Riverfest Qualifier - River Thames Clanfield

It seems a while since I have had to get up early on a Sunday, just my luck then that Saturday evening I developed griping stomach pains that had me concerned if I would be going fishing the next day. Whatever caused it I was up a lot in the night, but in thr morning the pain had subsided to just the occasional twinge.

I was glad to get the gear in the car in the dry, we had certainly had some rain overnight and more was forecast later. The journey to Clanfield is not so bad 55 miles and it doesn't take long to get there, I did though stop off in MacDonalds in Shrivenham to meet team mate Jack Jones. Soon we were joined by Mick Nowicki, Kev Bennett and Richard Chave. I got to the draw venue and was told I had to register quick, which I did and I paid my pools. Then said a few hellos to anglers chasing the dream, and there were plenty of top anglers here, Mark Downes, Sean Ashby, Simon Willsmore, Howard Kaye, Trevor Chalk and I'm sure I could go on! Good to see John Nobby Moody.  I was not far back in the queue, and was soon staring at the number 26. Thanks to a handy sheet I could see what permanent peg I was on, 46 which of course I knew nothing about. I didn't get any good vibes about the peg and so shot off to see it for myself.

To say I was disappointed when I got to the peg is an understatement! I was hoping for a peg with some nice tree cover so I could have a good go for a chub, what I got couldn't have been further from it. An open peg with a weedy bay and a great big red marker buoy. I'll get some more excuses in later don't want to use them all up at once lol. My view, the red buoy is of course to warn the boats of shallow water.

 I began setting up and picked out a 1gm pencil float first and used this to plumb the contours of the peg and then check the flow. The peg was another of the sort I seem to bloody draw up in this part of the Thames Deepest part at 7m and it shallowed up from there as I went across, the main flow was also about 7m to 10m. I opted to fish at 10m as there were some small fish topping but not in closer than this. The peg was about 9 foot deep here, and the rig seemed to go through well. I also set up a 4x16 with strung out shot, if bleak were an issue I had a whip set up. I plumbed up at 14.5m in the shallower water and had a 1.5g bodied float with 0.15 to 14 N50 to fish chop worm. One of the organisers came along and told me he didn't rate my chances, but said they did catch odd bream on the peg across in the winter (later another angler told me that was in 1978).  I was ready for the all in for a change, the angler below me was Simon Willsmore and I did much prefer the look of his peg, with flow down the middle and a snaggy tree over. I couldn't see the angler above me as he was up past a bend and hidden behind the many trees below him!

The match began at 11am and I cupped in 4 balls of Sonubaits, black roach, crushed hemp and soil. I fed some worm straight away across as if there was a bream it might need a bit of time to settle. I dropped in with a caster (ever hopeful) and did have a two 2oz roach, though one missed the net. After a gudgeon I couldn't get a bite on a caster, so onto a maggot trying various colours and I could get the odd bite mainly from very small roach and gudgeon, I did get my best fish a 4oz roach on this early. Simon had balled it, and I did notice on two occasions he had a bit of elastic out so something a little better, roach about 6oz. An hour in going nowhere fast so onto the worm line, 15 minutes and no bites so I fed some worms.

The heavy rain had arrived and gone, it was replaced by a pain in the ass wind right in my face. There were a few boats on the river today, and due to the bend and trees above me when they came through my peg they were very close about 5m to 6m away which didn't really help matters. A short clip below of one example.

I was not catching anywhere near enough fish or enough quality, but my plan today had been catch what small fish I could and then focus on fishing worms for a chub, each time I tried the worm line though I had nothing, the bream were not interested or not there. With about 2 hours to go I found a shoal of gudgeon further down the peg and these came fast for a while, I caught on both the pencil and the strung out rig, though sadly any roach I did catch were certainly only 1oz. I had decided to feed another long swim further down the peg, but with some gbait and soil with worm and caster.  I tried this with an hour to go and no bites on the worm rig, but small fish were topping so I shallowed up the strung out rig and tried that with a caster, couldn't get it to the bottom due to bleak! Fishing 14.5m for bleak was not going to be an option now and never was for me. Finally snared a perch though on my chop worm line, it might have been 2oz, and I spent the last hour looking for that bonus with no reward.

