Short River Session

I had a lot of casters left over from the previous two matches and a few hours available Thursday morning, so I thought I would give Saltford straight (Mead Lane) a go. I have watched Charles Halliday videos on YouTube fishing here, and it seemed the fishing was good and the boats were no longer moored up.

I got out there about 9:30, and took a drive along the straight as I couldn’t see a parking spot (road is double yellow lines). Unfortunately the first two thirds of the straight were blocked by moored boats 🤬🤬🤬. The very end is private slipway, but there were a few spaces. I drove back up to where the parking is to see if any cars had moved, they hadn’t. But then I saw Charles who was going fishing upstream as he had also seen the boats. He told me I could park in the Jolly Sailor car park but would have to pay so I drove back down there. I paid a fiver for four hours parking which was the maximum, and pushed the gear up the road. I found a couple of platforms that had private mooring printed on them, no boats on them but I decided against fishing from them as didn’t want to get chucked off. Eventually I spied a small gap next to a post that said it was a deer crossing place. I didn’t think I would see any deer today in this heat.

Got my self in the peg, and quickly knocked up a bit of gbait and set up a 5g bolo float with 16 N10 to 0.11. 

With the hot sunny conditions I was a bit worried if the fish would feed, I wanted to fish as I did last Sunday at the Trees (which is upstream of here) so it was going to be regular small balls of gbait and caster. First run through nothing but second run down and a dace. In the first 30 minutes I had 6 dace and 1 roach all on single caster. I started to miss bites on the drop and had to shallow up, at one stage I was fishing a foot off bottom. As I fished on the roach moved in and the dace became few and far between. I had a couple of 10oz roach that were my biggest fish, but I did have 2 pike on which did slow things each time.

The wind got up a bit and made presentation awkward, the best bites came as the rig was settling and before the downstream wind caught the line. I fished for just 2 1/2 hours, but in that time I had 10lb of roach as most of the fish were 4oz to 6oz.

Awkward taking a photo on your own.

Nice to finally get a few fish on the river. This stretch had held roach here now for years, and as they are feeding well it makes me think are there not many roach at the moment up at Newbridge?  Back up there a week on Sunday and will find out I guess.  Until then that’s the fishing done for me.

Acorn Fishery Costcutter

My last week of garden leave and my last chance to fish this Tuesday regular, and popular, match at Acorn for a very long time. After my dismal performance last Tuesday to catch carp and not enjoying it, I was back with my silvers focus. The payout is less for silvers than overall of course, but my personal payoff is the enjoyment of doing what I love. After another breakfast roll at H&H burgers I arrived at the fishery in good time. At the weekend the silvers weights had been on the low side, and after the rain I was wondering how it would fish.

I drew peg 37 today, it’s by the car park and near the draw hut. Eddie Wynne said tench peg, but as I had seen since I had been there 36 and 37 had carp showing everywhere. My mind was still set on the silvers, and in any case I have seen this before only for the carp to disappear. I had plenty of casters and worms with me (too many) from the weekend left overs and what I had ordered. However, I’ve not seen a big need for worms myself so I decided on a three plan approach today. I picked three spots; top set plus two, and 11m in front and 11m off to the left in the middle. These areas were pretty much the same depth, but I thought I could feed these a little differently. Rigs were standard.5g or 4x16 with 16 GPM to 0.13, a shallow rig was set up but I never had a bite on it.

Starting at 10am I fed a small amount of worm with caster on my short line. Couple of balls of gbait containing casters and micro at 11m in front, and potted just casters off to the left. I started short whilst letting the two longer swims get going. Twenty minutes short and nothing. Over on the gbait nothing, off to the left and a 6oz tench, a small skimmer joined it and that was all I had after an hour! I couldn’t believe how bad a start I had and just hoped I could draw some silvers in as peg 36 and 40 were fishing for carp.

Two small tench and a skimmer then quickly obliged from the gbait line, I thought that this was now going to be better, but I fouled a tench and had 2 carp here soon after. I rested this line and refed, I resisted feeding gbait on the other lines. I was loose feeding casters over the 11m line to the left, and now more bubbles started to appear, but it was still a struggle to get a bite, triple red maggot did get me another tench and a skimmer but also a carp. Three hours gone and 12lb in the net, I needed a brilliant last 3 hours.

The fourth hour was better, and the short line was really fizzing now. I had only been potting in casters here (to avoid drawing carp in) but I started to throw casters in to try to make something happen. Trying maggots or casters in the hook wasn’t making a massive difference, and I was frustrated to lose a couple more fouled tench, and land a huge F1. But I knew that I now had fish short.

