It is getting boring now waking up to everything outside being frozen, I even had my boiler pack up in the week due the condensate drain pipe freezing up, and it's lagged! There were 47 hopefuls in attendance today, with a good contingent from Gloucester such as Brian Pollard and Derek Jarman. I had heard that Kelston had been fishing really well and I was greeted by a confident Gary O'Shea who had taken 24lb of mainly roach the day before at Saltford Shallows. Unfortunately I was not going to draw at Kelston because it was not pegged, apparently Bathampton have given up this stretch. I really had no idea where to draw, but guessed bream were going to win so a bream peg please. Peg 67 is not a great bream swim (65 up to 61 better I feel) but they do show here every now and again. Another long walk with loads of layers on meant I arrived at my peg steaming like a you know what!
I can tell you that I set up a 12BB crowquill with 0.1 to a 16 B511 and a groundbait feeder with a 16 B611 to 0.12, lighter than I would normally use but I wasn't expecting any chub from here. The plan was to start on the crowquill and bread in the hope of a bite or two and then try the feeder across with groundbait. The plan was fool proof, but not fish proof and I never had a bite all day on any method, and I sat fishing the peg all day. At one stage I chucked a lobworm to the far bank and twitched it back across the river hoping to make a perch take it but not a bite. So there's my match!
What of the other 46 anglers, well 40 of them also blanked! The winner Terry Ellis on peg 18 had 14 bream for 50lb+. He fished gbait feeder with liquidized bread and worms on the hook, but he never went in the pools. In 2nd place was Bristol's finest window fitter Paul Haines, Paul had 2 bream on his last two casts (!) for 10lb+. Brian Pollard had 1 chub on maggot feeder from peg 77, it weighed 4lb 6oz so a nice fish. The next two anglers to catch were either side the winner, Derek Jarman had a 3lb bream in the last 10 minutes on peg 16 and Dave (top set) Haines had a 2lb skimmer last cast. A 4oz perch came to the last peg in the match and that was it for fish! So if you think about, until the last 10 mins only 3 anglers had caught! I do not know why this part of the river was so bad, the crane is fishing OK and so is Kelston. As far as I can remember this was the worst Avon river match I have ever fished.
Back at the draw my section was the only one to have completely blanked and so was drawn for, but alas I was not the jammy git to win it! Kev Dicks who had run the match then proceeded to pull names out of a box to dish the prizes out, I guess my name came out about 5th and I picked 10 cans of Guinness for my effort. Richard Lacey was the last name out of the box and won a bag of boilies, perfect bait for this time of year Rich! Mind you Shane Caswell couldn't find his draw ticket to put his name on and never went in the draw, he found it as the last prize went lol!
Of my team mates, well not one Thatchers angler caught a fish today, but then again neither did any Bathampton lads, god were shit! I think that's my lot now until after Xmas, can't fish next weekend and if the weather is going freezing again then I might take up bird watching again. I'll have to get the diary out again and put some old match tales on here, cos that is the only way I might remember how to catch some fish!
bit of thaw the few days before may have taken the water temperature down and the salt coming off the roads making it worse?
ReplyDeleteThat was the general opinion. I have fished the river when it was much clearer than Sunday and more fish were caught. Must be the salt.
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