The scales came up from the pegs below. One angler had 15lb, 2 big chub and perch from a peg that had recently thrown up 30lb, so obviously the current hot spot. Simon weighed 4lb 6oz and then I weighed 3lb 6oz, Simon's weight was enough to win the 5 peg section and get £50, he had 4 decent roach and a 6oz dace, and those fish made all the difference.

Poor old Jack Jones had hid 4 decent fish on his chop worm, but everyone was a pike, with the last one being 15lb. What a gutter! We both fished positive as we knew to qualify you needed some chub. The weights on my board didn't make good reading and 4lb was mega. Ah well one more go for me in this competition, next Saturday on the Thames at Reading. The middle section last year was full of bream and I think four anglers had a ton, I'll take drawing one of those pegs please!

Still here & August / September 2000

It has been a blank two weekends on the fishing front, in fact three as it turned out. I went on holiday with Wendy to Zante again, a fantastic little resort where the people remember you and welcome you back with open arms (well the bar owners remember lol). That was two weekends taken up, and this weekend I was supposed to be fishing the Thames Champs, unfortunately I have some bottom issues this week and I was forced to pull out of the match and do my best to sort myself after a visit to the hospital didn't really help. Luckily in the end I went for a natural remedy; a hot curry and plenty of Cider, and wouldn't you know Sunday has been a good day, yay!

Of course I did have a shock in the meantime when I found myself on the cover of Anglers Mail. They had used my catch shot of chub on the River Tone, taken by the one and only Brian Gay. That was a nice surprise.

I should mention that the Thatchers team have not fared well today on the Thames and Geraint Powell who took my place had 3lb+ of gudgeon so I didn't miss much. It was also the last match where young Andy Cranston fished for Thatchers as he is moving on to fish for Dorking, so good luck to him I hope it works out for him.

I've not been able to fish as much during the summer as normal, and that's been due to me doing lots of other things which I've thoroughly enjoyed, I will have to sharpen up on the fishing front pretty quick though to compete as I have a couple of Riverfest qualifiers on the Thames coming up!

Back in August 2000 I was fishing the river Huntspill on a Superleague match and I had drawn permanent peg 92. I had 2 small skimmers on the feeder and after this only had tiny roach and perch. I had 5 eels and again some tiny roach and perch on the pole, all in all I only weighed in 3lb 140z, but this was worth an OK 8 points out of 11. I remember some anglers did well on the pole by feeding really heavy with maggots, catching some big eels and occasional quality silvers.  One week later and I was back to do it all over again but this time on a Huntspill open match and I drew peg 193. The feeder was better this time with 4 hand size skimmers and a bream, plus a 12oz eel. Double red maggot caught all of my fish, I got bit off by a big eel on the feeder that day and lost another on the pole. They were costly as my 3 kilo 350g was 100g short of winning the section.

After two decent matches it was back on the Spill for the Superleague. Well what is it they say "one week you're a lion, the next eek you're a dandelion". 13oz and I only beat one person in the section, oh dear!

Saturday 26th August and a bit of pleasure fishing at Witham Friary where I fished the top lake. I started fishing casters for the crucians, and caught for an hour before it died completely. I switched to fishing with luncheon meat and caught small carp up to 3lb. I used to cup decent amounts of meat in back then, but this was a day when I found throwing in 4 bits of meat was far better. On the Wednesday I fished an open match at Bullocks Farm on the carp lake which I am sure would have been run by Tony Rixon. It was certainly not like fishing commercials these days, and it was a long wait for bites. I managed 7 carp and a tench on meat or corn, 4 to the far bank and 3 on the margin. I had 30lb exactly and that was good enough for 3rd and some money.

A practice match on the K&A canal at Horton was piss poor, I had just 1lb 4oz of tiny fish and hardly caught for the last 4 hours. It was though still enough for me to be picked to fish the following week again in a superleague round. This time was a little better as I caught for two hours at 3/4 where I had fed 2 balls of gbait and loosefed squatt over the top, before having to fish tight across for the odd blip. 2lb 11oz was worth 7 out of 11 points.

