July / August 1998

You may be wondering why there is no actual fishing blog this weekend, well it's because I was so tired after catching so many fish at Evesham last week, lol. The real reason is because I had watched T20 cricket Friday night (present from my daughter Lucy) and then watched Bristol Rovers at Charlton yesterday (and yes we lost there again). There would be no time for prep, and I thought I might be suffering a bit, in the end for various reasons it was a good call. I did have a quick walk along the bank at Newbridge and saw a few fish being caught, Dean Harvey had a couple of bream and a number of aanglers were catching roach, it was good to see Darren Gillman back on the bank again and he had just short of 10lb. Not sure what won it, but good practice for next weeks superleague, think I've been dropped for not fishing the practice as we had 10 anglers fishing today, such is life.

July 1998 didn't start well, I fished a FishOMania qualifier on the K&A canal, had a tench and some bits and chucked back.The following weekend I pleasure a lake called Sevington with Dave Haines. I'd never fished it before but got on a peg where I could fish to the point of an island. I fed some pellet, corn and caster over there and fishing with a dibber and 14 to 0.16 I had a lovely bag of tench, crucians and carp for approx. 70lb. However, I did lose 10 carp and my elastic snapped twice, this was because there were brambles trailing into the water and they cut my rig and elastic to bits. After having a chat about the place with a few of the lads we had a knock up at the place the following Saturday. I drew a peg next to a bridge wall. I started off trying to catch the small tench and crucians that I had last week, but I really struggled to get many, whilst opposite me Mark Bailey was catching them steady. Changing tact I fished up against the wall and hooked and landed seven small carp and my final weight of 20lb 8oz was tied for top spot with Mark.

The next two weekends I spent fishing the K&A canal at Honey Street but I caught so little there's not much point recalling, just over a pound each time, and way down the section each time, shite.

Into August and onto the Huntspill, a venue that I liked (still do) to fish and generally did OK on. I drew peg 34 and started on the gbait feeder, but after 90 minutes I was still blanking and I never had a bite on the feeder all match. I fished light on the pole with a 20 / 22 to 0.10 and had 8 eels on bronze maggot, these weighed 1 kilo 850g. I was happy to have caught the eels but without a bream I was never going to do any good here. Back again the following week for another open match, this time I drew peg 73. I had an enjoyable match, a couple of small skimmers on the tip and then no more, but lots of bites on the pole roach and eels feeding caster and maggot. 3kilo 250g was only good enough for 3rd in section. Despite my less than average performances the team still picked me for the superleague match, I moved a little further up the venue getting peg 102.  It was a struggle though with nothing on the feeder and just scratching for eels and roach again. It was back to Imperial scales and I had 3lb 11oz, this was 3rd in the 9 peg section, so OK for the team and we managed to come second on the day.

Fourth match on the trot on the Spill, and I was drawn somewhere near the clapper. I finally managed to hook a bream on the feeder, but lost it! One skimmer in the net and as usual it was on to the pole and today there were only eels about. I had 6lb 2oz in the end all at 13m with 01.0 to a 20 on 1 gm float, double maggot on the hook was best today. I was second in the section today and the team were 3rd.

Not a very inspiring couple of months then but as ever it was a learning curve.