Weather, weather altogether what’s it going to do?

 Well I’ve had my fill of this winter, it seems to have been raining mostly for 3 months or maybe more. On Wednesday the weather forecast was for light rain, so I thought yes I’ll get on the river. Then in the early hours of Friday it hammered down, game over… I’d ordered bait and so had to get that, and thought about what do to with it.  Then on Friday night I put a post on Facebook saying would this rain ever stop. Well yes it did, but only to be replaced by a dump of snow Saturday morning.

That was it I couldn’t take anymore lol. I’ve been travelling a lot with work lately and a lot more in the next two weeks, so my chances of getting one more time on the river are slim. It’s the last match of the season at Newbridge next Sunday, same match last year I came second with 91lb, but I have to travel to Germany that day and can’t fish it. 

After having a few beers Saturday afternoon with Mark Jefferies, Glenn Bailey, Darren Gilman and Mike Nicholls, I felt much better. We all said we were looking forward to better weather and our holiday at Viaduct in June.

I decided to spend Sunday with my wife and not go fishing, and we had a lovely time in the SUN at Portishead. What a thoroughly beautiful day, and the only fish I saw was a piece of cod with my chips.

A dry week please, I might be able to squeeze a session in 🙏🙏🙏

Windmill Fishery Open

 I was working in Ireland all week and was a bit tired after travelling from Dublin to Galway, Cork and back to Dublin. But I was itching to get back on the bank, though of course the river was once again out of the question being in flood. I dropped a text to Dave Haines and booked in for the Windmill open, this was about 2pm on Saturday. After asking a couple of regular anglers for tips it seemed I really needed a pint of maggots, so nipped off  to Premier Angling where you always get a warm welcome from Tony Rixon.

The forecast was for heavy rain Saturday evening/ night, and they weren’t wrong, the river is back in the fields again. Still I was happy to see it was dry when I loaded the van. It was very mild out and I was removing layers as I tucked into my Wetherspoons breakfast. I took a very slow journey down the fishery track as I didn’t want to hit the potholes hard, arriving in good time paid my pools and the draw was done early. Hoping for a peg at either end of the lake was a waste of time as I drew peg 7 in the middle of the two islands. Last time I fished here was November and then I had peg 6 and DNW.

This peg has an island chuck to some reeds, and the reeds were knocking showing signs of carp. A lead rod for fishing corn was assembled for here. I set up two pole lines at 13m one for corn and one for maggot to cover my options, a 4x16 F1 pellet float with 16 GPM to 0.13. A very similar rig but with 4x14 for fishing meat at top set plus three sections. No silvers rigs as I was told my best chance was with carp. On peg 6 Tom Baker was going down the carp route, but on peg 9 Bill Knight was edging his bets.

We started fishing at 10:15 and it was a 6 hour match today. I fed my long pole lines but started on the lead. Thirty minutes later and not a liner, so thought let’s try the pole. Not a touch on the corn line, but on the maggot I had a few small roach and a perch, but none of the hoped for carp. I upped the maggot feed which fed the silvers off and drew no carp lol. Back on the lead and still nothing, I cast as close as I dare to the reeds by taking line off the clip. 2 1/2 hours in and I had a liner on the tip, but still no bite. Tom had 2 skimmers and had lost one fouled carp on meat, Bill had maybe 2lb of silvers but was abandoning them.

At 1pm, nearly halfway through the match, I decided to go for the silvers just to get some bites. I got a 4x14 rig out with 18 to 0.10 that had spread stotts down the line. Fishing at top set plus two sections and feeding maggots I had a nice little run of small roach and 1 Rudd for 30 minutes. Then bites got less and the fish tiny. I went out over my 13m maggot line and struggled for more small roach but at least I was catching something! Tom was now getting a few carp on meat and that made me keep at the silvers.

I started feeding the long line heavier by catapult as I really wanted to get some skimmers, but to begin with it wasn’t good. An hour and 15 mins left and I tried the corn pole line again for a skimmer. Did get a bite but it was my first carp, so I knocked the corn on the head. The last hour then improved a lot as more roach and a few Rudd showed on both maggot lines, swapping between them was important as was changing depth and feeding. End of the match and I hoped I might have 8lb. Leighton Palmer was walking the bank and said that I might have enough to win the silvers, and as it turned out he was right. 

My net went 7lb 13oz, not bad for just over 3 hours fishing for the silvers. Nick Coles got second in silvers with 5lb 13oz, he had a a 2lb skimmer and small roach.

