Angling Trust Winter League Round 3

Another busy week lead into a busy weekend. A drab game Rovers v Swindon didn’t start the weekend well, but at least I stayed fairly dry in the Thatchers terrace. We certainly had a decent amount of rain Saturday and in the previous few days. It made me wonder if the river was going to be flooded and the pegging that was shared suggested it might be pacey.

An extra hour in bed, or does everyone else wake up the same time? I had plenty of time to get something to eat and get to Melksham for the draw. It was very cold out and the wind was making it chilly in the car park. It was good to meet new teammates Rod Dunsford, I don’t think I’d seen him for about 30 years lol. I was chatting to Lee Trivitt and said how I had drawn in the same area around the blue bridge at Chippenham for a few matches and fancied a change. Ian Paulley was drawing the pegs for the team and he came back with me two below the blue bridge FFS.  Last week James Carty was on it and had 1 roach and packed up. The rest of my section were all upstream. At least I knew where I was going.

Got to the peg and the river had a little colour and pace but was perfect for the float. The picture below shows it dirtier than what it was, it was still clear in the side.

Setting up was straightforward, chopped worm rig, couple of pole rigs for 13m with 0.09 to 18’and 0.08 to 22. A waggler with 0.12 to 16 and a bolo 3g with 0.09 to 20.

We started at 10:30 and the wind was a nightmare blowing all over the place and nearly took my top sets into the river! I cupped the usual balls In at 13m but started on the waggler looking for early chublets. 15 mins later I was biteless, so I put some worm in at top set plus two and tried the pole line. Just like last week the pole line didn’t start well and after 15 minutes here I had one roach and 1 bleak. I decided to try the bolo casting around the gbait and also across to where I was feeding maggots for the waggler. I finally hit a nice roach and landed a 4oz fish, next cast I hit another but a bloody pike took it and my hook length. When I hooked another roach the pike took it again.

 I gave the worm line a go for nothing and thought I should try the waggler again to get away from the pike, there were a few fish here now, bleak and the odd small chublet. It was ok catching these but I kept thinking I needed the better roach. I tried the pole and finally had what I thought was a bite and hooked something better I thought. Whatever it was I thought it was in the weed so I just kept the pressure on and then I saw I was attached to another piece of fishing line. That was another hook length gone. Onto the bolo and I had a chublet which the pike took but eventually let go and I got it out. I then had a nice Rudd about 6oz which the pike ignored. Then I was hooked up to the line again, this was a nightmare, but I was pulling more line back each time I hooked it. Eventually I got hooked up on the end of the line but it was too far out for me to get hold of it. You can see it below in the picture (you can also see how the river had gone clear again and the level dropped a foot).

 Clearly I had dislodged it and now it was just a real pain. The pike grabbed fish 6 times in total I lost 5 times. My waggler line fished off the bottom gave up less and less bleak and I was in trouble. Just 1 4oz perch on the worm all day so not getting out of jail there. With an hour and 15 mins I upped the hook and line on the waggler and blasted the bait in looking for a chub as I knew I was probably last in the section from bank walkers. Sadly no chub showed so the writing was on the wall.

The scales came to me last and the weights were all better than me, my 5lb being last in the section. A poor peg made worse with pike and old fishing line, it happens and you just have to take it on the chin. Below me in the next section was expert river angler Jim Brockie, he only beat one angler in his section so we certainly didn’t drawn on many fish.

My section board, Phil Bendall continues to smash it up!

It seems we had a poor team draw, and only had 21 points which was 5th on the day beating only Lobby’s. Well done Blackmore Vale winning the day after coming last in the previous two rounds. The league now is

DGL 6

Talisman 8

Lobby’s 11

Devises 12

Thatchers and Blackmore Vale 13

It’s going to take 3 match wins for Thatchers to come back from this, next week is round 4 on the canal. I’m not fishing the canal so my next match is the Poppy match.

Well done to the framers 

Alex Clements had 20lb of chub and perch at riverside drive.

Phil Bendall had some chub for 12lb

Gary Etheridge 11lb

Ian Paulley 10lb

1st, 3rd and 4th all came from A section.

A break next weekend so plenty of time to forget about my match today 😂

Open match Bristol Avon Chippenham and Melksham

Had to prep for this match in the week as Saturday I went to Shrewsbury to watch another away loss for the Gas. A few beers drowned the sorrows!

This match was a practice match for next weeks Winter League third round. Myself, Lee Trivitt, James Carty and Ian Paulley were in attendance from Thatchers. By the time I got to Spencer’s club the draw was already well underway and many anglers had already gone to their pegs. I got in the small queue and hear organiser Rob Kepner say all the chub pegs had gone. When I drew I was told I was at Chippenham above the copse above the blue bridge. On this match last year I was the peg below in the copse and had 10lb of chublets and roach. Mick Gale drew after me and was the last peg in my section end peg on the slipway. He didn’t rate my peg but also said he didn’t expect the chub to show.

I drove to Chippenham and knew where to park and it’s a short walk to the peg. The sun was coming up a mist clearing and with the chill in the air it looked and felt a bit autumnal at last. The river itself looked dreadful for fishing, gin clear, no flow and lots of weed growth. 

We didn’t have lots of time to set up so I went with a couple of pole rigs for an 11 mtr line, a chopped worm rig and a 3 AAA waggler. I was just ready on time at 10am and few a few balls of gbait at 11mtrs, and fed maggots across for the waggler. Putting my pole rig in the float was dotted right down as the float just sat there with no sign of flow. I caught a 3oz roach after 5 mins, had a much smaller one shortly after and I was already going through all the different hook bait choices and it was apparent the fish were not really feeding at this stage. After 40 minutes I had caught another roach and a tiny chublet so it was time to feed some chop worm at 6m.

