular day the gbait had the effect of drawing in fish and I had 6 roach quite early on and some small dace with the odd better one. The bites were hard to hit though and I needed to shallow up very quickly. It soon became apparent that although I was not loose feeding the roach and skimmers would not feed, and the dace wanted to be up in the water. I was getting a fish most chucks but having to change the depth to keep me hitting the bites. Whilst fishing a large fish swirled in the middle river but neither Paul or I saw what it was. Later when Paul went home for a nap another angler appeared for a chat, I told him about the large fish and he said there are a few trout about. Honestly, within 30 seconds of him saying that I was shipping back a tiny dace when I noticed the elastic was now stretched out! On the other end was a decent fish, was it pike, no, a chub we thought, no, it was a trout! A 4lb brown trout in immaculate condition had taken the small dace, wish I had a camera! I put the trout back, and carried on catching dace, eventually I was fishing 4 mtrs to hand just a 1 foot deep catching the dace shallow. I guess I had around the same weight of dace as last time out 15lb when I got a bit bored and packed up.
For anyone who wants to get out and catch some dace shallow go to Conham, especially if you've got kids they will love it!
My plans have changed for the weekend and now I am fishing on Sunday, going to Landsend fishery on the Tony Rixon benevolent league, sorry float only league. As I haven't been to this place for a year I will need a lot of luck at the drawbag, but I'm looking forward to it.
There were a few people in the shop, Craig "Trigger" Edmunds and Bob Warren, both of whom had tales to tell of recent exploits. Trig had come 3rd up at Colemans Cottage with over a ton (boys match) and Bob told me about Mike Nicholls new match record at Hunstrete Bridge pool. I also knew that Tony had won (again) on Wednesday at Landsend, but I didn't want to ask him as I'm sure he gets fed up talking about winning all the time. Despite all this commercial fishery talk I was still going on the river! By the way Tony is thinking of creating his own blog, but he told me he needs to know where the "ON" button is for a computer first. I think a blog by Tony would be of great interest, especially if he revealed his match winning tactics.
I was soon at Conham mixing just a couple of kilos of gbait, I did not fish the same peg this time, I went a little further toward the rowing club where there is platform peg engraved with "fishy" things. I noticed there was a lot of muddy water (plumes) coming down the river, and this carried on all day so can only assume there is some work going on upstream somewhere? Just before I was about to ball in a dozen jaffas, work mate and Corby Pellet wag producer, Paul Corbett came down for a quick watch. As I balled it he said to me "none of your balls went past your float, was that on purpose?" Now this is the kind of thing I take for granted, but anglers not used to those methods don't. The reason for not balling past the float is two fold 1) The gbait balls when thrown in will hit the water and move forward a bit further due to the momentum and trajectory (unless you throw them 20 mtrs up!) and 2) By feeding the gbait short of the float you create a clear feeding zone, and you can sometimes add another pole section and go past the zone and find other fish when it gets hard.
Well on this particular day the gbait had the effect of drawing in fish and I had 6 roach quite early on and some small dace with the odd better one. The bites were hard to hit though and I needed to shallow up very quickly. It soon became apparent that although I was not loose feeding the roach and skimmers would not feed, and the dace wanted to be up in the water. I was getting a fish most chucks but having to change the depth to keep me hitting the bites. Whilst fishing a large fish swirled in the middle river but neither Paul or I saw what it was. Later when Paul went home for a nap another angler appeared for a chat, I told him about the large fish and he said there are a few trout about. Honestly, within 30 seconds of him saying that I was shipping back a tiny dace when I noticed the elastic was now stretched out! On the other end was a decent fish, was it pike, no, a chub we thought, no, it was a trout! A 4lb brown trout in immaculate condition had taken the small dace, wish I had a camera! I put the trout back, and carried on catching dace, eventually I was fishing 4 mtrs to hand just a 1 foot deep catching the dace shallow. I guess I had around the same weight of dace as last time out 15lb when I got a bit bored and packed up.