At 2pm with 2 hours left Glenn Bailey gave me a call to ask how the match was going, I said I had really struggled but might have 20lb of silvers. This coincided with me trying a worm on the hook again (despite not having fed worms on this line since beginning of the match). This time it was a revelation, tench, skimmer, tench whilst on the phone. My tench had mostly been averaging a pound, but I now had a couple knocking 4lb and skimmers up 2 1/2lb. With 25 minutes left my great spell of catching stopped and it was back to no bites, but I did have a big skimmer on the whistle, I knew that I had over 50lb after that great spell.

Reflecting on the match I had been told before by some regulars here that getting the silvers on the short line late was the way to bag, but in my previous matches here I had not managed to do that, glad I persisted today. The scales came to me from the Island where Gary Flinders on peg 1 was best with 208lb, think Hadyn Withers on peg 4 had 20lb of silvers (I forgot to get pictures of the sheets doh). Antony Piekielniak on peg 40 had caught well all day and he went into to the overall lead with 219lb. My turn next, 20lb of accidental carp, then silvers net one goes 26lb 12oz… silvers net two 26lb 13oz. I was well happy with 53lb 9oz. I carried on packing up and chatting and didn’t follow the scales, but Gary Bowden on peg 34 reckoned I would win the silvers.

Picture below is of my second net of fish.

Eddie Wynne gave us the results..

1. Antony Piekielniak           219-07 p40

2. Gary Flinders                    208-06 p1

3. Simon Stacey                   157-12 p2

4. Gary Bowden                    155-14 p33

5. Paul Faiers                        137-14 p6

6. John Dursley                     133-14 p5

Silver's 

1. Tim Ford                             53-09 p37

2. John “Turkey” Thompson   33-02 p31

I was most pleased to win the silvers, and on my 5 matches here since June I have won the silvers 4 times, just messed up last time fishing for carp lol! I can honestly say I have loved fishing Acorn for the silvers, and I have loved meeting and chatting with the crew of anglers that fish here. I mean I even looked forward to seeing Merv Sivell who always manages to make me laugh with his great wind ups, Up The Gas Merv 😂. 

I will probably have to be retired to fish these matches again, but it’s been a blast and I look forward to it. We ended with a few of us enjoying a pint in the Prince of Waterloo in Winford, happy days 😊😊😊

Bathampton Pairs Series

Back to the river and the second round of six of this series. I was advised by match organiser Dean “Turkey Teeth” Harvey that the match would be held in the Trees section of the river (by Stothert and Pitt Rugby club). Fair play to Dean and Derek Coles and others who did some great work swim clearing before hand, these guys are doing their best to keep the river matches going.

I woke up before my alarm clock went off Sunday and had plenty of time to get ready and some grub. The Trees section can be very peggy and usually the further down the section the better it can be. Derek had pegged it and advised that bream were rolling in the bottom of B section and predicted B6, B7 and B8 to do well. As last match I had a bad one it meant partner Rich Lacey and I needed to have a good match to drag ourselves up the board. I let Rich draw and he got himself end peg B8, good start, he got me A6 which really meant nothing as probably would be a fair section I hoped.

Got to the peg and noticed how coloured the river was, must have been some heavy rain upriver maybe, hopefully not sewage related. The pace on the river was slow but it varied.

I was going to have to get in the river to fish comfortably, and so was a bit miffed I didn’t bother to bring my platform, still with extended legs it was OK just.

As I was setting up I realised I had left my feeder reels on my ready made up carp rods, but luckily that kind man Dean Harvey leant me one, Dean was on A7 below me, and about 100 yards upstream of me was Mike Weston on A5. We three had a bit of banter just before the match started 😂. Also during setting up I got bit on the arm by a large ant, but that wasn’t as bad as Lee Wardens partner Craig who tripped up fell in and split his nose when his box landed on his face.. ouch. Thankfully he was ok and fished the match.

I wasn’t expecting a lot of fish to be caught today, and so I decided against a balling in approach. Also I sacked the pole off deciding to go rods only. I put a 5g bolo up with 0.12 accupower to 18, a 4AAA waggler with same hook, and a gbait feeder with 14 to 0.15.

Match started 9:30, there were already plenty of rowers about, I started on the bolo throwing in a small ball of gbait with caster and hemp, meanwhile I could hear the barrage of gbait going in elsewhere. It took three casts to get a bite which I missed, and missed the next, I was already thinking the pole would have been better as the flow was so slow. But I started connecting with the bites, catching a few small roach, perch that were all swung in. The river then started to run faster, this seemed to kill the bites but I got one more and when I struck it felt like a better fish. Wasn’t sure what it was but after a couple of minutes saw it was a poxy pike with a chublet in its mouth. I kept the pressure on and was rewarded when the pike finally let go. Probably 6oz, but was badly injured. The bolo line was dead now, and then due to a boat changing direction I lost my rig to it, would put another on as I fished the feeder.

