Here I am looking in my old diary again when I was instead expecting to be writing up how I got on at Viaduct Spring league round 1. Well I completely forgot that my eldest was coming back from Uni this weekend to watch Rovers last home game (as was I ) and I had promised to take her back to the bus station and take the wife out for a meal on Sunday, oops! Had a great day out with Glenn watching the Gas win 7 nil, a few largers and even a Jaeger bomb I think! Although ended up in A&E with daughter who got knocked over in the goal celebrations and badly hurt her shoulder, which meant Sunday at Viaduct would have been hard work. I am though one of the top anglers in the league after the first round, as my stand in Alan Oram won his section on Cambell, yay! Many thanks indeed Alan, I was delighted to have an angler of your class fill in for me, it could be my only section win lol! Also thanks to Tony Rixon who got this sorted for me, great help.
If Ray Stevens is reading this post then just wanted to say that I got your message Ray. I certainly remember Team Robbos, I think you were a half decent side! I would certainly be interested in seeing the results info you have, and I really appreciate you contacting me, thank you.
Time warp time... Back to September 1996. The last time I wrote about this year it was the National on Sat 21st Sept. The very next day I was fishing the super league at Newbridge (I am sure in those days it was easy going Sat and Sun, now I'm knackered just after a Sunday) for Thatchers and it was the final round. Team draw done and I was in the last section which would put me above Newton St Loe Bridge as I was on H1. However, whoever pegged it must have been on the loopy juice as it turned out they pegged the sections starting A12 at the top, and H1 was the end peg of the match, I kid you not it was mind blowing lol!!! I arrived and found I was on peg 83 which was really a pile of pants, but being the end peg I hoped it might not be as bad as usual. There was not much flow on the river and I set up a 3AAA insert waggler which had just 3 no8 and 3 no10 down the line, and a 24 B511 was tied to 0.075 pro micron... flip me I used to fish fine in those days! I also set up a pole to fish about 10m out with hemp and caster, I did not record the rig used. Knowing the river was likely to be tough I took a very steady feeding approach; 6 to 8 maggots and some hemp every cast on the wagg, and the same with caster and hemp on the pole. When I used to fish like this I would generally hope to get a few bites early on the wag but always expected the peg to start producing after an hour, and work out where the fish were feeding. This was important as in 13feet of water you could catch on the deck or 4ft deep, I always started just an inch or two off bottom and worked things out from there. On this day it was slow going but eventually small roach started to feed. When it went a bit iffy I'd drop in on the pole, and I'd generally get 3 or 4 fish here and then it would die. After catching a few roach in the bottom lip (a give away they're up in the water) on the wagg I shallowed up and eventually found 2 foot off bottom best. I plugged away all day with the odd small roach, bank walkers were saying it was fishing rock hard and I was winning my section. I finished the match with just under 9lb of roach and did indeed win the section, but even better I'd come 2nd in the match and picked up £235! The icing on the cake was the team came 2nd on the day and we won the league, you live for days like that, great times.
If I am honest that weekend in September was brilliant, but after this I really struggled to do any good all year on many venues, but I was learning about new venues even if I was getting battered. The following Sunday was a real low, I drew at Frys on the Commercial House and after a massive tide ran off all I could catch was very small fish, but it was every chuck. I hooked 3 better fish during the match which all headed for the nearside weeds and I lost everyone of them, I guess chub. A bad result and a chance of framing wasted. A couple of matches at Moorlands Farm were tough affairs with only 15lb of fish each time. Although on the second match I should have won my section on Bank Pool but a local angler beat me by 1oz when he "found" a skimmer in his net after he'd been weighed in. The skimmer looked about 6oz but the scales said 12oz, it was ludicrous, then the scales were zeroed at the next peg!!
A week later and a match at Beanacre on the Avon, another poor show, just 3lb 8oz but I did write in my diary I should have had 6lb if I'd have fished chopped worm earlier. An awful 11lb at Woodlands view on October 19th was followed the next day by a rancid draw on the Avon up round Chippenham. It was a ATWL round and I scraped 3lb 9oz for just 4 points out of 10, although the team came 2nd and were leading after 2 rounds. I finally won some coin again on October 26th fishing the Moorlands winter league. A decent peg on Meadow in the form of peg 15 and I had a bit of hope. I had a nice day catching 31lb of small carp and silvers on the pole fishing maggot and got my section money.
Back to the here and now, I will be fishing Saturday next week as I will be hoping to have tickets to watch the Gas on Sunday in the 2nd leg of the play offs. Must say it has been good to see both Bristol clubs doing well this year, about time we all had something to cheer about!
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