The match was won by pre match favourite Paul Staite on peg 14 with 119lb 2oz of carp mainly on pellet short. Fair play to Tom Baker coming second with 76lb on peg 6, top performance. Up on peg 2 Alan Oram got third place with 52lb 7oz.

Nice to get out and get a pick up again, feels like it’s been a while. Got to say the weather today was nice bar one shower, but this winters rain has done my nut in!

Just one last thing to say, and that’s RIP Steve Stretch Saunders who passed away after his battle with cancer. Steve was always someone who spoke his mind and I got on well with him. We had similar passion for football and we shared a bit of banter. He’s definitely going to be missed by many people.

Chub hunt - Epic fail!

 I’ve been wanting to get back onto the river for ages, and finally I thought the level was ok to give it a go. I fancied a go for some chub which I hoped would be hungry after all the floods. I didn’t need to any preparation other than to pick up some maggots on Friday. Saturday I was busy watching Rovers, got to see a decent game and good result.

A leisurely start Sunday, and I parked up at 10:30. Carting my gear through the kissing gate I was then loading the trolley and realised I’d left my bag with reels and feeders in the shed (hope this doesn’t become a habit again 🙈😂).  I really didn’t want to carry everything back to the van and drive home, so I rang Wendy and told her my predicament. She very kindly said she would drop the bag down to me and said I should double check if I’d forgotten anything else, I hadn’t. Ten to fifteen minutes later Wendy arrived and I could finally get going. The walk along the footpath was nice and easy, and I didn’t have to worry about the next kissing gate as there’s no fence on one side of it.

I stopped at peg 15 which is a peg I’ve always caught chub from. However, it’s got some overgrown willows that reduce your options. I had thought about fishing a big stick float or bolo, but decided the river was too fast. Instead I set up a maggot feeder to underarm cast out about a third of the way across. I needed 40g to hold here and a decent bow. A 16 XSH to 0.17 powerline was tied up for the hook length.

I was fishing by 11:30, and just before midday I had a bite but didn’t feel a fish, but the hook bait was gone. It took me until 12:50 to get another bite, no chub but a small roach that saved the blank. Not long after this Mark Jefferies came along walking his dog and in the next 40 mins I had two more bites but the bait was never touched hmmm. Just as Mark came past again and we were chatting, he told me I had a bite and I turned around and lifted the rod. Again it was a roach but probably 6oz. Mark went on his way and I had another big drop back bite and no fish and bait untouched again. 

Nothing more happened, so I decided to move down to peg 17. Awkward to cast in because of more willow branches, but casting like a noddy allowed me to get 3/4 over, needed 60g and a very big bow to hold bottom. Well the move was not to prove successful as I never had a single bite. A couple of anglers came along and I told them that I had struggled. They were roving anglers and said the last 2 hours before sunset is when they fish for chub. They headed off further downstream and I wished them luck. I was feeling a bit cold and decided I was not going to stay any longer, probably leaving a chub behind then.

Well that’s a shocker, and just goes to prove there’s no such thing as a banker peg. Got to try again!

In other news Derek Coles had a bumper day up at Newbridge with 24 bream, the biggest estimated at 11lb as it bottomed the scales out that someone had. Wow.

What’s going on…

 At my last outing at Hillview I had an irritating cough, unfortunately that just got worse and with a lack of sleep I felt quite low on energy. I had to work from home, cancelled going to the gym and didn’t really do anything at the weekend. Even now the cough is still lingering, but I don’t feel rough, although my wife has not got a heavy cold.  With the very cold weather and everything being frozen, and the forecast of nasty wind and rain for Sunday I put fishing on the back burner again. I’ve said before I don’t mind not going fishing this time of year, I’d rather not risk it. Spent some of Sunday afternoon watching BigJetTV on YouTube, watching those big planes landing in the wind at Heathrow 😬😬😬.

Right, not done an old diary blog for ages, I’m back to January 2004, just 20 years ago then lol.

Had a day pleasure fishing on the 2/1/2004 the Avon was flooded and so I fished the cut by the Lockeeper pub at county bridge Keynsham. I put some gbait in to try and catch roach but none showed. On a top set shallow I caught lots of bleak, and then later on a few roach turned up over the gbait. Had a good 12lb. Always a good place to fish is the cut when the river is very high, if you have a short top set then actually fishing right under the road bridge can be good.