Saturday September 16th and more pleasure fishing, this time on the Avon, I fished the high wall peg on the Crane. I fished a 7 n04 stick float with a 22 to 0.10. Feeding caster & hemp I soon had trouble with bleak and had to push the shot to a bulk just 10" from the hook. It was OK though and I had a good double figure bag of roach and dace. What I do remember that day is hooking a very large chub, at first I thought it was a pike, but it swam to the far bank by the boats and soon I had it back in the middle of the river. My heart was in my mouth as I caught a glimpse of it after 5 minutes, and then it came off. I'll never know how big it was for sure of course, but it was a whopper.

The following weekend was the first round of the Commercial House on Fry's the whole league of anglers used to be able to fish on Fry's. I drew upstream end peg 1 and didn't really fancy it to be honest, plus I had an angler pleasure fishing opposite. The wind was awkward and with only half the river available to me I fished a waggler down the inside and loosefed maggots, and tried gbait and caster just shy of the middle. The middle of the river was not great but as the match wore on the inside line improved and in the last two hours I was catching roach, dace and bleak with a 20 to 0.10. It looked wrong but the waggler was the only way to present the bait well and I enjoyed the match. 8lb 2oz was as it turned out a great weight and I came 3rd overall and picked up over a ton.

My last match of September 2000 was the first round of the ATWL at Keynsham. I drew the Crane, the peg below the High wall. The river was a bit pacey and coloured and not really conducive to this section as you wanted a bream peg for sure. I gave the stick float a go but the swim got to boily and I had just a handful of roach and bleak and was really struggling after 2 hours. With nothing to lose I fished the gbait feeder 2/3 over with a 16 to 0.14. It was all quiet with no bites, then out of the blue a proper bite, but it wasn't a skimmer it was a chub. Carrying on I fished double or triple hookbaits and ended up with 6 chub. My weight of 12lb 1oz won the section and if I recall correctly Martin Barrett was 2nd in the section with 6lb. I used to like the river when it was like this, as if I couldn't catch roach I would go for big fish on a feeder when a lot of anglers preferred the float. Of course it was a risk, but as I got to know the pegs I knew where it was right to fish for them, and if I blew out I didn't worry too much as the same result would have happened on the float. Team won the day, so a good start.

Tony Rixon Float only Viaduct Fishery

Well after a great weekend at the races last week (where for once I won more than I bet) this weekend was all go, watching cricket Friday night and a good gas win on Saturday and Viaduct Sunday. I haven't fished this league this year and was filling in as a stand in for Tom Magnall.

Me and my wife at the races last week, just before my first winner of three, and we watched Madness
after.

Having not been to Viaduct since my June holiday, and hardly done any carping I did need to some preparation, rigs, hook lengths and I had to put some elastic in my XS90 pulla kits. I did all this by Saturday morning so was happy. I was picked up Sunday morning by Rich Lacey, another angler with a van which meant I could have a good chat there and back. We were going to stop at Cannards Well for Breakfast but it was shut, looks like it is being refurbished, so bacon baps in a garage it was. At the draw I was getting the gear out and chatting and then noticed anglers walking to their pegs, the draw had started.I ran up to the Lodge and pulled out peg 112, a really good peg. As I had an open mind on what to fish for I now decided to target carp as on Thursday Norman Sterry on peg111 had 465lb!

 Got to my peg and opposite me on the spit on 129 was driver Rich, on 110 was Paul Elmes and on 111 Russ Peck, both excellent carp anglers. I didn't see who was on my right on 114 as they were behind the tree branches. I was slightly worried about using the new pole today, I had forgotten my margin pole and that would have been useful for the bay to my right, but I would tackle that anyway with red hollo 11. Open up my holdall and get out my big tube of topsets, ummm where are all those new pulla kits, this is all river topsets! Well I assumed I had left the new top sets at home and all I had on me were some old top sets, one with 11 hollo, one with 13 hollo and one with 15 hollo. This meant my options were very limited and I had to decide on rigs. In the end a deep rig for fishing banded pellet with 16 KKM-B to 0.15, a shallow rig on a long line, and a 0.15 margin rig for fishing pellet.

