Commercial House Round 5 - Bristol Avon Newbridge

After another dry week and the river was going to be float fishable again. After the roach fest of last week most people were expecting to catch a few again. I put some more pole rigs in the box for this match. Didn’t have much time to prep as I was going out just after midday with Wendy to see our eldest daughter and her boyfriend, then watch Rovers, then go down Gloucester Road with some friends. Very good day out, I got home at midnight lol. 

I got to the draw feeling a little tired,  and got my bait from Rich Lacey who had kindly got it for me yesterday. In no time at all the draw was being done, I really wanted to be in A to D sections and avoid the trees. But oh flip the team draw put me in E section a few pegs to the left of the arch in the trees. In my opinion this was the worst part of the whole river, and I was cheesed off, I forget what Newbridge looks like!

Despite the poor area I would still have to approach the peg in the same way, so waggler, bolo, gbait feeder and pole were all set up. Lots of rowers out today it seemed, but they usually thin out after a couple of hours.

For neighbours today I had Craig Pinker on my left and Mike Kent on my right, that’s four matches out of four that Mike and I have drawn in the same section. Last week this part of the river only produced 6lb so I was expecting less, but the danger was Ivan Currie on peg 1 who was up by the stream on a peg that had 19lb last week. We started at 10:15 and I balled it in but didn’t put much feed in it. On the third run down I had a bite and swung in a little roach. That was the only bite I had on the pole. Went onto the gbait feeder and no knocks or bites, this was not looking good.

An hour in and Rich Lacey rang me to say he was blanking on the arch peg, and I said well I’ve only got 1 roach. As we were chatting and the boats were passing I noticed the tip drop back, I struck and felt a fish on, shaking its head. It was a chub close to 2lb and was a nice little bonus. I thought I met get another now but no more bites came.

Mid match I was bored and a bit chilly so went for a walk. Ivan was well ahead with 6lb, I was next best, Rich had a little chublet but had been smashed up by a big fish. Either side of me had 3 little fish and were not getting any bites, it was grim at this stage and didn’t get any better for me. About an hour to go Rich rang me to say he had landed a 6lb bream hooked in a fin, oh jammy bugger I think I said 😂. Thirty minutes later he rang me again and now told me had a 5lb barbel!!! WTF 🤣. I was fishing the gbait feeder same as Rich, but I never had a bite after that chub at 11:15. 

Rich with his bonuses. Deserves a bit of luck does Rich.

I was quite happy to pack up today, and have not struggled like that for a long time. When the scales got to me Ivan was top with 13lb 7oz of chublets, and Rich had 11lb 12oz for his three fish. My 2 fish went 1lb 15oz, just 2oz off winning my B div section.

 There was another bream caught by Paul Purchase and he had 6lb. The board here shows the highs and lows.

The fishing up at Newbridge was ever so slightly better..

1st Andy Ritchings 88lb (bream peg 56)

2nd Jason Fearn 37lb (roach and chub peg 22)

3rd Kev Boltz 24lb (bream peg 50)

Sensas Nomads won A div and look to be favourites to win overall.

Lobby’s won B div and the only thing that will stop them winning the B div  is if they don’t turn up for the last round… and even then they could still be champions!

I certainly don’t feel like I’ve had a decent peg on the river yet this autumn, maybe I’ll get one next week on the poppy match 🤔

ATWL Round 2 - Bristol Avon Newbridge

 Due to the cancellation last week (badly flooded river) this match became round 2. My lead up to this match was not good, sore throat Tuesday that just got worse and by Friday I was feeling really crap due to lack of sleep and headaches. I was due to peg out Saturday and was not sure if I could do it all. However, come Saturday morning despite not waking up till 8:40am I did feel a little bit better. Myself, Shaun Townsend and Dean Harvey pegged the match out; 20 pegs at Newbridge and 20 in the trees. I went to bed Saturday night after helping Gary Etheridge avoid the Bath charging zone.

Lovely having the extra hour in bed, just what I needed as still blocked up etc. Got to the Crown at 7:20 so plenty of time for grub and a chat. Most of my Thatchers team had not fished Newbridge for ages, but once a river angler always a river angler? Rob Jones did our team draw, looked decent but on a dropping pacey river who knew. I was on H1 in the last section at the trees, got to be honest I was worried as usually the end peg wins and it gets worse as you go up river.