Onto the gbait feeder, I had not fed this at all and wanted to get a feel for it but would have 6 fairly quick casts. After an hour on the feeder I had got 1 ruffe… Dean below me had ounces at this stage, as did Jerry Pocock below him, but Mike had caught some small fish on a whip. I probably had 1lb 8oz at best. Middle part of the match was dire for me, wanted to try the wag but too many boats, bolo line was still dead, feeder produced another Ruffe. My partner Rich had started well as he caught some roach on the pole and had a couple of good eels, no bream despite him seeing 3 roll. Out of desperation I decided to throw 4 balls of gbait on the bolo line as it couldn’t make it worse. Had about 10 runs through on the bolo and was about to give up when I had a bite out of the blue, a nice perch of 12oz and definitely a bonus. But that was the last bite on this line.

Finally the boats abated and I could feed and fish the waggler line. I could get the odd bleak and was at least putting something in the net, couldn’t catch any chublets that had been showing themselves along the river before the match started. A large barge going to fast went right over the waggler line, that killed it for 15 minutes. Got the bleak back but bites tailed off, that was fine as I planned to spend the last 30 minutes on the feeder looking for a bonus. With 5 minutes left I had the tiniest of bites and wasn’t going to strike, but the tip moved a tiny bit again and again so I struck. Wasn’t the bream I wanted, but a 6oz hybrid. Match over.

Another tough day on the river for me, but I felt like I had fished a decent match, but not sure how I would do in the section.

Jerry and Dean below had 7oz and 8oz respectively showing how tough it was, my fish went 4lb 2oz which I was fine with today.

Mike above me paralysed our section with 13lb which was a bream and 4 skimmers, but nobody else had a bream in our section. I ended up third in the section as Jeff Surmon had 5lb 6oz, he had quite a few chublets on the float and feeder.  As the anglers started to walk up the bank it was clear that A section had fished much better than my section. The winner came from B6 Warren Bates having 35lb 2oz of bream. Warren explained he had some quick casts on the feeder to start and during these quick casts he caught 2 bream, a great start but he had a long wait for 4 more, well done. Rich had managed a small bream and had 10lb 2oz which got him second in the section and third overall.

Weigh sheets here..

As for the pairs, well it was a bit of a twist with many who did well last round bombing out this time. Myself and Rich were top pair on the day, this dragged us up to second overall now on 20 points. Mike Weston and Pete are leading with 24 points, but as you’ll see it’s all very tight at present. Next match is in 2 weeks time back upstream at Newbridge.

Acorn Fishery Costcutter

 These Tuesday matches are quite nice, shame I’ve only got one more I can fish. By leaving home before 7am I seem to get ahead of the traffic and get a good run down. There were lots of large puddles around on Tuesday morning after the heavy overnight rain, so steady driving was a necessity.

About 22 fishing today, and with a Southerly wind a large part of the lake was going to be affected by the 15 to 20 mph winds. I drew peg 13 which was in the wind, and certainly not flat calm like a few weeks ago when I drew 12 and had a lot of tench. Gary Bowden told me it was a great carp peg and that I should fish for them today, another angler said similar and so I was turned from my usual all out silvers approach. However, I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing.

I got to my peg and realised the wind would keep most of the pole sections in the hold-all. I set up a method feeder for fishing across, a paste rig for top set in front (0.17 to 12 XSH), a 4x14 for the margin with same terminal gear, lastly a 4x16 rig for silvers at top set plus two sections. I had Paul Faires on my left on 15 who knows this place like the back of his hand, he used to only fish for silvers but now he’s all carp. At the weekend the silvers was won with 80lb of skimmers and there was a 60 and 50, looking at past results my peg hadn’t featured in silvers weights.

When the match started I thought I would feed some casters and then fish the method feeder. That was my first mistake of the day! As I struggled on the tip Paul and above him Tony Wittcomb both began by fishing short and both were catching, the guy on 12 also on the tip had nothing. After 25 mins of wasting my time I dropped in on my paste line at top set, had a 7lb carp and missed a bite, that was it. Paul and Tony stopped catching and switched to the method feeder across and caught on this… I went back on the method for nothing at all. Paul had micros on his feeder the same as me.

