Philtone Team Match - Hillview Fishery

 This time last year Neil Mercer, who runs the Philtone Printing company, ran a team match and I got an invite as a customer of his, and once again this year I was invited again. After my practice on the open on Monday, and having a chat with Martin Rayet I was happy my rigs were right and just needed to tie up some more hooklengths. It was lovely and sunny at home on Tuesday morning and I got all my kit out in the sun to get it dried off from the wet snow.

There was some weather warnings about for Wednesday but according to my weather app it looked OK for Tewksbury. When I arrived at 8am there was still plenty of snow lying on the ground and the lakes had frozen over, not really a surprise. My team Captain was Tony Rixon, and he was soon gathering our pools money and then letting us draw pegs from our allotted envelope that had been pre drawn. Other team members were Martin Reyat, Ron Hardiman, Dave Lewis, Jamie Brown, and finally Clint Wojtyla who was moaning like a bitch about having to fish and break the ice, it was funny as fook. I grabbed a peg and saw 56 looking back at me, that was on canal 2 but I wasn't sure where and then I finally worked out it was on the right hand end peg of the canal, the very same peg I had on this match last year! Back then I came 4th on the day with about 68lb I think, I was only able to catch fishing 14m down to the end bank that day and it was hard work.

I got to my peg and set about breaking the ice with my landing pole and net, the ice wasn't thick and I was able to break all around the peg to my left and in front, and then Neil Mercer who was on the peg behind me on canal 3 came down and threw his ice breaker in a few times to break up the ice in the middle. Cheers Neil, in return I lent him my spare landing net lol.

As I said before, last year on this peg I never had bite on anything bar bread, and all bites were right down to my left as you can see in the picture.

However, in front of me on the far bank was a little reed bed jutting out, and I simply had to try to catch some fish by this I thought, well I hoped as fishing 10m would be nice and easy. You can just see it in the top right of this picture

After I cleared the platform of the excess snow (now ice) I got my box set up and put it at 45 degress to the left in readiness for fishing long that way. I had a 4x12 rig for dobbing bread with 0.13 powerline to 16 GPM-B. A 4x12 F1 float for fishing at 5m, and another for fishing by the reeds if I went on maggots, a 0.11 accu power to 18 GPM-B on both those rigs. That was all I needed today I felt. On my right my neighbour was Martin McMahon, who was sat bang opposite his son Joe. There were some good anglers on my canal, with team captain Tony in the middle, team mate Martin Reyat on the opposite end peg, and also Anton Page,  Paul Elms and Phil Mercer, plenty of carp slayers lol.

We ended up starting at about 10:20 and my opening gambit was to dob bread across to the reeds, here there was a nice depth, not much different to what I had at 5m, and I discounted the far bank as being to shallow. At 10m I was a long way off the far bank, and as I dropped the rig bang in front the reeds the float soon buried, yay, oh a 2oz rudd. Back out and another rudd, hmmm no carp here then maybe? Well I went in again and waited a bit longer and this time the elastic came out when I struck, a carp of 2lb, soon followed next drop by an F1. This was looking good I thought, but then I couldn't get a bite here, I tried pushing the rig along the right side of the reeds and never had a sign. I then tried moving the rig to the left, nothing was doing and then as I went past the reeds more left I had another bite and a carp.  By dropping the rig in about 2 to 3 feet to the left of the reeds I got another bite and a carp, and to be perfectly honest I had found a decent ball of fish and slayed them here for about 90 minutes, F1's and carp, mostly 1lb to 2lb with a couple maybe 3lb. It was a brilliant start, and the sort of start I've always been jealous of others having, but today it happened to me, I was fishing 9 inches off bottom.