Upstream of me Gary Williamson hadn’t had a bite, in the copse Dave Micklewright had 1 chublet on the waggler. I decided to try the waggler even though Dave was not catching. It was a good move as I had a bite straight away but missed it. Next cast a 4oz chublet that went in weed three times reeling it in. I reckon in the next 10 casts I had seven more chublets, all swung in. Then they were gone and the waggler was rested.

Tried the worm but nothing doing, won’t mention it again as I never had a bite on the worm. On the pole it was dire, virtually biteless other than a tiny roach. Probably went over an hour without a bite on anything. James was a couple of pegs below the blue bridge and after 2 hours he had 1 roach and was going home. I changed depths, baits all to avail and then out of the blue had a bite on the waggler and had hooked a better fish, after getting out of the weed I landed a 12oz Rudd. It was a one off. Dave had gone for a walk as he only had 2 chublets, he walked back to tell me upstream was better with Phil Bendall getting roach and a chub. That was enough for Dave and he packed up and went home.

My last 90 minutes produced a 4 or 5 tiny fish on the pole, though I did hook what I think was a perch that weeded me up within seconds and slipped the hook. I did get a couple of net roach and a chublet on the waggler. But there was no pattern. All match I could not fish on the bottom as there was more silk weed. I was quite happy when the all out came, thought I had 3 1/2lb to 4lb.

Gary above me was in the next section he chucked back his 6 fish. I had the scales so set off to find Mick on the end peg. He had a better day with 9lb 9oz of bleak and roach, Shaun Bryan was the third person in my section to have left early. Mick Nowicki had 3lb 14oz, and Dan McDonald just below the bridge had 1/2 oz more than Dan. Getting back to my peg I had to find another angler from upstream to weigh me, my fish 4lb 1oz. 

Having the scales and board I had to go back to the results at Spencers. Once there I realised just how hard the whole venue had fished. Below you can see the top 3 and section winners. Phil Bendall added to his bulging wallet after winning last week, by winning again, well done! Mick Gale coming second meant I won the section by default (again). Derek Jarman was last in the money.

Whether we get some rain and enough rain to make the river for next week we will see, but there’s no way the weed will be gone. Will it be another grueller 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Angling Trust Winter League

After a break last weekend it was back to the bank this week. Last Sunday I had a great time visiting Aldwick Estate and trying out some of their wines. A lovely place in the countryside not far from Blagdon Lake.

As I was enjoying the wine my teammates were slugging it out on the Gloucester canal in round 1 of the winter league. They had a bit of a tough time and came 4th out of 6 teams, the pressure was on this weekend in round 2 on the Thames around Radcot. I’m certainly not in tune with this river like my local river and it definitely needs a refined approach for the roach. 

Team drawn was done by Charlie Isaacs who was going to have a watch today, he put me on F3 below Radcot. It was the better end of the section and on the Thames champs peg 2 had 17lb of roach I believe. The wooden footbridge to get to the river is currently closed for repair, so we had to drive through a field and park in long grass, then get the gear over a kissing gate. Not a long walk for me and plenty of time to set up.

My peg was on a bit of a bend, the flow was all this side of the river and across was dead still, but I could see lots of little fish topping over there. I set up a waggler for this with 0.10 to a 20, but this was only in case my pole lines were not working. I had three rigs for my gbait pole line; a 0.5g strung rig, a 0.8 rig and a 1.2g for holding the bait still. Also set up a 1g rig for chopped worm. My roach rigs had 20 to 0.8 and the worm a 14 to 0.17. As ever in this league you’ve got good anglers fishing, either side I had Phil Bendall on peg 2 and Jon Tocknell on peg 4. Add to that Gary Williamson, Mick Gale and Ricky Searle.

We started at 11am and I cupped 5 balls of gbait caster and hemp onto my long pole line, then fed a couple of chop worm lines. I started on the worm lines, but 20 minutes later hadn’t had a bite. Went onto my gbait line trying a caster on the hook, I had 2 roach in 20 minutes, so back to the worms where I had 3 perch up to 8oz. After an hour Phil already had 35 fish and was netting roach regularly. I was doing my nut in trying and failing to catch roach over my gbait. I had tried maggots and pinkie on the hook and added a few small dace and 1 net roach.

I gave the waggler a go to put something in the net, I knew I would catch as every time I fed a pouch of maggots across the water erupted. It was tiny chublets, bleak and dace. It was solid but they were tiny fish so I gave it 20 minutes then back to the pole where I had topped up. With nearly 2 hours gone I finally started to catch some nice roach, the only bait I could catch them on was pinkie. I reckon I had them for about 40 minutes and then they were gone again. I had a couple more perch on the worm after this but that was the last action on worms.

The rest of my match was spent catching sprats on the waggler and then trying the pole for roach. I didn’t get many roach, and knew I was miles behind Phil and Gary so kept the small stuff coming to put something in the net. I tried hemp a few times but never got a bite. I was quite happy when the match finished lol.

Here’s my weigh board, as you can see Phil smashed it catching 21lb 6oz, he caught on casters and hemp. On peg 1 Gary had roach on hemp and tares. My 9lb 8oz scraped me third just beating Mick Gale.

My fish today.

Back at the results it was not looking great for the team, with just one section winner and a second. We ended up 4th again, with DGL winning again.

Phil won the match and Gary was second meaning I got the section win money by default 😊😊. That was a nice surprise. Ian Paulley was our top angler he came third with 16lb of mainly roach.

Right now the league is

DGL 2

Talismen 5

Lobbies 5

Thatchers 8

Devizes 10

GBV 12

Next Sunday is an open at Chippenham and Melksham for practice for the next round. Not expecting it to be great with little flow and clear water.

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 🙈🙈🙈😆