For anyone who wants to get out and catch some dace shallow go to Conham, especially if you've got kids they will love it!
My plans have changed for the weekend and now I am fishing on Sunday, going to Landsend fishery on the Tony Rixon benevolent league, sorry float only league. As I haven't been to this place for a year I will need a lot of luck at the drawbag, but I'm looking forward to it.
Monday 6 July 2009
A Quick Session
Saturday midday and Wendy and the girls wanted to go to a School fete, I didn't. So I took them and thought I could get a few hours in on the bank. A quick look around and I found 3 bags of groundbait and a tin of hemp, so the river seemed a good bet. A pint of casters and a few maggots later and I was at Conham Park mixing 3 kilos of groundbait. BUT... I had forgotten I had taken out all my river pole rigs to make way for carp rigs, luckily it seemed I had missed one and a 1.5 gm rig was found, change the hook and hooklength (20 B520 to 0.10mm) and off we go.
I was fishing a peg opposite the flats (below the boathouse) and I picked it only because it was relatively comfortable to fish. I put about half of the hemp and 2/3 of the casters into the gbait and balled in 12 jaffas at 13 mtrs. There was hardly any flow and a tricky wind so I held the line tight to the float to try to maintain control. It wasn't long before I had a procession of small dace and whilst I was hoping for some decent roach and skimmers getting a bite a chuck was in itself a nice surprise as most river reports had indicated hard fishing. I never loosefed anything as I didn't want bleak to invade the peg, but I still had to shallow up because the dace were sitting above the gbait by about a foot. Placing the rig in different ways made a difference to hitting bites, and after an hour I was hitting more bites and the average size dace was better. I was into a nice rhythm getting fish before the rig had settled but only catching Dace, until a rogue 8oz perch showed up. As fish were coming so fast I decided to try fishing shorter and took 2 sections of pole off, it was a good foot shallower here. Would you believe I had two 6oz roach in 2 casts then no more, but the dace were here although after 15 mins they disappeared. Back out to 13mtrs and it was a dace a chuck again. I then decided to throw a decent amount of hemp (about 8 handfuls) on the shorter line and leave it for a while. Eventually I tried this shorter line again and was in to those nice dace again, all these fish had been on single maggot (colour made no difference) but I did try hemp on the hook but I had only 1 bite and another 6oz roach.
After 3 hours and the peg still full of fish I packed up as I had to pick the family up. As I pulled the net up I estimated I had a good 15lb and a big crowd of people had stopped to ask me what fish they were and the predictable "Are you going to eat them?". In fact all day there were many people walking the footpath asking me questions as they saw me catching, mostly of course non anglers, and I was happy to talk to them as I think the more we can teach people about fishing the more good we do ourselves. Note I had no negative comments and every kid wanted to "watch the man fishing!" I thoroughly enjoyed the few hours I had, but as I forgot my hat I was getting a bit of a burnt head, so I had to adopt the Ian Spriggs method and chuck my towel over my head! Well I certainly enjoyed this impromptu river session, and the fish were all in cracking condition, Conham Park has always been to my mind one of the best areas to float fish and it still doesn't disappoint.
A few points to update on my last blog: 1) The Winter League Final is Sunday 12th July, not Sunday just gone like I was told, so I could have bloody fished!!!!!
2) The match I fished after my 21st birthday was won by my then team mate Mark "Podge" Jefferies. It was Mark who reminded me of this yesterday (no doubt he was cidered up on Blackthorn) and said he was as at least as drunk as me on this match, and I have absolutely no reason to doubt he was! I expect Mark won the match with Bream on the feeder because he was useless on the float. (Only kidding Mark!)
3) Glenn Bailey also reminded me that he won the superleague on the T&B canal, yeh I remember now Glenn always managed to snare the skimmers on the T&B. I think he did well there because it was bread fishing and his colour blindness did not cause any issues such as using white maggots on the hook instead of red!
