Thames Championship

No blog last week as I spent a lovely week in Skiathos with Wendy, really enjoyed the holiday. This blog is a bit late due to getting home late Sunday evening and I felt very tired and couldn’t face hitting the keyboard.

Thatchers always put a team into the Thames Champs but sadly this year only 13 teams in attendance when normally there is 20+. Still it’s a good match with some exceptional anglers fishing and a big test. I have never felt quite at home on the river here, it just seems so different to my local Avon. But it is a test and also a bit of practice for the Thames w/l round in a couple of weeks.

Shaun Townsend picked me up at 6:45 Sunday morning as we were next section to each other on the Clanfield stretch. The teams decide which sections anglers go to, but in our case we do a random draw, but at least we know. Also in the team were Andy Ottaway, Matt Challenger, James Carty and Kev Bennet. They arrived at the Swan in Radcot early for the 7:30 draw whilst Shaun and I drove straight to the river. On the way the peg set was shared on WhatsApp and I was F13 end peg 100 at Clanfield, sounded good!

As we drove through the fields to my peg we stopped and asked a local Drennan angler what peg he was. He then also kindly told me how to approach my peg and that it has been a chub flyer but so far this season not one has been caught there. It was very generous of him to be so helpful.

Shaun dropped me off and said something like don’t mess it up lol. Took a picture once I was set up, lovely and flat calm, spiky stuff opposite but no flow, mostly the flow was my side of the river.

The river was about 6 feet deep here, bit of variation but not too much. I set up three rigs for fishing over a gbait line at 11m; 1 and 1.5g floats bulk and 1 or 2 droppers (depending on if tiny fish were a problem) and a 4x16 with spread shot for hemp. 0.08 and 20 on everything. Also set up a waggler for chucking across if needed.

Lastly I set up a chop worm rig, 1g with 0.17 to a 14 that would be used at 7m and in the lions den at 13m down the inside next to the stick ups. As you can see below it’s a right jungle below the stick ups, but I was told to fish the stick ups for the chub.

The water was gin clear and I could see minnows in close and even saw a crayfish. I was looking forward to having a good match, expecting roach and perch and hopefully getting some chub, got to be positive! We started at 11am and had already had to put my coat on due to a shower and more was coming, the wind also blew up but was ok at this time. I cupped 4 balls of gbait containing caster, hemp and pinkie in, and fed chopped worms and casters with a bait dropper on my two lines. I picked up the 1g rig hoping the bait would get to the bottom. Well I put a caster on and after five runs through not a bite, on with a maggot. Dropped the rig in to close and a minnow got it, lesson learnt swing the rig out. Now avoiding the minnows but also avoiding everything else, not a bite! 

I went on my 7m chopped worm line, no bites here either WTF is going on I thought. On to my banker inside worm line, after 5 or 6 minutes I had a perch of 6oz, and then another but that was it, so fed more worms etc here. Back on my gbait line still no bites, put a pinkie on and got a perch and pulled out of another. An hour gone and maybe 14oz, I couldn’t believe that I could not catch a roach or a dace, yet the angler above me fishing pole over gbait was getting small dace regularly. Back in the lions den, a couple of slow moving bites were missed, thinking crayfish, but then missed a dink, next dink bite I hit and quickly realised I needed to pull hard as this was a good fish. I had 14 elastic in and was able to get the fish out into open water and landed it without any problems, a chub of 2 1/2lb to 3lb. That was a lot better and just under 4 hours to get some more.

The match though continued to be much tougher than I expected on this end peg. The gbait pole line gave me 2 more perch, 2 dace and 1 roach. The rain got worse, the wind blew straight into my face and was really bad. Lost my hat twice, pole sections blown around, and the lad above me had his number 5 section break. It was not pleasant. I managed a few more perch from the inside, but mid match it dried up, I kept feeding it. I then caught bleak short lining on the pole for about 30 minutes before they went. Also had about 30 minutes catching tiny fish on the waggler. I cast it hard into the wind to get near to the far bank, couldn’t feed it of course. With 30 minutes left having fed more worms and casters inside I sat it out looking for another chub. Sadly none appeared but I did get my best perch of the day about 1lb and a couple more flying crayfish.

Match over I was a tad disappointed because was really hoping for good double figures, but still hoped I would do ok in the section. Typically the rain stopped and within 45 minutes the wind had disappeared lol, not that affected me catching. I was the first to weigh in and 8lb was called, definitely my best weight at Clanfield. 