The line across inevitably slowed right up, and when I caught two very small carp on this after waiting a long time I knew I had to change. Rather than feed some bait here I thought I would now dob bread long down my left hand margin looking for the resident carp. I went down to 10m to begin but had no signs, put another section on and had 2 carp and a F1. Went 1/2 metre further and had a few more but then started getting roach which was bad news. I stuck on the 14.5m section and started to explore the bottom bank, and I had a couple next to some brambles but felt the fish were higher up in the water, so I went 1 feet 3 inches off bottom and had a couple more including a ghostie which I saw and semi mugged as I lifted the rig and dropped it by it. Further explorations along the bank were fruitless which surprised me as this was my banker last time. However, by coming back into the left bank before the brambles and getting as close to the bank as I dare I found a few more fish on a 10mm  piece of punch bread. The sun had come out, it was really nice and I felt warm, but the sun was blinding me, and I had to fish holding the pole with one arm whilst the other was blocking the sun and reflection. It was hard work and I lost sight of the float a few times, and missed a few bites, but it was worth sticking with I thought.

With an hour to go I had to give up the margin as I was getting a headache and not getting indications. I tried my 5m line where I had been feeding maggots, I had a quick 4 f1's and 3 small carp before this died. I then fed maggots over to the reeds, and dumped some down my left margin. The reed swim was transformed and I could get bites from 4 to 6oz carp, but I'd catch a few and then have to re feed and try the other lines, I did manage 1 carp in the margin but that was it. The match was over and I had been lucky to have a great day, only probably the last 90 minutes were tough, but I could have caught more of those little carp I guess, but wanted to catch bigger fish. Most people were telling me I had won, and I admitted to having 100lb, with 110lb in my mind what I might have.

Neil started the weigh in on his peg as he had the scales, and he had 26lb 2oz, canal 3 had been tough today, and I think Neil might have been the top weight as it got worse as you went down the canal. My turn and after a couple of weighs 109lb 8oz was my final tally, chuffed indeed as never thought about catching a ton in those conditions. Martin Reyat was second on my canal with 74lb.

1st Me 109lb 8oz

2nd Martin Reyat 74lb

3rd Dave Lewis 58lb (peg 49 first canal)

4th Dave Wilmott 55lb 8oz (peg 47)

With my team having the top three on the day it will come as no surprise that we were the winning team by some margin (it was done on weight) and so I had a nice little pick up and a nice way to end my fishing in 2020. 

After such a nice day it was a quick drive home, and when I found out South Glos stayed in Tier 3 this was also as good as I thought we could get. My father-in-law has been having chemo for a couple of months now, sadly he has terminal cancer which has been rather stressful for the family and not helped by covid. However, his consultant is pleased with how things are going and is going to let him carry on with the chemo which is again as good as it can be. All in all a good day considering, and my wife thought so to, so she opened me a bottle of red wine which she had bought me for Christmas, so I will enjoy this tonight and toast all those friends and family I am lucky to know. Happy New Year (it has to be) and cheers everyone, good health!

Hillview Fishery open

 If you are reading this then I hope you have had a merry Christmas and enjoyed the time with family as best you could. I can say that I had a great couple of days and the weather was nice for a couple of walks too. I have a little match to fish at Hillview on Wednesday, and when I found out that there was an open on the bank holiday Monday I decided to fish that as a little practice. Though the match on Wednesday is on canals 1, 2 and 3, the match day was put on the 2 lakes and canals 3 and 4. 

I got up Monday morning and saw that it had snowed and was snowing further up country and around Gloucester, I rang Neil Mercer and he was on his way, and suggested he would give it a couple of hours and if no bites go home. As I drove up all was clear, and then as I passed Gloucester the snow began to appear and I was soon down to 40 mph on the motorway. When I puled in at the fishery the snow was already thick on the ground and it was still falling quite heavy.

I wanted to draw on the canal to have a practice, and was glad I got my wish when peg 93 was pulled out for me, on canal 4. It was a bit of a yomp pushing the trolley in the snow and mud, and I was very warm when I got to the peg. I was gutted to see that the snow was actually settling on the water and a slush / ice was formed all over my peg yet it seemed most of my canal was free from this. I scooped out what I could from my bank and then the far bank, it was weird stuff, like soft ice. I was wondering how the hell the fish would feed in such cold water. I took a photo and a video of the conditions but after this the phoned pretty much stayed in my pocket.