Fished a match at Viaduct the following weekend, peg 59 on Lodge lake. It was rock hard and I only had 25lb made up of 3 carp and 3 skimmers, I was 3rd on the lake with that!

I didn’t go fishing at all until 22nd February, it was an open match on the K&A canal that was a practice for the ATWL semi final. I was at Savernake, and it wasn’t very good where I drew. 2lb of mainly gudgeon on squatts, and just a few tiny perch and Ruffe on worms. I have a feeling that Ian Spriggs won this match with a good bag of skimmers. The semi two weeks later and I was drawn Farmers at Marlborough, had some crack anglers in my section and remember Keith Arthur was a couple of pegs away. It was another struggle for me in a low weight section, this time I had 1lb 13oz of gudgeon and some small roach, 7th out of 15 in my section with that. That was better than most of my team as we came 13th oh dear!

The last match of the season for me was at Newbridge, looking for a bream bagging session. I drew peg 38 at the bottom of the straight and was happy with that. Unfortunately the bagging never happened, I had 4 bream and a skimmer, but I list the last two bream and that cost me framing. It looks like I’m going to miss the last season match this year as I have to travel to Germany for business meetings, gutted.

Hopefully a week of mild weather will bring the fish back on the feed, but not sure yet where I will go.

Hillview Fishery Open

 Happy New Year everyone, hopefully you had a great Christmas and New Year. My wife and I went to Tenerife for New Year, what a great decision that was, 25C every day and missed all the storms in the UK. I did pick up an irritating cough that I still cannot shake but I’ve not felt ill.

Back to work and back to normal, but where to go to get back on the bank? The river was certainly out of the question, the highest I have seen the Bristol Avon in my lifetime, and feel sorry for those who got flooded. My choice was Hillview near Tewkesbury as Martin Reyat told me it was fishing well, plus there were a lot of ide stocked a while back. With a lot of F1’s in there I should get some bites which is all I really want in the winter. I didn’t know if the match would be on the canals or the lakes so made rigs up for both.

I woke Sunday having had the same recent cough affected sleep 😫. That said I felt ok, and was soon at the fishery enjoying a breakfast. Martin was already there and it was nice to see Lewis Walker. There was some event on the canals and so the open was on the two lakes. I drew peg 32 which is on the top bank on Heron lake, can be good and yesterday Lee Massey had 75lb on it and came 3rd on the lake. Bang opposite was Lewis on 22 which won the lake yesterday. However, my money was on Ian Didcote to win from peg 9, as he’s won on his last 4 visits here and is a very good angler.

It was a chilly start but very calm, I’d set up a 4x10 for the margins, a 4x12 with 18 SFLB to 0.12 reflo fluorocarbon for top set plus two and 11.5m. Also set up a 4x14 in case it got windy. No lead rod as your cut off here.

I started at 11.5m with maggots I started by Toss potting in to see what happened. It took me 10 minutes to get a bite which I connected with and this fish was not an F1. Got it in and was a carp of 6lb, surprised by this as apparently yesterday it was all F1’s caught. I had a fair wait to get another indication but eventually I started to get a few more bites either an F1 or an ide. I had 15lb after the first hour.

The second hour was steady, and I was catapulting maggots as well to try to attract more fish into the peg. Probably had 28lb after hour 2, but then bites stopped. I tried my short lines but only had 1 small skimmer. Lewis was doing the best on my lake it seemed, but I thought I was next best. Hour 3 was a struggle and the whole lake seemed to have switched off, 35lb was my estimate. I tried fishing 13m but never had a bite here, also tried fishing off at an angle but that only produced a few fish. My original 11.5m swim yielded an odd ide and rare F1. Then an hour to go I finally got a few F1’s on my top set plus two. With 30 minutes to go I gently placed a third keepnet in the lake…. Big mistake. I never caught another F1, but lost 2 at the net fouled. Bound to cost me I thought. Never had a bite in the margins today.

My final weight was 55lb 8oz. Mission accomplished in that I had an enjoyable day with bites. But it was not quite enough to get me coin, as my section was won with 59lb 5oz by Darren Knight who caught well the last two hours short on maggots. Lewis won the other section and lake with 65lb.

The match was won as predicted by Ian Didcote, he smashed it with 124lb, 50lb clear of second place. Class act.

Full results below on the sheet. 

Well I managed to emulate the result Lee had the day before off the peg, he was also narrowly beaten. I’ll have to go again, need the practice and worth the effort for bites.