I followed the scales up to peg 6, and the Dorking lad had a 4lb+ chub with some bits to get 8lb 12oz. I was told nobody above this peg would beat me and I would be second in the section. However, this turned out to be quite false as there was an 8lb 11oz and a 14lb (all perch), so I got 10 points out of 13. I’m sure a local angler would have done better in my peg, I was certainly messed up by the roach not feeding in our section and just assumed at some point I would catch some. I did give it a good go for the chub so I’m not beating myself up.

The team did pretty well with Kev 12 points, Andy 11, Shaun 9, Matt 8, James 5 and my 10. But our tally was just a few points short and we came 4th first out of the money. Diawa Dorking romped it, local experts Drennan Oxford second and DGL third. The individual winner Alex Clements had an amazing 43lb which was 8 chub to nearly 6lb and 6lb of bits. 

It was a bittersweet result, but as a very good angler said to me later, you done well considering that you hardly fish the Thames.  It certainly ain’t like Swineford 😂😂 That said I do think it’s fished quite well today.

 

Another weekend off, then it’s going to be head down with a lot of river matches until mid November.

Commercial House winter league Round 2

A busy week leading up to this match as I was working in Frankfurt all week, a great time but long days. It meant Saturday was prep day which was more enjoyable than watching the Gas 🙈🤣. 

The same as round 1 this match was on the Bristol Avon, Newbridge, Swineford and Crane. Plenty of bait taken as you never know what you might be fishing for. After a quick visit to Greggs I was soon at the Crown for the draw, left my wallet in the van so Dave Lewis bailed me out. The team draw put me at the bottom of crane, F1 on the high wall with the rest of my section all downstream.

There’s an option on this peg to get down into the water but I decided to sit on top about 7 feet above the river to most others surprise lol. This peg has most of the flow this side of the river and can be good for roach and perch but pike are pretty bad in this area. The boats opposite can hold chub but they have not shown up yet.

Set up today was a 7m Preston Absolute whip with 2g float with 18 to 0.10. A 3g bolo with same hook etc, a 1g rig for chopped worm at top set plus two, and lastly a 4 AAA waggler with 16 to 0.13. No feeder required today. We had plenty of time to set up and I wandered down to the next peg to see Rich Whitmarsh who had plenty of gear made up. 

We started at 10:30 and I put 9 balls of my usual roach mix in for the whip line. I started on this line with caster and had a nice roach first drop in, but after this it was just tiny dace and roach. Trying hemp and tares produced mainly missed bites or the same small fish. A pike took a perch and had another go at a fish. I was feeding maggots across to the boats for the waggler but wanted to leave it a while before trying. I put some worms and casters in on my short line and gave it a go. Plenty of bites from tiny perch, I took them hoping better perch would follow, they didn’t. I tried the bolo close in, down the middle etc, tiny fish and when I hooked a better roach a pike grabbed it.

After 90 minutes and maybe 2lb I went for a walk, Rich was also struggling as was Jason Fearn, both having a lot of pike trouble. Going back to my peg I decided to give the waggler a go, thinking I might get less pike trouble. Fishing about 5 feet deep I could not get a bite despite dace taking my loose fed maggots across. I guessed that the hook length was too thick so changed it to 0.10 and put a 18 on. This worked and I started to get bites from dace and roach, a bit better than the whip line. It was tricky as there was a strong upstream wind at times with little flow the float was hardly moving. 

I had to rest the waggler but the whip and worm line was still poor. Lee Warden and Ben Rendall further down were catching roach so I made my mind up with 90 minutes left to stick to the waggler and upped the feed. I picked up the odd small fish but not great, then I saw a big swirl which I assumed was a pike having a go, but could it have been a chub? I shallowed the waggler to 3 feet and cast short of the boat where I saw the swirl and had a dace. About 30 minutes to go I finally struck into something big, was it a pike or a chub, I took my time with it as it plodded about then up popped a big chub! It was later weighed at 4lb 10oz.  Ten minutes later chub number 2 was netted, 10 minutes later chub number 3. I landed my fourth chub at 3:28 and then hooked number 5 just a second before the all out and I shouted fish on.

Five chub hooked 5 landed all on 0.10, it helps when there are no snags! Well obviously that run was going to rocket me up the section and my chub went 14lb 10oz and the rest 7lb 1oz for a total of 21lb 5oz. 

Here’s my section board it’s not in peg order, and Lee did really well on the boys hole to catch 16lb of roach.