Suffice to say I have not fished in conditions like this since I don't know when, and as you can imagine it was very cold, about 1C, and I had to put my brolly up to keep the snow off me. I had team mate Shaun Townsend on my right, he was on the end peg 95 or 96. I didn't know the angler to my left, and to be fair what with masks and then snoods / scarves it was hard to tell who anyone was! At the opposite end of my canal was Martin Reyat who has being doing well up here, he was 84. I wasn't going to set up lots of rigs as I could only see maggots and bread being worthwhile hook baits. A 4x12 Des Shipp F1 for 5m, and the same for 10m, both had 0.10 accu power to 18 GPM. My dobbing rig set up with 0.12 accu to 16 GPM. 

I'm not sure if the match started a bit early or I was just last getting ready but both myself and Shaun started late. The guy to my left had a fish straight away, and the guy on peg 70 on canal 3 was getting one a bung. The snow slush ice had reformed across and I could not start there dobbing so began at 10m on maggots. I was happy to get off the mark with a 2lb carp from my first bite, and was soon playing another smaller fish which was an F1. I probably had 7 or 8 fish here when it began to slow right up, but this coincided with the slush moving down with a little breeze, and both my 5m and 10m swims were covered. I cleared what I could with a pole cup but the rig wouldn't get through, so I picked up the dobbing rig as the far bank was clear now. Shaun had struggled to start but into the second hour he had a good run of carp dobbing, I managed to find a few small ones and a couple of F1's but it was slow and I think the carp were there but really not feeding as I fouled a few, some I landed. The snow was settling on my pole, and when I shipped in or out the snow went through my hands which really chilled them.

After about 2 1/2 hours the snow had turned to rain and the breeze was stronger, this cleared the slush away as it melted, but it seemed to make the fishing hard and I caught virtually nothing for an hour. My hands were absolutely froze now, and I had to cover them to warm them so I could hook my bait, and I snapped a couple of hook lengths when unhooking fish as I could not feel my fingers. The last 90 minutes I managed to get a few fish back at 10m and also at 5m finally, but I couldn't line up more than 2 or 3 fish, whereas other anglers had managed to plunder a line it seemed at times, though Shaun had struggled after his one good hour, and was catching odd small fish.

When the match was over I grabbed some food and hot coffee that I had with me, then attempted to pack up and not get everything covered in snow and mud. I wasn't going to win anything today but quite honestly I was more than happy to get some bites and fish given the conditions, and I think I learned a little to, we will see lol. I weighed in 45lb which meant I got beat both sides, Shaun having 50lb, and the guy on my left had 68lb which won the canal as it turned out, he said he had 20lb in the first hour at 5m, then he caught more fishing up against an aerator. On the opposite canal the guy on 70 won the match I think with 82lb, again a mix of maggot and bread.

I must admit I was amazed at the weights that came out on the canals today, I can think of lots of venues that would be a struggle to get a bite. I enjoyed fishing in the snow (except for the cold lol) and was glad I made the effort, I'll need to up my game on Wednesday to do any good, some more prep needed I feel, as well as cleaning the gear!

Avalon Fishery - Heather Bush Memorial Match

 Where to start this blog this week then.... Tier 3 stays as tier 3 for South Glos, then Christmas gets shrunk to just Christmas day with others. Weather is pretty crap, lots of rain and wind river is completely wrecked and will be flooded for a while I guess. However, I will not get down, after all some people are a lot worse off than I am. Which brings me to the sad point of the passing of Lance Tucker. Lance has been known to me for many years and I always liked him, he had a great sense of humour and was a very good angler. I remember one time him being on a match at Newbridge with Des Shipp one side and Steve Mayo the other, Lance admitted to 3lb after the match, with Des and Steve admitting to 5 or 6lb. Lance weighed in 9lb to beat them both, I recall him getting berated by the pair of them and he just stood there smiling and laughing. I will miss seeing Lance on the bank, and I feel sad for his family and friends, and I'm sure his team mates are absolutely gutted. RIP Lance, it was nice that you got to win your last match.