At the peg and I realised it was one I had in the pairs league in the summer, I won the match that day with a few breambut wasn’t expecting that result today. My peg was 14 feet deep at 11m, so with the pace set up a 4g pole rig, a 6m flat float, and a 6g bolo float, plus a gbait feeder.

I started the match chucking some gbait on the pole line and then chucking in 10 feeder fulls on the feeder at 2/3 over. I began on the 4g pole rig, trying various hook baits to no avail, 1 roach. Maybe the flat float would work, hmm, 2 roach on this. After an hour I had just 4 fish, DGL angler below me Tom Bolton was also struggling but the other three anglers were apparently catching roach. I was thinking get on the feeder but decided to try the bolo, well it was instant, a bite every cast virtually. Had to keep trying different hook baits and casting in different places but there were bites to be had and something to work at. 

I probably had 2 and a bit hours of bites on the bolo  before it went iffy, I tried the pole again and had a few on both rigs before that stopped. The Bankside information was that my section was really close, and I kept trying to eke out the odd fish. Eventually this line seemed dead so I went on the feeder, a good 30 minutes didn’t get me a single bite. Back on the bolo and yes it was hard but I could get the odd bite so I decided to stick with it.

Match over, Tom below said he had looked at his fish and had 9lb, I lifted my net up and thought 9lb+. The weigh in was done quickly by bank runners Guy Manton and Mark Treasure. I was taken aback when they said Tom had 15lb, not quite the 9lb he said lol! I had to beat 8lb 8oz by Ian Dunlop to get second in section, and was happy to hear 9lb 15oz called. Tom had a lot of chublets and a chub on the pole, whereas I had only had 2 chublets.

The next two sections in the trees my team mates Ian Paulley and Shaun Townsend struggled, both having real snaggy pole lines. Lee Trivett got second in section in E section. Up at Newbridge we had a better time, Andy Ottaway won the match with 23lb, helped by a 8lb carp! Martin Barrett won his section with nearly 18lb, Mat Challenger was third and Rob Jones only beat one.

Back at the results we knew DGL had won but we were a bit gutted to come third, we tied on points with Devises but they beat us having one more third in section angler.

The river fished really well today for roach and chublets, just a few bream showed.

Andy Ottaway had 15lb of roach to go with his carp on peg 52.

Dave Micklewright had 21lb from peg 22 on the bolo.

Neil Richards had lots of chublets on 92 on feeder and float.

Teams overall to date Thatchers and Devises 4, DGl 6.

Next match next week on the canal, but for me I’ll be back here on the comm house.

Commercial House Round 4 - K&A canal

 Strange week, lots of rain forecast and I was supposed to be fishing the second round of the ATWL up at Chippenham and Melksham. Friday it rained so hard it woke me up, I wasn’t surprised that Saturday morning the decision was made to cancel the match on safety grounds. No fishing for me then, but then Mark Harper asked if I wanted to fish in his place for Thatchers on the commercial house on the canal just outside Bath, so I accepted. I had to do a bit of last minute prep for rigs and hooks of course, but got it all done before I went for a meal and a few beers with Wendy.

I woke up Sunday morning before the alarm, it wasn’t as wet and windy as I expected, but the forecast was dire. I was at the draw nice and early and paid the team pools, this was necessary as Rob Manns had forgotten to set his alarm and was going to be late lol. I asked team mate Guy Manton to draw, but as the draw began he was nowhere to be seen, and I had to draw. I pulled out balls A and 1, and that meant as I was first on the sheet I was on A1, end peg. I was going to be between the George and Meadow Farm, not the best area always but having end peg was mega. Guy was in B and so said he would follow me.

On the way out of Bath I had a bad feeling about the van, pulled over and saw my left front tyre was flat. Guy stopped and then together we spent 45 minutes getting the spare tyre fitted. Guy was a massive help, and I was glad the spare had air in it lol!

I finally got to my peg which was unfishable as a boat was moored in front of it FFS.. moved down to a small gap between two boats and had 45 minutes to set up, I was hot and sweaty from the tyre replacement and the walk from the George to nearly Meadow Farm bridge. I set up in double quick time and put just three rigs up, 4x14 with 0.08 to 18 PR311 for bread at top set plus one. Another 4x14 with 0.09 to 16 PR311 for fishing 10m with gbait, worms and casters, and a 4x12 for fishing across. The canal has a bit of colour in it today.

