Sorry there has been no blog for a few weeks but I was doing my best to keep myself to myself and not catch covid prior to going o holiday. It was a stressful couple of weeks in the lead up to going on holiday with one thing and another, many forms to fill out and documents to get. Then three days before my wife and I have the PCR tests and wait for the results.... Thankfully we were both negative and allowed to go to Barbados. Virgin were great at the airport checking that you had done everything right, as when you get into Barbados they require many things to allow you to have a normal holiday. I was very happy when I finally got into the hotel and had a rum punch to celebrate.
I stayed at the same place I did two years ago, and other than having to wear a mask when walking around the hotel everything else was pretty much the same. Daily temperatures rose to 30C max and 24C was the lowest at night. We often had some short showers but they didn't stop our enjoyment of the facilities. As an added bonus of our holiday England were playing T20 cricket against the West Indies in Barbados at the Kensington Oval, we watched the fourth game and saw England win. I wore my Bristol Rovers shirt and got to meet some other Gasheads who had travelled to watch all 5 T20 games, I also got to meet some city fans and we made each other laugh is all I will say lol. Really glad I went to the cricket, great views and fun, and great atmosphere.
I met another angler at the hotel I was staying at, his name was John and he came from Harrogate and fished the river Ure (we spotted each other wearing our fishing hats lol). John showed me some pictures of cracking fish from the river, perch to 4lb, 6lb chub and a near 20lb pike. It was great to meet to John and his wife Sue, and we made friends with many other people here too and that made the holiday even more special. We will be going back to Barbados that is for sure, absolutely love this place.
Looking up the beach to where the sunbeds are (John and Sue walking in front).
I got back home Friday morning and was all over the place after little or no sleep on the night flight, and even Saturday I was a bit light headed and need to get back into UK time and routine. I did think about fishing the river somewhere on Sunday, but the weather forecast for lots of heavy rain overnight and strong winds put me off and I wimped out. Hopefully I will get to go somewhere next Sunday whatever the weather!
Going back to 2003 now and it is 3rd August fishing an open match on Viaduct Campbell Lake. I drew peg 112 and never really got going on the day, having just 6 carp in the first 4 hours on paste, when I tried to make the margins work I hardly did, and instead people started bagging on the pellet wag and it was a smacked arse with just 58lb. Two weeks later I was back again but this time I was on Lodge Lake peg 62, not great usually. I had a steady first 2 1/2 hours catching fishing pellet on the deck, then an hour with nothing. I'd kept feeding and the carp returned but were up in the water and I caught shallow till the end of the match. My weight of just uner 84lb got me the section money.
I had some time off and my next match was one on a new venue for me called Sedges (very well known now). The match was being run by Jerry Pocock as a King Billy open match and would be a friendly affair. I had to ask Tony Rixon for some advice on the venue and he told me there were lots of skimmers and carp in there but to only fish pellets for everything. I had a really interesting day and one that showed me the power of pellets. Fishing a 4x16 rig with a 14 to 0.16 on the deck I caught skimmers quite quickly, and I would get the occasional carp. I then missed a few bites where the float seemed to go under at 45 degrees, I got the message in the end that there were some carp shallow. I would catch a few then they would go, so I would go back on the bottom until I had liners and then go shallow. It was as I said an interesting day, and to my right Kev Boltz had come to catch the skimmers and bream with groundbait and casters and worms, he only about 4 or 5 skimmers all match. My final catch was 185lb, which included 44lb of skimmers. Catches like that these days don't raise eyebrows at some venues, but back then it was by far my best day on a commercial fishery and would be for a while.
I had a couple of matches at Hill View in Tewkesbury and in both attempts I didn't catch very much at all and fed too much on one of the matches. Pretty sure it was also on one of these days when I was fishing the margin and had the pole laid on the reeds. I looked away and then heard that noise of pole on reed, looking back I saw the pole being pulled in, I instinctively jumped and grabbed the end of the pole as I landed in the lake. I dragged myself out soaking wet, and landed the carp. I think it was Andrew Murphy next to me who said he had never seen anything like it and was pissing himself.
Looking forward now, I have managed to get myself booked in for the two day festival on the River Tone in Taunton, this is taking place the last weekend of February. I have only fished the fast water stretch once (in summer) and never fished the tidal part, so I'm going with a big lack of knowledge other than I know chub are needed on the fast stretch and roach on the tidal part, so I am hoping to draw fliers lol. I have been saddened to see on social media that a large stretch of the Tone has been "landscaped" by the Environment Agency. They've basically removed all trees and vegetation and turned it into a ditch, claiming it was needed to stop flooding. I think it's a complete disgrace and in keeping with the environment agency who seem to be doing, well I don't know what, because they are letting all the water authorities pour raw sewage into our rivers for years now. If you are interested to read about the fight against river pollution etc, and are on twitter look up Feargal Sharkey (yes the singer from years past) and also RiverActionUK. We need to up the anti on these organisations, rant over.
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