 I got myself booked into this match as Vic is an old friend of mine now and I wanted to be able to participate and remember his wife Heather who sadly passed away earlier this year. I spent a few hours on Saturday swapping out my river gear, getting some rigs and hook tying done. I felt I was prepped for either carp or silvers and settled down to watch local lad Bill Bailey win Strictly, nice to see an over 50 win it, I'm still getting to the gym to keep fit and think I can take some inspiration from Bill.

I was up at 6am Sunday morning and on the road by 7am to get to the fishery in plenty of time for the 8:30am draw, and partake in a bacon and sausage roll which had been provided for free by I think Andy Gurd (it is tricky sometimes when everyone is wearing masks to know who is who lol). The draw was done by Vic's grandson, he pulled out the peg numbers for everyone, and he gave me peg 6. Can be OK for carp I was told, but I felt I was the wrong end of the lake with the wind blowing down to the other end. I tried to take a photo of the peg but the sun was blinding..

I set up a little Preston cage feeder today with 0.17 to 16 GPM, and a couple of pole rigs, one for fishing for silvers with 0.12 to 16 SFL, and the other 0.15 to 16 GPM, both were on 4x18 floats. That was it for me. On my right on peg 6 was an older guy called Graham, nice chap, and on my left on peg 7 another old mucker of mine Ade Crawley. The match seem to start a little before the 10am time on my phone, but hey ho, I fed 3 balls of gbait at 13m off to the left, and some micro at 13m off to the right. Then out with the gbait feeder with a piece of corn on the hook, it wasn't long before a carp was being played, but not by me. Ian Stainer on peg 9 had a 9lb carp. My first hour on the tip was unfortunately uneventful, not even a liner, Ade and Graham were also fishless on the tip. I tried my gbait pole line and took a couple of small fish here and a 6oz skimmer but that was it, the micro line was a waste of bait is all I will say. Back on to the feeder but still not a sign and I had gone from trying the deeper water to against the reeds with both unsuccessful. I decided to stick to going close to the reeds, but did catch a couple that were under water, but once I had pulled them out had not trouble.

Opposite Graham on the other side of the gap (planks of wood) were carp topping regularly but it took the guy there a couple of hours before he got one, then had three on the trot. I had changed on the feeder to maggots on the hook and there were lots of small fish by the island as I had a bite a chuck which kind of told me there were no carp there. I had a couple of small roach, missed quite a few bites and then had a decent pull round which turned out to be a 2lb skimmer and I had this with about 90 mins to go I guess, so 3lb in the net. Ade and Graham had about a pound or so. I did my best to have a chuckle and laugh with the lads either side, helped pass the time lol.

I had been feeding maggots at 6m by hand and decided to try this again and there were some roach here now, I wasn't really geared up for them but caught what I could here as the float was going under. I was hoping for a carp late on, but one never came. However, I did get another 2lb skimmer on the long pole line, but it was a one off. It had been a tough day for most in my area, except Ian it seemed, and a couple of anglers opposite had a few carp (and they were still boshing after the match).

Mark Cooke on peg 1 had 2 carp and a bream, then Graham had 3lb 2oz, my silvers went 8lb 4oz, and then Ade had 2lb 9oz. Fair to say it was a tough area I had drawn. Ian had 13lb of silvers to go with his one carp and had done well. As the scales went further (I didn't follow) there were more carp caught it seemed, and on peg 21 Jamie Cook had a nice day on the gbait feeder to win the match with 83lb. The silvers was won by Steve Kedge with just 14lb. Apparently the lake was a foot up on the previous day and the locals said they had a tremendous amount of rain and hailstones yesterday which obviously upset the fish. I ended up in 20th place, and still managed to pick up a nice prize a litre bottle of spiced rum. The prizes Vic had were great, as was the free stew, mince pies and glass of prosecco we had to toast Heather. It was then on to the raffle, which seemed to take forever as there were so many prizes! It was looking like the Mike West and Pete Neate show as they won a lot, meanwhile myself and Neil Mercer were looking at dipping out, but right near the end one of my tickets got drawn out and a £10 tackle voucher was mine yay. Neil blew out lol.

Although the fishing was tough it was lovely to be at Avalon, a great looking place in the middle of the levels. I also got to see some anglers that I had not seen for a very long time, and good to catch up with them. There's a lack of photos today as I didn't want to encroach on anglers or pass phones around.