1 hour and 20 minutes in I gave my silvers line a try, it wasn’t easy in the wind at first with just a roach, but after 40 minutes of trying it I had a few small tench but I thought I was going to be miles off the pace like this. I was probably 50lb behind Paul by now and I guessed that my only chance was to catch some carp in the margins and short, but I would need to bag up in the last 2 hours. An odd fish was coming in to my margin and I caught one and lost one but then had to rest it. A few carp turned up on my paste line, but they were small, and Paul

Was now catching lumps in his margin and I was getting well and truly battered. I felt out of my depth, knowing I was doing it all wrong but not having the slightest idea of what to do to improve things. Paul was though feeding gbait in his margins whilst I was feeding micro, was that making that much difference?

I limped through the last couple of hours catching odd fish on paste and another couple in the margin, all the while thinking why didn’t I just stick to fishing for silvers which even if I didn’t frame with I would have enjoyed more. 

The guy on 12 fished a method feeder all day around his peg, and he had 86lb that just beat me by a pound I think (I didn’t take much notice of my weight), my silvers were just under 8lb. Paul weighed in 187lb to give me a big lesson and show his class on this venue. He didn’t win though as Mr consistent Gary Bowden won with 211lb from peg 4. Gary caught on pellets short today feeding micro.  Another great angler Gary Flinders was third from sheltered peg 31 with 172lb mostly from his margins where he fed micros. 

Kev Perry took the silvers win with just 27lb from peg 23 and Turkey had 23lb for second from peg 1.  I can’t say for sure I would have beat those weights, but had I fished for silvers for 6 hours I would have liked to think I could’ve. Pretty much I messed the whole thing up today, and was glad to have a cider in the pub with Gary and Tony. I just don’t feel comfortable fishing for carp at the moment, so I’ve got one more chance to get a crack at the silvers next week here. This Sunday it’s back at Newbridge for the pairs series, and praying for a few fish in the peg this time.

Bitterwell Lake Over 55’s Match

After my recent matches where I have been targeting the silvers I fancied fishing for carp. Carp weights at Bitterwell are not usually that large so there’s no need for a bagging race. That was the plan, but I take my silvers stuff just in case.

Sadly only 11 anglers were fishing today, think quite a few are on holiday. Paul Isaacs pegged the match with 5 pegs on the road bank and 6 pegs along the car park bank. Two sections and each would have a silvers and overall winner. The car park bank is the fancied area, especially around 23 for silvers. I drew peg 3 on the road bank, and was told not great, so let’s go for carp I thought.

A view of the lake.

In my section today we’re as follows:-

Peg 1 John “Gashead” Smith

Peg 3 Tim Ford

Peg 4 Andy Gard

Peg 6 Martin McMahon 

Peg 8 Haydn Withers

As it’s a small friendly match with a chance of a small bit of dosh I decided to give the method feeder a go. Set that up with 16 KKM B to 0.19. Had a 4x16 for long pole and a 4x14 for fishing meat at top set plus two sections with 14 XSH to 0.17.

I started the match on the method, at my section Haydn and Martin were both going for carp, John and Andy silvers. Martin hooked 3 quick carp on the lead but only landed 1, then went a bit quiet. My method feeder was not gaining any interest but I kept frequently casting hoping to build the swim up… 1 hour and 20 minutes later I caught a skimmer on a yellow wafter. I had tried lots of differing hookbaits but now cut the band off and put red maggots on the hook. That worked, 3 skimmers in as many casts and then a carp hooked, only as I got it in close did I realise it was a tench, nice one about 4lb. Had a carp shortly after but then all went quiet. The wind was blowing all over the place and making life difficult for many of us, my accuracy began to suffer. Martin was now catching carp regularly, and I realised he was fishing the current in method a PVA bag. I knew then that I could not beat him, and as John and Andy didn’t have more than 5lb of silvers I switched over to fish for them.

I changed my pole rig hooks to 16GPM to 0.13, and began to feed a few bits of meat short, and fed some long, as well as some micro and corn long to my left. Not quite sure what I did wrong but I never caught a fish on the long pole 🙈. Andy next door then had 2 tench on paste in 2 drops but that was his lot. I managed to sneak out the odd skimmer on meat short, but I had to keep resting it. In the last hour John had a big tench in his margin, he hooked a few more fish but thankfully for me they were carp. I had a 1lb tench on meat late on and then a carp bust me up. I tried my margin and had a bite on the all out but it was a carp.

Match over and I already knew that Martin had won overall, and I would take the silvers, the scales confirmed this with Martin just doing a ton, well done mate. My silvers went 23lb 6oz for the section win. I enjoyed the match and the banter tremendously, but sadly that’s the last over 55’s match I can fish for a long time now, great bunch of blokes.

On the other bank Tony Ponting had 53lb to win and Shay Gilman took the silvers with 25lb 9oz. Well done both.

No fishing this weekend as off to watch a bit of Tennis  at a place called Wimbledon 🍻.