I might get out this Friday fishing, don't think there are any matches on a Friday though, but again looks like I have other commitments on the weekend.
LATE NEWS - CIDER FARM LAKES MATCH RECORD BROKEN AGAIN ON YARLINGTON LAKE PEG 13. Pellets shallow was the winners method, how I fished it last time I was there and failed!!!! (If I keep mentioning this place on my blog I might get a discount on the cider!)
I was fishing a peg opposite the flats (below the boathouse) and I picked it only because it was relatively comfortable to fish. I put about half of the hemp and 2/3 of the casters into the gbait and balled in 12 jaffas at 13 mtrs. There was hardly any flow and a tricky wind so I held the line tight to the float to try to maintain control. It wasn't long before I had a procession of small dace and whilst I was hoping for some decent roach and skimmers getting a bite a chuck was in itself a nice surprise as most river reports had indicated hard fishing. I never loosefed anything as I didn't want bleak to invade the peg, but I still had to shallow up because the dace were sitting above the gbait by about a foot. Placing the rig in different ways made a difference to hitting bites, and after an hour I was hitting more bites and the average size dace was better. I was into a nice rhythm getting fish before the rig had settled but only catching Dace, until a rogue 8oz perch showed up. As fish were coming so fast I decided to try fishing shorter and took 2 sections of pole off, it was a good foot shallower here. Would you believe I had two 6oz roach in 2 casts then no more, but the dace were here although after 15 mins they disappeared. Back out to 13mtrs and it was a dace a chuck again. I then decided to throw a decent amount of hemp (about 8 handfuls) on the shorter line and leave it for a while. Eventually I tried this shorter line again and was in to those nice dace again, all these fish had been on single maggot (colour made no difference) but I did try hemp on the hook but I had only 1 bite and another 6oz roach.
After 3 hours and the peg still full of fish I packed up as I had to pick the family up. As I pulled the net up I estimated I had a good 15lb and a big crowd of people had stopped to ask me what fish they were and the predictable "Are you going to eat them?". In fact all day there were many people walking the footpath asking me questions as they saw me catching, mostly of course non anglers, and I was happy to talk to them as I think the more we can teach people about fishing the more good we do ourselves. Note I had no negative comments and every kid wanted to "watch the man fishing!" I thoroughly enjoyed the few hours I had, but as I forgot my hat I was getting a bit of a burnt head, so I had to adopt the Ian Spriggs method and chuck my towel over my head! Well I certainly enjoyed this impromptu river session, and the fish were all in cracking condition, Conham Park has always been to my mind one of the best areas to float fish and it still doesn't disappoint.
A few points to update on my last blog: 1) The Winter League Final is Sunday 12th July, not Sunday just gone like I was told, so I could have bloody fished!!!!!
2) The match I fished after my 21st birthday was won by my then team mate Mark "Podge" Jefferies. It was Mark who reminded me of this yesterday (no doubt he was cidered up on Blackthorn) and said he was as at least as drunk as me on this match, and I have absolutely no reason to doubt he was! I expect Mark won the match with Bream on the feeder because he was useless on the float. (Only kidding Mark!)
3) Glenn Bailey also reminded me that he won the superleague on the T&B canal, yeh I remember now Glenn always managed to snare the skimmers on the T&B. I think he did well there because it was bread fishing and his colour blindness did not cause any issues such as using white maggots on the hook instead of red!
I might get out this Friday fishing, don't think there are any matches on a Friday though, but again looks like I have other commitments on the weekend.
LATE NEWS - CIDER FARM LAKES MATCH RECORD BROKEN AGAIN ON YARLINGTON LAKE PEG 13. Pellets shallow was the winners method, how I fished it last time I was there and failed!!!! (If I keep mentioning this place on my blog I might get a discount on the cider!)