Obviously it was a long hot sunny day and this would make the fishing tougher but I was happy that a number of carp were showing before the match began. At 10:30 we started and I began at 5m on pellets, nothing much happened other than 2 skimmers. and it seemed quiet for most anglers. I was feeding 6mm pellets out to 14.5m and was soon shipping out the deep rig to try this line. It wasn't long before the float shot under and the 13h elastic was shooting off towards the opposite bank. It was obviously a fouler but I survived the initial run and was soon playing it on my top set where it was a waiting game. I was waiting for the fish to give up, but instead the top set gave up and snapped in my hand. Luckily I was able to keep the elastic under my control and eventually landed a 10lb fish hooked in the anal fin. I was now down to two top sets, so I took the margin rig off and was soon back out and I hooked another carp which soon came off. Then had a skimmer. Then I had another carp on which was a fouler and came off. I was soon into another carp which was fouled but I landed it and this was in the pectoral fin and near 12lb. One hour and 15 mins and I landed a carp hooked in the mouth, I now had three carp and a few skimmers. I had fouled all the carp right near the bottom, and even though there were no signs shallow I gave it a go for 15 mins but had not a single sign.

The next 90 mins were rock hard, with hardly any bites for me. Russ and Paul were not bagging and only had a couple more fish than me. I upped the feed on the long line and this worked in as much as I got some fish into the peg, but alas it was very frustrating as it was fouler after fouler. I tried different size pellets to no avail, I tried shallow on two more occasions and hooked two carp both came off as they were FOULERS! I did manage a couple more on the deep line and then switched my attention to the margin on a top set plus one. It was slow going but I managed to hook 5 carp and land all 5 as they were all in the mouth, and didn't snag me.

The match was over and I knew I was well beaten by Russ and and Paul so no money today. I felt like today I lost more fish as I landed so a good weight was on the cards if I could have sorted it out. A paste rig might have worked but I discounted it with only a couple of top sets. My final weight was 88lb something for no good, Russ had I think 109lb and Paul 169lb which was good enough for 2nd overall. Piccy of Paul.

Winner today was Glenn Bailey on peg 85 who had 181lb of carp on paste, including a 21lb beast caught in his margin.  Silvers winner was Tony Thick 38lb 12oz on peg 95.

I don't know much else as I had to shoot off with Rich as he was going out, but I am sure Tony will cover everything on his blog.

When I got home and put the gear away I looked for my new top sets, couldn't find them. Looked in the holdall and there they were in another new tube, so they were with me all day, what a plonker!

Super League Round 5 Bristol Avon Newbridge

After a great weekend away last week in Blackpool, even if the Gas lost, I was feeling rather achy. My wife and I decided to join a gym again (25 years after the last time) and I had gone to some classes and was feeling the effects. One class which involved lifting weights, squats and thrusts was full of women, mostly older than me, half way through I had to take a long break whilst the women made me look stupid lol. Only 2 weeks gone and I feel better for it and enjoy it, hopefully soon I'll be able to last a whole class.

This match was my first time out after struggling on the riverfest, the river had fished a lot better last week and with some rain might make the fishing better and the river have a little flow. Nick Chedzoy drew the team pegs but he had the last set and to be honest we didn't have what I thought was a decent draw. Myself I was on peg 49, a peg I've had before and it is a bit all or nothing as the flow is on the pole line and not much elsewhere. The peg is a long way off the water, and not for the faint hearted but it is something I am used to. Picture below shows how wide the peg is, but it's one of my worst pics, primarily because we had a lot of rain and the phone was kept in my pocket mostly.

Set up the usual rigs for the pole, a 1.5g pencil float, 2g, and 3g and a flat float for chopped worm. Also a gbait feeder and a crowquill. I did not set up a waggler as this peg is so wide and has very little if no flow past midway. Also I know from drawing this peg before that the far bank is snaggy with weed coming out a long way and not great for fishing across. I plumbed for fishing the pole at 13m it was deep at least 13 1/2 feet.

