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 🙈🙈🙈😆

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