I started one minute late, and began on the bread line, it took me 5 minutes to get my first bite, a fairly small roach. A minute later another small roach, and after 15 minutes things got going with regular bites from 2oz roach. I had a good first 90 minutes on the bread getting 3 12oz skimmers in amongst the roach, but it then died.

I put another section on and went deeper on my bread rig and fished over a gbait and squatt line, hardly a bite, so over to 10m. I tried worm and had one 4oz roach, then had a couple more on maggot, but this was very slow. I came back to top set plus two and now started catching on pinkie, roach, and a couple of hybrids. Had a good run here before it died and leaves were a real problem.

I 

I had a bad 30 minutes catching very little I wanted to fish across but the leaves were a nightmare, causing me to tangle a rig. With just over an hour to go, the boat to my left moved off leaving my peg a tad messy. I went for a quick walk and a wee, I was beating the two lads to my left. Little video of the barge moving off and the lady waving goodbye 😂

Back on my peg and the far bank had cleared of leaves, meaning I was able to try my caster line, and gbait line. I had 1 roach on caster, but the gbait line was solid and it was a roach a chuck on pinkie. Then the leaves returned and it was back to trying to get a rig in, annoyingly another rig got tangled due to hooking a leaf that twisted up. I still managed to put a few roach in the net. 

Match over, I was left a tad frustrated by the boat and leaves, but I had only dropped one fish and bumped one, so that was satisfying. It was nice packing up in the dry and the sun was warm. I was weighed in first in the section and my fish went 11lb 3oz. That won the section with Dave Lewis coming second with 8lb by the old lock.

Many people endured a dire journey back as the ring road was closed, but I saw on my sat nav the issue and got back to the pub first! That was lucky!

Team faired ok but still not enough to get the better of Lobby’s who are romping B division.

A few pegs near the bay and brambles in D section produced the top 3.. 

Mark Bromsgrove 23lb of skimmers

Graham Hunt 19lb of skimmers 

Kev Boltz 2 ounces less than Graham. 

I didn’t get pictures of the results today, so apologies. I think I was 6th. A bit of an eventful day to say the least, at least I got home in one piece, even if a bit knackered 🤣🤣

Winter league practice open Bristol Avon

 Well it’s been a few weeks since I was on the bank, I had a holiday in Zante, and then a couple of family things which included moving my eldest daughter Lucy out of our house into her new home with her boyfriend Jack. I missed the first round of the ATWL on the Thames, but I wasn’t missed as the team did the business winning the first round convincingly, Diawa Gordon League had an off day coming last, so maybe they might give us a chance this year lol. 

This open match was effectively a practice for the second round, being fished on the Avon at Chippenham and Melksham. After the rain we had earlier in the week the river has been flooded, but today it was float fishable if a bit pacey in places. There’s a Greggs near the draw in Melksham so I grabbed some breakfast in there first which was good. Thatchers had 6 anglers fishing today so hopefully we would get some good practice. I drew a peg at Chippenham about 4 pegs below the blue bridge, team mate Rob Jones drew two below me on the end peg and he followed me to the river as he had no clue where he was going.

It was a nice easy walk to our pegs thanks to following Neil Richards through the housing estate. I was the peg below Neil and we both had plenty of room, my peg looked good.

A quick phone call to Martin Barrett gave me a little info, though to be fair at the draw I had been given various suggestions on what to do. With the flow and features it screamed a running line approach, so not being a team match I went with rods only. A 4AAA waggler with 16 to 0.13, a 5g bolo with same gear (looking for chub on these rods). A 6x4 stick float with 20 to 0.10 and a maggot feeder with 16 to 0.17.

Match started at 10:30 and I began on the waggler. I soon realised that the flow was coming away from the far bank and so I cast the waggler down the peg a bit. With the speed of the river my maggots would be taking a while to sink anyway. It wasn’t the best first hour, a couple of small chublets and bleak for about 1lb. The bolo produced a couple of roach and the stick float in closer was biteless bar minnows.

Neil had a chub on the feeder earlier and so I switched to that, gave it 90 minutes but just had a couple of gudgeon, a roach and 2 small chublets. I was really struggling to get bites and was already thinking I would need some chub to do any good. At 1:30pm three hours into the match I started to get the odd bite on the bolo from small roach, but I couldn’t line them up. 