I balled the peg at the start at 12:30 just as the first heavy shower arrived! I began on the 2g rig with a 20 N40 to 0.10 with a caster on the hook. Float buried first chuck and hybrid was swung out. Next drop another hybrid that I had to net, about 6oz. Two further hybrids followed and then some roach about 2oz. After 20 minutes the caster was rejected and so I switched to maggot to catch a few more roach and a small perch. On about 40 minutes the bites just stopped, and none of my pole rigs could induce a bite. I tried the crowquill and had another hybrid and a couple of roach before that too died. I spent another 30 to 40 minutes without a single bite on anything.

I was going nowhere when I tried the pencil rig again and the float settled and buried and I had a small roach, a couple of missed bites forced me to put a pinkie on the hook and I caught a few more roach, a small sized maggot was the best and I even caught an 8oz chublet. After about 30 minutes this died and despite trying all the usual top ups and hookbaits it was dead. This was a problem as usually the pole line is the banker on this peg and I was worried about things already. I was right to be worried as I could not raise a bite on the crowquill, nothing on chopped worm either (again!). Casting the gbait feeder out to just past halfway I could get bites from tiny chublets, tiny roach and even gudgeon. Putting on a big hookbait like a worm and 4 maggots was no good. I did try the crowquill over the top and had the same tiny fish but not easy to hit bites, I hooked one slightly better fish but a pike grabbed it and bit me off.

I kept hoping the pole would come right but it never did, and as the rain and thunder abated I gambled with an hour to go and reballed it, a roach first drop got me excited, but that was my only bite. I sat it out on the feeder in the vain hope of a bonus, but just a small perch and a gudgeon.

I thought I had 4 1/2lb and that was not going to be any good today. In fact I weighed 5lb 4oz and that only beat two people in the section Jerry Pocock and Ivan Currie. I was chip shop sausage though as to my left Andy Powell had 11lb some big roach and 2 skimmers on the pole, and to my right Mark Brush had a bigger 11lb some roach on the pole and some decent chublets on the feeder. Well that was a lesson for sure, maybe I had some soap in my groundbait lol!

The winner on the day was Dean Harvey on peg 5 in the little field, he had 3 bream and a couple of skimmers and a big eel on the feeder and chublets on the waggler for a great 29lb. Chris Parr was 2nd on peg 3 with 24lb and Charlie Valendar had 20lb on peg 65 with some big roach. Better mention Nick Chedzoy came 4th with 19lb on peg 124 otherwise he will moan at me I expect.

Dean's fish below.

Diawa Gordon League won the day with 43 points, and despite my inepitude Thatchers came 2nd with 38 points. That means with one round left DGL are 21 points ahead and have already won the league unless they don't turn up. Thatchers are 12 points clear of third placed Garbolino Blackmore Vale and so need a good result to cement that place. I am not fishing next match, luckily I'm on a weekend at the races at Newbury as I may well have been dropped anyway! That said Thatchers are fishing the Div one National on Saturday and they will need a good draw as the venue Aire and Calder canal, and New Junction are producing some good weights but also blanks!

Onwards an upwards!

Riverfest Qualifier Bristol Avon

Last couple of weeks were busy and not much fishing involved. I did manage to get out for a few hours last Saturday on Saltford Straight, though only just as is it solid with boats. I got to use my new Preston XS90 pole for the first time, but I only fished 10m as the wind was horrendous and I wanted to keep shipping the pole back easy. Probably had about 9lb, roach to begin with but these petered out, one skimmer and lots of dace, bleak were a pain at times, also a few small perch. No photos as my new phone bought last week has died today! Actually I have no clue about how Riverfest has gone for everyone as I have no contact with the outside world without my phone lol!