Friday 3 July 2009
The Summer of '89
Just before some more memories of 1989 an update on Sedges. I spoke to Thatchers team mate and Queens Head Landlord Martyn Reyatt this week to ask how his match behind me on Sedges Brick lake had finished. Shaun Townsend won the match with approx 116lb (liar, he told me he had 70lb!) Bob Sheppard also had a ton and consistent carp angler Alan Oram was 3rd (Martyn was 4th). "What did Anton weigh?" I asked... nothing was the answer, turns out he (unwisely) pulled out his keepnets to leave the top rings on the side of the bank, but 70lb+ of carp decided they could swim in unison and dragged the net in! He did retrieve the net but only a couple of little uns left, WHOOPS! Perhaps that was all the foulhookers that swam away!!!
Back in August 1989 the weather was very good, with temperatures in the 70's (we were still using Fahrenheit back then) but as we all know bright sunshine can make the fishing tricky. I had my first visits to the Taunton & Bridgewater canal as this was a venue for the super league. The team had caught very little in practice but we got Kevin Lawler (squeeker) to show us how it was done and it was a Revelation. This was the first time I'd seen very small pole floats, we used 4x10 milo papyrus floats and at the time I was taken aback how small they were. Bread punch was the method we were fishing, and, as it was before pole cups we were throwing in the odd big ball of liquizied bread, if you were good you hit your float, if not you fished where the ball went in! In the match itself I was getting a roach a bung but they were tiny, it was very narrow where I was and I felt the larger fish were elsewhere, in the last hour or so I caught on hemp across and the fish were a better size. My 4lb was only good enough for 6 points, but our runner on the day Kev Winstone cheered me up by saying he thought I had fished the bread the best but was done by the stamp of fish. The team came 5th on the day but with one match left we were leading the league by 3 points.
The final match was on the River Avon from Avoncliffe to Limpley Stoke, and on the Saturday the whole team walked the venue and pegged it. We then walked back down the venue and gave the pegs "expected" points to try to work out what would be a good draw. So the next day I had drawn the team peg (I was considered a bit of a draw bag) and we were going through every peg we'd drawn. I was gutted when I saw I was at AvonCliffe below the pill box on what was then called cyanide straight and we had predicted this peg would be last in the section! I walked to the peg with heavy heart, passing all the flyers in my section where I expected decent roach and bream to be caught. I had runner Mike Ainger for company, he set up base camp behind me, and I said "why aren't you watching someone else on a good peg its crap here", Mikes wise words were "no you'll do alright here Timmy, just catch what you can and don't worry about the other people in the section they don't know the pegs." It was good to have Mike there and we chatted about this and that and he was interested to know my approach. I decided there was no chance of big fish so I set up light tackle, a small waggler for right across fishing on the drop and stick float for right down the middle where there was a small amount of flow.
On the whistle I started on the wag, firing just 6 maggots across I was catching bleak and bits on the drop straight away, all the while I fed a tiny pinch of hemp and maggots on the stick float line. After about 30 mins on the wag of catching tiny fish I decided to look on the stick, this was slower but I was catching 1/2oz to 1oz fish, mainly Gudgeon, Roach and perch. I stayed on this for the rest of the match, never increasing the feed and if anything cut back when bites slowed, I just tried to continue to put as many of these small fish in the net as possible, but all the while I was really happy that I was getting bites from this poor area. After the match and waiting for the scales Mike told me that our lads had mostly done well, although a couple had just avoided a blank at Limpley! When the scales arrived I was the first to weigh, most anglers in the section had come down to followed the scales and were all moaning about their day. I weighed 6lb 14oz and was well chuffed with this but still not expecting to do that well (a lot of these teams were big liars), but as I followed the scales back up one by one I kept beating them, until the last peg to weigh in. This was the peg Mike had thought should frame in the match, and it was a Swindon angler on the peg I recall and he weighed 2oz less than me, but only had about 20 fish compared to my 170! I felt on top of the world at winning this section, and local knowledge had really paid off.
