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.

Bathampton / Bristol & West Pairs

Round 4 of this 6 match series, round 3 was last Sunday which I missed recovering from the National. Myself and Rich Lacey were now just one point behind Ivan Currie and Dave Lewis and so we wanted to make sure we had a good day today. This round was split with one section at the trees, Salford and one section at Swineford, that meant we had to be drawn by 7:30 so it was an early start, but I made it with lots of time to spare today! As usual, I left it to Rich to do the draw and he kindly pulled out Swineford for me, permanent peg 17, which was one below where I was the last match here when I won. Rich himself had drawn the end peg at the bottom of the trees which can be good for roach, But the top pegs in his section I felt would be hard to be as there’s more roach up there.                  

Gave a lift to Jerry Pocock who like me was at Swineford again. He and Nick Coles were on the same points as me and Rich, but I didn’t fancy Jerrys peg today.

One good thing about my peg is that for a large part of the day it would be in the shade. Some people call it the chub peg as over the years it has produced many chub, but definitely better from Autumn. Derek Coles had it last match and had 7lb of roach and tiny chublets.

I set up a crowquill today that was far too heavy for the depth but I wanted to get through the bleak, 14BB went on! A 16 and 0.12 fluorocarbon finished it off. A 4AAA waggler with 16 to 0.13 powerline, and a lead rod threaded up but not used.

I was set up way before the 10:30 start so had a wander around, I had Alan Mapston on 15 and Mike Weston on 19. End peg was Ivan Currie and we all fancied him to win the section from there as he’s on fire at the moment.

I began by throwing 6 balls of Sonubaits black roach and black river with some hemp and caster in it. Then I had an early look on the waggler which I was just about to give up on when I hooked a chub, but after 5 seconds it had shed the hook. Another 15 minutes of catching bleak / tiny chublets was enough and I had a go on the crowquill over the gbait line. Well it was just as bad here tiny bleak grabbing the hookbait, and when I did get below them the roach were minuscule. However, as I found last time you do need to try to keep going and the better fish should turn up.

Two hours gone I went for a walk as I only had about 2lb, around me most were saying 2 or 3lb so it was tough. By regularly feeding small balls of gbait I began to get less bleak and the roach were now a better stamp and I started to enjoy it. Not long after Jeff Surmon came along and sat behind me. Jeff should be fishing but he recently hurt himself in a fall and is recovering, but he’s on the mend. 

Jeff sat behind me at the time I was catching best so I think I entertained him lol, but seriously we had a good chat. I did start to have some pike problems and lost about 5 hook lengths, but after that the pike went. I carried on catching odd roach till the last 40 minutes when the flow slowed up, less bites and missing most of them! I was reluctant to try the waggler as every time I fired a pouch of maggots across the surface exploded with fish and they were still tiny. But I needed to do something and so I cast the crowquill across the river. The hook bait got to the bottom which surprised me, and then it went under. I had a 6oz chub, the next three casts produced identical fish, missed a couple of bites then had a roach and that was the all out.

My immediate thought was I should have tried that earlier, but it’s easy in hindsight. I reckoned I had double figures Jeff said 11lb.  I had a fair wait to find out my weight as Ivan had the scales and he had to mountaineer to get out the peg. Ivan had 14lb of roach and had done well, Mike above me struggled and had to move peg when a moored boat came loose and stuck in front of him, he had just under 5lb. My fish went 11lb 14oz, a lovely second half of the match, just missing a couple of chub.

 As it turned out I came third at Swineford beaten further upstream by two ounces, but luckily for me the angler was fishing it as an open, meaning I got 9 points out of 10. Here’s my board from Swineford.

No bream caught here today, hence why Dean Harvey came last I guess 🤣

Below is the board from the Trees, only 1 bream caught by Deans partner Derek Coles, but Derek only weighed 1 bream as everything else swam out of a hole in his net 🙈. Rich did well because as expected the other end of the section was much better for roach and Graham Hunt moaned on 15lb 8oz to win.

Results were back at the Swan, we were all glad of a cooling pint! I’d got the section money which Dean kindly paid me mostly in coins, 🙈🤣, but the bar staff were pleased to get them. You could tell the anglers who had caught a lot of small fish by the state of their clothes, Ali Gibbs one of messiest 😬

Dean tried to do a quick tot up of the overall points, but he forgot his abacus and didn’t get it right. I reckon Rich and me are in the lead, 4 points ahead of Ivan and Dave, with Jerry and Nick just a couple of points behind them, it’s still all to play for.

One thing I forgot to mention when I got my bait Saturday, I walked through the front door and dropped the bag of maggots which split. I shouted to Wendy to help but she took one look at the maggots and couldn’t help lol. I ended up getting them rounded up with a dustpan and brush, and Wendy did help by grabbing me a couple of bags. Fingers crossed I got them all 🙈😆

Well there’s no significant rain in the forecast and the river is going to be very low and slow or almost stopped soon. No fishing for me this weekend, up to Newbridge for round 5 the week after.