I met team mate Jack Jones on the morning of the Riverfest, we had breakfast in Wetherspoons Hanham. The draw was not until 10am in Saltford, so for me at least it was a very nice easy start to the day. At the draw there were lots of locals as well as some long distance travellers, plenty of very good anglers on show. I was not too far from the front of the queue, but the downstream end peg had already gone. I dipped in and pulled out 124, down in the trees with about four pegs below me. I didn't fancy it, not with a low flow river, but you never know. Last years winning peg 59 was favoured as bream had been seen rolling in the days before, team mate Mat Challenger had that one.

Nice easy walk to the peg and with a start time of 12:30 I had lots of time to get set up. The wind was blowing upstream and was going to prevent any rod and line top and bottom fishing, I debated a waggler but thought it wouldn't be right. I did set up a gbait feeder with 0.13 to 14 N30, and three pole floats, a 1.5g pencil float with 20 to 0.09, a 2g bodied float with 20 to 0.10, and lastly a 3g with 18 to 0.12. All hooks were N30's.

The angler to my right was from the midlands and he was going to start on the feeder, the angler below me was Dave Roberts, one of the best river anglers in the country and he excels on the Wye and Severn. When we began I cast out the feeder 8 times to get some worm and caster in, I cast quite close to the far bank as I thought as well as a few skimmers there might be some chub. I then threw in 12 balls of gbait on the pole line at 13m. Out I went with my 2g rig and a caster, not a bite on this so on with a maggot which got me 2 bites and two small fish fell off. I then had a positive bite and netted a 8oz hybrid, a couple of runs down later and I had a 6oz hybrid, a few of these would be handy. No more bites on this rig, so onto the pencil rig which I was convinced would do the business. Alas no, I could not get any roach and for 30 minutes the only fish I caught where odd bleak and tiny perch. Fifty minutes in and caught my first roach, and had two more and a 4oz hybrid. Unfortunately the bites on the pole just died and no matter what I tried I never had another bite on it.

I cast the feeder out and had 30 minutes on it and never had a touch, this was looking piss poor quite frankly. A try on the pole line for nothing, so I fed some chopped worm at 11m and down the peg and put a bigger hook and hook length on the 2g rig, well that was a waste of bait as I never had a bite on that either.

Back on the feeder with 3 red maggots and just as Shaun Townsend came along for a walk, I told him I was struggling and so were many it seemed. However, two anglers in my zone were admitting to 8lb and had a bream or two. After a couple of casts the tip knocked and I had a tiny roach, next cast and more knocks and missed it, next cast the same. Weird now a bite a chuck on the feeder with 3 or 4 red maggots but I can't get a bite on the pole. After 30 mins of this I put a bit of worm on and still I got bites, but now it was from 2oz chublets, not easy to hit in 13 feet of water right over. I was at least getting plenty of feed into the peg and was happy to carry on hoping for a bit of late bream action (dream on). I did manage to snare a skimmer of about 10oz and a couple of chublets about the same size, but I also had three fast bites but when I struck the feeder was snagged up, on one occasion I lost the lot. I fished double dendra for the last 30 minutes, that stopped the  bites but sadly no bream showed for me.

I was well aware I had done no good but thought I would still weigh in. The scales showed a 6lb on the end peg, then Dave Roberts had 6lb 5oz, he had 4 eels on worm and some perch and a few late roach, he fished the worm much further out, so I think I made a mistake there. My net went 5lb 1oz and the lad to my right had 4lb+. My ten peg section was won by Craig Fletcher who had 7lb 11oz, a decent bream and a couple of skimmers early. I don't know what won my zone of 20 pegs but there was an estimate of 9-10lb on peg 90 which included a 4lb chub caught in the last 5 minutes.

As my phone had died and it was very late I decided to go straight home and get my phone charged and sorted and to find out what had happened. Well the phone has proper died and will not charge or switch on, so I am clueless as to what has happened today!!! Off to get the phone sorted tomorrow and hopefully get a replacement. No fishing next weekend as off to watch Rovers first game of the season at Blackpool. Hopefully I'll get a chance to give the pole a good work out soon, but I can certainly say it is so much stiffer than any pole I have had before and I was able to fish 13m with ease despite the wind and it should improve my fishing I hope.