When I got back to the results I walked in all glum, the lads were sat round a table full of drinks, adding up the points. Glenn Bailey asked "How did you get on?" I just simply raised my index finger in the air, "One point, we thought so" Glen said, "No, 1st in section." I replied plainly. I think it took about 10 minutes (until Mike Ainger arrived back) for the team to believe I had won the section and what I had caught, I remember the sheer disbelief. But the final twist was that the whole river had fished really tough and I had come 4th overall picking up £85, simply unbelievable. Of course the most important thing was the team, we won the day and we won the league! That meant that we were promoted to the top division of the super league in the South West and we got to fish in the "All Winners Final" supposedly on the River Trent the following year (I will feature this match in a future blog, it's a cracker!)
A couple of weeks later on the 24th September 1989 I fished the first round of the Commercial House, although quite how I managed to do so I don't know. The night before I had my 21st Birthday party, in a barn on the farm where I lived, disco and all! It went on very late, the Police visited to ask us to turn the music down, I had 21 bumps fully clothed and another 21 naked (cheers lads). Trying to do a bit of a speech I was rather wobbly and lost my balance, I fell back into the DJ and we both slid down the side of a wall and couldn't get up! The DJ was as pi55ed as me! I recall Phil Harding and Paul Benson stayed the night as did many others and I think it was 4am before we got to sleep. I still see people from time to time who remember that party, one lady who I work with still recalls dancing with me when all I had on was my boxer shorts!
Next day (well same day really a few hours later!) my parents would not let me drive my car to the Crane for the draw, so I had to walk there. Then I drew the bottom peg on the beach at Swineford and had to walk there too! I drew next to Shane Caswell, and proceeded to swear and cuss most of the time much to his and his then girl friends annoyance. At one stage I told him to get his effing float out of my peg, "I'm on the feeder" he replied, which meant I was seeing two floats.... I had 8lb 3oz of mainly chublets on the waggler, and a couple on the maggot feeder, this gave me 2nd in the section and I'd beaten Shane off the next peg. Shane was actually distraught that even in my state I'd beaten him, I was distraught at the thought of the walk back! I think I slept well that night.
No fishing this weekend, as off to a Christening Sunday. Good luck to my Thatchers team mates who are in the ATWL final on the river Nene Sunday. I think it will be a tough match if it fishes as it has done in previous years, but I'm gutted to miss it due to the christening (honest!)....
Back in August 1989 the weather was very good, with temperatures in the 70's (we were still using Fahrenheit back then) but as we all know bright sunshine can make the fishing tricky. I had my first visits to the Taunton & Bridgewater canal as this was a venue for the super league. The team had caught very little in practice but we got Kevin Lawler (squeeker) to show us how it was done and it was a Revelation. This was the first time I'd seen very small pole floats, we used 4x10 milo papyrus floats and at the time I was taken aback how small they were. Bread punch was the method we were fishing, and, as it was before pole cups we were throwing in the odd big ball of liquizied bread, if you were good you hit your float, if not you fished where the ball went in! In the match itself I was getting a roach a bung but they were tiny, it was very narrow where I was and I felt the larger fish were elsewhere, in the last hour or so I caught on hemp across and the fish were a better size. My 4lb was only good enough for 6 points, but our runner on the day Kev Winstone cheered me up by saying he thought I had fished the bread the best but was done by the stamp of fish. The team came 5th on the day but with one match left we were leading the league by 3 points.
The final match was on the River Avon from Avoncliffe to Limpley Stoke, and on the Saturday the whole team walked the venue and pegged it. We then walked back down the venue and gave the pegs "expected" points to try to work out what would be a good draw. So the next day I had drawn the team peg (I was considered a bit of a draw bag) and we were going through every peg we'd drawn. I was gutted when I saw I was at AvonCliffe below the pill box on what was then called cyanide straight and we had predicted this peg would be last in the section! I walked to the peg with heavy heart, passing all the flyers in my section where I expected decent roach and bream to be caught. I had runner Mike Ainger for company, he set up base camp behind me, and I said "why aren't you watching someone else on a good peg its crap here", Mikes wise words were "no you'll do alright here Timmy, just catch what you can and don't worry about the other people in the section they don't know the pegs." It was good to have Mike there and we chatted about this and that and he was interested to know my approach. I decided there was no chance of big fish so I set up light tackle, a small waggler for right across fishing on the drop and stick float for right down the middle where there was a small amount of flow.