Adam Beachgood won the match, fishing for Sensas Nomads with 31lb 4oz .  He was drawn at Newbridge on peg 22A.  He also fished the waggler at a variety of depths, feeding maggots and caught 7 good chub.

I was 2nd on the day and 3rd was Jack Jones peg 14 at Swineford and had 18lb roach and 1 bream on the pole.

4th - Lee Warden (M & N Electrical) - 16 lbs 2 ozs

5th - Ivan Currie (Sensas Nomads) - 14 lbs 11 oz

6th - Sam Johnson (Sensas Nomads) - 13 lbs 9 ozs

Sensas Nomads won the match with 33 points.

Bathampton Lobby’s were 2nd with 30 points.

3rd - Midland Spinner - 26

4th - M & N Electrical - 25

5th - Wiltshire Angling - 20

5th - Mark Paynes Leads - 18

7th - Sensas Lobby’s - 14

After two matches it’s like this…

1st - Sensas Nomads - 59

2nd - Midland Spinner - 56

3rd= Bathampton Lobby’s & M & N Electrial - 53

5th - Wiltshire Angling - 43

6th - Sensas Lobby’s - 40

7th - Mark Paynes Leads - 30

Well another great day though I must admit I wasn’t quite expecting that last 30 minutes! No fishing next weekend and then I’m fishing the Thames Champs. I suspect that will be the end of my good run as I never catch up there 🙈🙈🙈😆

Bathampton / Bristol & West Pairs League

This was the final round of this friendly league and was being fished at Newbridge, Rich Lacey and myself had an 8 point lead going into this final round. However, after losing a 6 point lead last year to come second we were definitely not counting our chickens! Our nearest rivals Ivan Currie and Dave Lewis only went and drew out two great pegs, Ivan end peg (again) below the Norfolk Reeds and Dave behind the pumphouse. Unfortunately we got poor pegs and knew we were up against it. I was going to the end of the straight peg 40 where 6lb has been a very good weight, I couldn’t see me beating Dave, Derek below Dave and Graham Hunt on peg 46. 6 or 7 points was my target and same for Rich we thought.

The river was very clear and you could easily see 3 feet or more down, lots more rain needed. You can see my net and a shelf under the water here

Setting up I was going to cover my options and fish a bit lighter than normal. Three pole rigs, one pencil float 1.5g with 20 N10 to 0.08, a 2 g float with 20 to 0.09, a rig to fish chopped worm at 5m. A gbait feeder with 16 to 0.13 and a waggler with 18 N10 to 0.10. I didn’t put up a topper or bolly as there was hardly any flow and the wind was blowing everywhere.

We started at 10 and I put 8 balls of gbait in at 11.5m then started on the feeder with three red maggots on the hook. I had instant bites from small fish and had 2 roach a perch and a chublet. There were clearly no bream here at the moment so I went onto the pole as it would be easier to catch roach on it than the feeder. I did get a small roach first drop in on single caster, but was soon onto a maggot which got a couple more small roach, but I was soon onto the pencil float. Bites were hard to come by, the fish were not lined up on the gbait and I had to search the area to get a small roach or perch, red or fluro maggot was best.

After an hour the pole line died, so I fed some chopped worm at 5m and tried the feeder again. I had a couple more roach and a 6oz perch but then couldn’t get a bite. The chopped worm line gave me 3 small perch so not great. 

Rich rang me to say he was struggling with maybe 1lb and wasn’t getting bites, but not long after he had a bonus 2 1/2lb perch on the feeder dead handy!

The pole was still dead for me so my only choice was to try the waggler where I had been feeding maggots across. Started with double maggot but missed three bites, so changed to single and caught the culprit a bleak. Kev Boltz had walked up my section and said other than Dave, Derek and Graham it was a real struggle, Jerry Pocock below me hadn’t had a bite on the pole but was getting odd fish on the feeder including a pound chub. I stuck on the waggler as the bleak were a decent size but it wasn’t frantic. With just over an hour to go the bleak dried up, and I couldn’t get a bite anywhere. I recalled the pole, didn’t work, had a 1oz perch on the tip and 3 or 4 bleak late on. Maybe 5lbs but would it be enough?

Below is my section board, I weighed 6lb 2oz for 7 points, getting beat by the three form pegs. No bream had fed so that had helped I guess. Dave Lewis won the match with 11lb 8oz from behind the pumphouse. Dave had this peg last week in the Commercial House would you believe, but a hole in his net then cost him. He got a second chance and put it right with some roach and small chub.

