2002

 I begin this post today with an admission, I was planning to fish on Sunday but in the end I just couldn't be arsed. I live in South Gloucester which has been placed in tier 3, which as everyone will know by now puts some strong restrictions in place, and this left me feeling like I was going nowhere fast after the last lockdown had ended. My Thatchers team had an Angling Trust winter league date on the river up at Chippenham and we had some debate about who should and could fish, but in the end it was all Academic as the Angling Trust decided to put all of their matches on hold for a few months, so no team match. Of course other matches will continue and that's a good thing, and I have seen more stringent rules in place to keep social distancing which I agree with. I was going to fish the Avon, and I knew 4 or 5 others were going to pleasure fish it too, I fancied Swineford for some chub. Unfortunately the rain Saturday morning was to ruin the river yet again and I knew that was now not an option. With it being so cold I just thought the fishing would be hard on most venues and I decided to not bother, instead I booked to go to the gym Sunday morning (at least I can do that again) and have a Nandos take away in the afternoon whilst watching the copius sport on TV. Hopefully the weather, or the river, or a local match will come my way and I'll get the gear out again.

Onto a new diary now, 2002 and January began with most lakes being frozen and I got a sick bu so no fishing ensued until the 20th January when the weather turned wild and windy. I was back at Hill View fishery for their winter league, and team draw put my on the furthest canal (number 4) and I was pegged in the corner, I didn't record the peg number but I think it was 96. With the wind being very bad I was glad I had a corner to fish into now and again, and 8 metres into the corner helped presentation a lot. Just feeding a few maggots by toss pot I had to wait ages for a bite but then had a few small carp. The fish backed off and when the wind dropped I pushed my 4x12 float down to 10 mtrs and caught a few small carp there. When I went across I had 3 in 3 drops and then struggled to hold the pole. All of these carp were between 2oz and 1lb, and a 20 to 0.10 was strong enough tackle. I ended up with just 12lb 11oz but I was surprisingly top weight on the canal and won the section, in this league they paid out first and second in the section.

On January 27th I entered an open match on the K&A canal up past Horton, this was a little practice for our future ATWL semi final on the canal. It was the first time I had ever seen this part of the canal, and just fished bread punch down the middle to begin as I was told this was the banker method. It wasn't prolific by any means but I put odd small roach in the net, I did have one bonus on caster, a roach of 12oz, My 3lb 9oz was 3rd in the 10 peg section and I was happy enough for my first visit. With the semi not till mid march I thought we would practice hard, but when we got star angler Kev Rowles to help us out he advised waiting to practice till nearer the semi itself.

On Sunday 3rd February it was the final match of the Commercial House winter league, it was on the canal and I got drawn at the George section. I didn't start on bread punch (don't know why) but fished 3m to hand feeding groundbait and squatts. I caught gudgeon and small roach on this and had a couple of perch and roach on caster over, I lost a big perch was costly. I had 4lb 12oz and that was 11 points out of 14. My team tied on points for the league, but lost out on weight doh!

Another Hill View league match for the team and once again I was on the back canal. I got it wrong on this day as it fished a bit better and I feel I didn't feed enough maggot when the fish were in the peg, and a number of anglers caught 2 to 3lb carp on corn. My 19lb 12oz was only 4th in the section. Two weeks later and I was back up again for the next round, this time I was on canal 4. I went straight across on maggots and had some little carp straight away. But the wind got up and the canal started towing badly and I couldn't sort it out and struggled to get any decent presentation. Just a few fish came at 10 metres as well as across but I could see the canal was fishing hard and plugged on feeding next to nothing. 13lb 4oz was my final tally and that was 2nd in the section. I remember I used to mainly fish single red maggot on a 20 barbless hook, and occasionally try double maggot. Of course I didn't know about dobbing back then, and I do remember team mate Tony Rixon catching well one match on sweetcorn skins, a slow falling bait of course, always one step ahead was Tony. Hill View is such a different venue now with the many F1's in there, and I would say in general more anglers have a good day than bad.