The stick float remained dead and I sacked it off. I spent the last two hours switching between the waggler and the bolo, it was better than earlier but no decent fish, I ended the match with about 40 fish and never used my landing net once. I wasn’t going to do any good today. Rob Jones on the end peg had a lovely day catching 15lb roach and 1 chub, above him there was a 12lb. My fish went 5lb 4oz, then Neil had 7lb above me. Well and truly battered today, but I gave it my all and it was nice to trot a float.

The match was won by Mick Withey with an amazing 20lb of perch at Scotland Road!

A couple of chub weights were next at. Chippenham where Ian Dunlop had 19lb and Tony Ellis Randell had16lb. Rob got 4th and last in the frame.

I will need a better performance next week, let’s hope the rain stays away.

Commercial House Round 2 - Bristol Avon

 A very busy week for me as I flew to Frankfurt on Monday for an exhibition, after a long week I got home Friday evening and was dog tired. Saturday had to collect my bait as well as Derek Coles, Steve Lovell and Rob Manns, the fridge was full! After watching the disaster of a 0-4 home loss at the Gas I was really happy to see Gloucestershire win the T20, my wife and daughter Lucy were there to celebrate with the players.

I felt very jaded Sunday morning and realised I had got a cold, so got some paracetamol in to me. Got to the draw and I was the only team member present, unfortunately we were going to be one man short today due to an emergency that occurred. Eventually my team mates started arriving after I had paid their pools, in amongst the crowd of anglers I spied good mate Martin Reyatt. This made me laugh as he told me he’d never fish the river again lol.

Team draw done and we had one flier end peg at Swineford, Steve Lovell was on that. I was on D7 at Jack Whites, middle of this section is not good normally. It was a good yomp to get to the peg, including having to negotiate a kissing gate. I walked past some real good pegs and then saw Andy Britt on D6 who was also not happy with the peg. However, when I finally found my peg (I had walked past it) I was properly pissed off, this was a peg I always leave out as it is full of snags. Just to make things better an otter surfaced to my left and then swam downstream.

My options were now very limited and a couple of calls to other anglers confirmed the situation. I set up a 4AAA waggler with 0.15 to 16 N50 to pull hard on any chub. A gbait feeder with 0.17 to 14 N50 and lastly a 6m whip. 

We started at 10:15 and there was no balling in gbait on this peg for me. By casting a long way down the peg I avoided any snags and had 25 minutes on the feeder getting some bait in and caught a chublet and a roach on it. Went onto the waggler (fished 3 feet deep) which I had been feeding and was able to catch some chublets from 4oz to 12oz. But they soon went, I went down to 0.13 and an 18 but it didn’t make any difference as the chublets were now right up under the trees and impossible to reach.

After trying the feeder again for 1 perch I tried the whip line, first run down I had a 8oz perch. Second run down snag and rig ended up in the tree. Poxy peg, I was 2 feet off the bottom and snagged, I gave up on the whip.

Back on the waggler and I started to get the odd bite from bleak and small roach, but I needed to fine down, so 0.10 to a 20 went on which made a difference and I got a lot more bites. I also had to go deeper as the match went on, getting to 6 1/2 feet seemed best. The only problem was the fish were so small, but as I heard the section wasn’t fishing great I just carried on. Changing the colour of the maggot on the hook was needed, but probably caught most on bronze. In the last half hour I had a couple of chublets out of the blue, and they actually started showing themselves under the trees after the match. 

My match was done, I thought I had 9lb, Andy reckoned he had 7lb. I’d had a busy day on the waggler but just not enough quality. In the end the section was quite tight but Leigh Wakefield won A div with 13lb, he had 3 chub with a couple of hours to go to bump his weight up. Mike Kent won my B div with 12lb 9oz, he had a good run of chublets that made the difference. My fish went 10lb 6oz which I was happy with, and was surprised to come third in the section from this peg.

Overall the match was won easy by Lee Warden at the top of Chequers straight who had 12 chub and a bream on the waggler plus roach for 38lb 6oz. A fantastic weight and Lee said it was one of his best days on the river. 

There was a tie for second with Andy Powell and Martin Reyatt, MR drawing the outfall at Swineford and catching 5 bream but not on pellets or meat 😂😂

Full results and team results are below, but that’s enough typing now as I need some sleep. No fishing for the next couple of weeks for me.