September 1995

There was no blog last week as unfortunately I was not feeling that well, new medication from the hospital wasn't working as expected and I was not sleeping well or having much joy at the loo. Eventually on Thursday I lost 3lbs in 2 hours, that enough information!

I've just been having fun and games with my blogger account after virginmedia and google have done something together which caused a conflict. I could not sign into it at all and needless to say it took a lot of time to work out what to do to fix this and caused me to swear a lot, twats!!!!

The first match of September 1995 was the NFA South West Champs on the upper Bristol Avon. I found myself pegged at Staverton 3 pegs below the "Black Bridge", an area I had not fished before. There were 4 pegs below me and 8 above in this section, and I really had no clue what to expect other than some of the lads said just fish for bits. My peg was 13 feet deep which surprised me, and I set up two wagglers one full depth and one 5 feet deep. I had a few small bleak and bits on the shallow wag but it was slow and I was not going to get a good weight on them. Switching to the deep wag was also very slow but when I did get a bite it was from either a small perch or roach so slightly better quality, and I did have 1 skimmer. I had been feeding maggot and hemp and in the last hour I caught some roach on hemp on the wag deep. I ended with 2kilo 480g, and that beat the 8 pegs above me but not 1 below, so 9 points out of 13 for me. Below me the river started to shallow and more roach were caught. The team struggled and we could only manage a disappointing 6th place.

The following day saw me fish the K&A canal at Hungerford for the first time, I travelled with my old Bristol Sensas team mate Mark "Podge" Jefferies who had fished it a few times and done well and said it was solid. When I drew most people screwed their faces up, and Mark just said that's shit. I fished gbait and squatt at 11 metres to start, finding that maggot (on a 22 to 0.075) brought a slightly better stamp of roach / perch but bites were not prolific. I had fed caster across and spawned a 2lb+ tench from here, and this boosted my final weight to 5lb 14oz and a section win. I think Mark framed again as he seemed to always do here!

Sunday 10th saw me making another superleague appearance for Thatchers on the Avon at Chippenham. Originally at the team meeting I was dropped which I was gutted about, but unbeknown to me Steve Mayo and Des Shipp had a go at the manager and I was put in! I have a feeling I was pegged opposite the mouth of the Marsden (not sure though) which was a good peg, and I was once again fishing a new area for me. I started on the wag and mag for bits whilst feeding caster & hemp by hand for the pole. The first 2 1/2 hours were great with roach up to 8oz showing, but then due to heavy rain the Marsden stopped my peg from flowing and coloured up the river, after this I hardly had a bite. My 8lb 3oz was good enough for 2nd in the section and the team also came 2nd on the day.

The following Sunday it was another pleasure fishing battle versus Dave Haines. After the canal and the Docks it was now the river, and we fished in Bath just below the Green Bridge. I set up a waggler and a pole, and my plan was to feed maggot on the wag to catch everything and feed hemp and caster on the pole for roach. Dave stuck to the pole. After 4 hours I had about 6lb of small roach on the wag but had lost two animals on the pole and couldn't catch roach, Dave had been catching roach on the pole and was hammering me. In desperation I fed really heavily on the wag in the hope of a few chub, and it paid off with two 3lb chub, a 2lber, 3 pups and I got snapped by a real dog. My final weight was 17 1/2lb and I just beat Dave by a few ounces, and boy did he moan!

The last round of the Drennan Superleague saw me sat on peg 24 at Newbridge on a clear river. I had a poor day, catching a pound and a half of roach on the pole over gbait in the first 45 mins, then just the odd roach on the waggler. I should have sat it out for bream as pegs 28 to 36 all caught them, and as a result I only had 5 points. The team had a great day and we ended winning the league by 52 points! I think this was the day when as a team we said we would ball it in with gbait, but Vic Bush did not want to do it. At the start of the match he was forced to do it by the manager and he managed to land a ball on his top set and break it! Vic then caught virtually nothing on the pole and halfway through was down and out, he then caught bream late on the tip to win the match. We all found it really funny.

My last note about September 1995 is a day I shall never forget. I took a half day off work to fish at Jack Whites, I wanted to fish the feeder for bream on peg 123. There was a tide (which I knew) and I was hoping to empty it once it had ran off. I was set up waiting for the river to slow down when I noticed shadows coming out of the trees opposite, chub. I ignored them at first but after a while I realised there were lots over there. Luckily I had all my gear with me and set up a waggler with a 20 and 1.5lb maxima and cast out with single caster on the hook. The river was still ripping through and I never fed any bait whilst it was like this, but I caught 7 chub! I only had a pint of caster and a few red maggots with me, and once the river flow had eased I started to feed casters. After 3 hours all my bait was gone and I had 27 chub for what I guessed was about 50lb.