On the whistle I started on the wag, firing just 6 maggots across I was catching bleak and bits on the drop straight away, all the while I fed a tiny pinch of hemp and maggots on the stick float line. After about 30 mins on the wag of catching tiny fish I decided to look on the stick, this was slower but I was catching 1/2oz to 1oz fish, mainly Gudgeon, Roach and perch. I stayed on this for the rest of the match, never increasing the feed and if anything cut back when bites slowed, I just tried to continue to put as many of these small fish in the net as possible, but all the while I was really happy that I was getting bites from this poor area. After the match and waiting for the scales Mike told me that our lads had mostly done well, although a couple had just avoided a blank at Limpley! When the scales arrived I was the first to weigh, most anglers in the section had come down to followed the scales and were all moaning about their day. I weighed 6lb 14oz and was well chuffed with this but still not expecting to do that well (a lot of these teams were big liars), but as I followed the scales back up one by one I kept beating them, until the last peg to weigh in. This was the peg Mike had thought should frame in the match, and it was a Swindon angler on the peg I recall and he weighed 2oz less than me, but only had about 20 fish compared to my 170! I felt on top of the world at winning this section, and local knowledge had really paid off.
When I got back to the results I walked in all glum, the lads were sat round a table full of drinks, adding up the points. Glenn Bailey asked "How did you get on?" I just simply raised my index finger in the air, "One point, we thought so" Glen said, "No, 1st in section." I replied plainly. I think it took about 10 minutes (until Mike Ainger arrived back) for the team to believe I had won the section and what I had caught, I remember the sheer disbelief. But the final twist was that the whole river had fished really tough and I had come 4th overall picking up £85, simply unbelievable. Of course the most important thing was the team, we won the day and we won the league! That meant that we were promoted to the top division of the super league in the South West and we got to fish in the "All Winners Final" supposedly on the River Trent the following year (I will feature this match in a future blog, it's a cracker!)
A couple of weeks later on the 24th September 1989 I fished the first round of the Commercial House, although quite how I managed to do so I don't know. The night before I had my 21st Birthday party, in a barn on the farm where I lived, disco and all! It went on very late, the Police visited to ask us to turn the music down, I had 21 bumps fully clothed and another 21 naked (cheers lads). Trying to do a bit of a speech I was rather wobbly and lost my balance, I fell back into the DJ and we both slid down the side of a wall and couldn't get up! The DJ was as pi55ed as me! I recall Phil Harding and Paul Benson stayed the night as did many others and I think it was 4am before we got to sleep. I still see people from time to time who remember that party, one lady who I work with still recalls dancing with me when all I had on was my boxer shorts!
Next day (well same day really a few hours later!) my parents would not let me drive my car to the Crane for the draw, so I had to walk there. Then I drew the bottom peg on the beach at Swineford and had to walk there too! I drew next to Shane Caswell, and proceeded to swear and cuss most of the time much to his and his then girl friends annoyance. At one stage I told him to get his effing float out of my peg, "I'm on the feeder" he replied, which meant I was seeing two floats.... I had 8lb 3oz of mainly chublets on the waggler, and a couple on the maggot feeder, this gave me 2nd in the section and I'd beaten Shane off the next peg. Shane was actually distraught that even in my state I'd beaten him, I was distraught at the thought of the walk back! I think I slept well that night.
No fishing this weekend, as off to a Christening Sunday. Good luck to my Thatchers team mates who are in the ATWL final on the river Nene Sunday. I think it will be a tough match if it fishes as it has done in previous years, but I'm gutted to miss it due to the christening (honest!)....
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