In Rich’s section Ivan comfortably won the section, but Rich had a late run of fish on the pole to get him second in the section. We had 16 points and knew then we had won the league.

Fair play to Ivan and Dave coming first and second today for the maximum 20 points. Runners up in the league.

Here’s the overall result, we had 101 points out of a possible 120. 

Top of the league and currently Rovers are also top of the table, so a pair of very happy Gasheads here. Commercial House next week, same bits of river as last time. I’d prefer Swineford or Crane, mainly to get away from the boats, rowers, swimmers etc 🙈🤣🙈

Lastly big thanks to Dean Harvey and Craig Pinker for running the series and swim clearing. Also Derek Coles and Jeff Surmon put in a lot of work. Cheers lads 🍻 UTG 

Commercial House Winter League Round 1

I was asked by Jerry Pocock if I could fish with his team the Midland Spinner in this league. I’m able to fish four rounds as have to give my primary support to Thatchers team events. It’s always nice to fish the local river, but many other anglers also enjoy it travelling from far afield.

Have to mention the lovely day out Saturday watching the Gas win at home, cracking match, and was celebrated with a few ciders. It was an early kick off so a long time to celebrate 😆.

Sunday morning I picked up Jerry and we got to the draw at the Crown at Keynsham. Jerry had pegged the match and told me 2 sections were at Newbridge, 1 at Swineford and 3 at the Crane. Soon after a breakfast roll and a cup of tea Jerry drew and it seemed to be ok, especially for me on dolly peg 15 at Swineford 😊.  I’ve won on this peg on the pairs league this year with 18lb of chub and roach and was really happy. 

My view today. A bit of shade for a while but boy did it get hot later in the match 🥵.  Andy Reid from Lobby’s was above me and Bristol City fan Leigh Wakefield on end peg 17. Leigh’s peg had loads of chublets and chub swimming under the surface and I was not sure if I could get the better of him. Top bloke is Leigh, not all City fans are bad eggs 😉

Gear put up today, waggler, crowquill, pole rigs; 1.5g with 18 N20 to 0.10, 2g with 16 N20 to 0.11, a 4x14 with 18 N20 to 0.10 for fishing mid depth.

We started at 10:30 and I crashed in 10 balls of my usual Sonubaits Black Roach and Black River with a good helping of casters and hemp. I chucked the waggler looking for the early chub, but I hadn’t seen any and my peg was full of bits and dace. After 15 minutes I put that down and tried the pole at 13m where I fed, first run down on a caster and hooked a roach, but a jack pike grabbed it. Eventually the pike let go of the roach, I was not looking forward to hooking more pike! The next 15 minutes it was a bite a chuck, a couple of bleak a dace and small roach. I stuck a tare on the hook, I find these much easier to hook than hemp though can’t say I’ve had lots of days where you catch on tares. Well first drop in on the tare produced a roach, and so did the next one. I was getting a bite every chuck but missing too many, so I pushed the olivette up and spread the two droppers more. This made a difference and I hit more bites.

I was feeding a pouch of hemp one run through and then next I fed a pouch of maggots and casters across the river. Soon the roach were coming off bottom and I had to shallow up a foot. Bites were coming as soon as the rig settled if not before and i hardly had time to feed. I was soon needing to shallow up again but the rig felt too heavy for this depth so I tried the 4x14 rig. It worked but it felt like I was catching slower waiting for rig to settle, so I went back on the 1.5g and the roach just carried on gobbling up the tares!

An hour to go and I decided to stop feeding the waggler line as the small fish were still there. I had a little go on the crowquill to give my body a rest from shipping 13m of pole. I had 3 roach on this on tares and then missed bites so back to the pole. It proved that there were tons of roach in the peg bottom to middle.. solid!

When the match ended I was feeling the heat, the sun was burning my pole and landing net pole, but the roach carried on feeding. I was sure I had 20lb of roach, I had fed nearly 2 pints of hemp.

Swineford fished very well and I won the sectional with 24lb 7oz. Rich Whitmarsh had 16lb and then Leigh had a 14lb, Andy Reid 13lb that just beat Andy Britt 13lb, Mike Goodhind had double figures too!

It was a nightmare back at the pub as the sports ground opposite wouldn’t allow us to park in there, and there’s not much parking in the area as it’s all double yellows! Managed to get parked up and walked back, and was soon told that I had won the match as Sam Johnson was second best weight with 16lb 8oz from the Crane, then Rich Whitmarsh was third. Poor old Rich got beat up by pike so could have weighed a lot more, once again the pike stayed away from me after the first fish, that’s lucky!

Here’s part of my catch today, 18lb in this weigh.

Some very good river anglers were here today and you’ll see a few of them on the sheet below with section and overall. Great to win against these guys, another win for the Gas too 😆😆😆

Here’s the team positions after round 1 and pleased to see our team win today. The team was Jerry, me, Derek Coles, Shane Caswell, Craig Pinker and Jeff Surmon. Local lads who just love fishing the river.

A weekend off now, then the last round of the pairs league, one more good draw please, or is that greedy 😉😆

Bathampton / Bristol & West Pairs

Round 5 of this friendly competition and it was back at Newbridge for this one. I had missed the first two rounds on here when a fair few bream have been caught so I was hoping to get on few! On my way to the draw I had just got on the ring road after picking up a McDonalds breakfast when I realised I’d forgotten my reels and feeders. Had to turn back and rang Dean Harvey to tell him I might be late. I arrived at the pumphouse a minute past 8am and the draw was underway. Rich Lacey and I were last to draw so it was fingers crossed we had something decent. Rich drew again and put me in A section and I got peg 3 which was behind the pumphouse, Rich got B9 which was peg 63 and meant he was definitely in the bream area. Our nearest challengers had also drawn well so it was going to be interesting!

I last drew this peg in the Poppy match when I had some nice chub, but they haven’t shown this season so far and neither have the chublets, but they are there for sure. Jerry Pocock helped me get my gear to the peg as the path is too dangerous here for a trolley. Jer was on peg 18 again and last time he had 30lb of bream on it. No surprise he was fishing for bream today.

I set up the trusty Preston Absolute platform to get me as far out as possible. Never bothered to set up a feeder here today, not used one yet in the league lol. A 4AAA waggler with 16 to 0.11 Powerline for chubbing was put up, and just two pole rigs; a 1g pencil float with 20 to 0.10 and a 1.5g with 16 to 0.12. With virtually no flow there was no need for heavy rigs, just had to hope that bleak would not mess it up.

The match was just about to start when a couple who live on the orange boat jumped in and swam / paddle boarded/ fell in. I thought it was probably not a good idea to start on the waggler….

Threw 12 balls of Sonubaits finest on the 11m line and shipped out with the heaviest rig, ran it through 5 times and no bites. Picked up the pencil float, ran it through 5 times without a bite but then had a roach. It was a slow start but gradually I was getting more bites on a maggot. All the while I was feeding maggots and casters on the waggler line. I reckon after an hour I had 3lb, roach, dace and one chublet. However, the waggler line was alive with swirling fish, not bleak but chublets, and I had to get on this as it was still cloudy and boats were not too bad. I had bites immediately, and within a few seconds of the bait hitting the water, chublets averaging 6oz but I did have a 2lb chub. I had a good hour on the waggler and even when a boat went through the chublets would come back. The great news was Rich had a good first two hours with about 7 bream and 3 skimmers, so we were looking good.

I had to stop fishing the wag for a bit when about 6 rowing boats lined up along the river. I had a few roach on the pole but not decent size so was soon back on the waggler. I took some more small chub and also had another 2lb+ fish and a couple of pounders. Then the sun started to come out and the boat people went for another swim and this was pretty much the end of the chublets. Luckily for me the pole line was now solid with roach that were well off the bottom taking the loosefeed. I had a nice last hour on this trying the wag a couple of times. When the match ended I knew I had a hell of a day and had been on a right aquarium lol.

Jerry weighed me in and I had totally underestimated what I had tipping all the fish on the scales and they bottomed out. We took the biggest fish out and then took more out, and after 3 attempts got 19lb 8oz, had to put the net back with no photo. The remaining fish went 10lb 6oz for a total of 29lb 14oz, we could get a picture of these my best fish. 

As it turned out Rich won the match with 38lb and I came second, Derek Coles had 21lb of bream from peg 59 in the bream area. Obviously me and Rich had a maximum of 20 points. But even so our challengers all did really well both Ivan “end peg” Currie / Dave Lewis, and Jerry / Nick had 16 points. Rich and I have an 8 point lead going into the last round, but as we saw today draw in the wrong areas and you’re in trouble, with some top anglers struggling for bites. But I had one of my favourite days on the river despite all the pitch invasions 😆😆😆

Here’s the section boards and the overall scores after round 5. Back on the river next week for the commercial house.