Well that is my last post before Christmas, I do have a match after Christmas at Hillview which I am looking forward to, but I will need to draw better than today. Despite whatever life chucks at us at the moment we've got to get through it, and I hope you can celebrate Christmas the best way you can and make the most of it, smile and laugh, and think of others. Merry Christmas everyone.

Chequers Angling open - Bristol Avon Chequers

 After a couple of weeks of no fishing I was keen to get out, though the river was still a bit too high and more rain was making it look a little difficult, not to mention the frosts we had lol. I was glad to hear from Ben Rendall that he was running a match at Chequers, it would only be a friendly affair without about 10 people. As the weekend approached the forecast for Sunday was grim, rain and wind but with temperatures rising a little. The day before the match Ben rang to say it was all rather muddy and he would peg it on the morning trying to peg the safest pegs.

Sunday morning and awoke a little tired after staying up to listen to the boxing fight, though I fell asleep for rounds 4 to 9 lol. It was dark and wet when I left home for the 8am draw in the Chequers car park, tricky to pick out who was actually fishing if I'm honest. Peg 1 has been a good one this season and I would have loved to have been on that one, but Lee Gregory had that one. I got asked to pull a peg for Ben and pulled him 3 two thirds up the straight, I got 5 which I was told was on the bend and I really didn't want that...

The next 15 minutes were fun as I and everyone else plotted their way across what was a very muddy field and I had to drag my trolley backwards to be able to get some traction. I passed Andy Britt who was on peg 4, he had slack water in front as he was on the point of the bend. My peg looked quite pacey, I was opposite the stream on Frys, and I know this is not a good area when the river has a bit of pace, and I was thinking about going back home. However, I felt I at least needed to give it a go and in any case I couldn't face the muddy field again until I had my breath back lol.

All I set up was a grounbait feeder with a 14 N50 to 0.15. I was sure big fish would win today and it was my best hope here I thought, maybe a chub or two or a skimmer. However, to start I fed very little bait in the feeder and put just two maggots on the hook looking for a small fish to avoid a blank. On about my 4th or 5th cast I had a bite but missed it, and when I wound in both maggots were gone. Part of me worried that would be my only bite, and it was looking like it when 3 hours later I had not had another sign. Andy came up and said he hadn't had a bite at all and Ben had missed a bite. Mike Goodhind on peg 2 had a bream and an eel. Also on peg 7 Rich Lacey had a chub and on 8 Kev Dicks had 2 skimmers. Lee Gregory on peg 1 had lost a bream and had a couple of roach. I found this out as I went for a walk.

I decided to give the peg one more go and then pack up, I put a lot of chop worm in to see if I could get some reaction, and I did get a tremble on the tip which didn't develop, when I wound in the the end of the worm was nipped off. A few more casts then I had enough of watching leaves hit the tip and packed up, I wasn't worried about leaving with nothing in the net. I somehow managed to get everything back on top the bank without falling over, and Andy was also packing up after he said he snared a roach. The walk back didn't seem quite so bad as I plotted a better way through the mud.

I text Ben to find out the top 3 weights, and it seems from the outfall up was the place to be..

1st peg 9 Warren Bates 24lb 8oz of bream on the feeder

2nd peg 8 Kev Dicks 20lb 8oz bream on the feeder

3rd peg 7 Rich Lacey 18lb 7oz couple of big chub and 2 bream mostly in the last hour.

Well done lads done well there, I just cannot seem to get a decent peg on the day at Chequers, but I shall not dwell on that. Probably my last match on the river for a while now, I am planning to fish lakes for a while now, it seems fishing outside of your tier is OK, or not OK depending on who runs the match. I have not gone out of my tier but am waiting to see what happens this week with the announcements, and then will consider my options.

2002

 I begin this post today with an admission, I was planning to fish on Sunday but in the end I just couldn't be arsed. I live in South Gloucester which has been placed in tier 3, which as everyone will know by now puts some strong restrictions in place, and this left me feeling like I was going nowhere fast after the last lockdown had ended. My Thatchers team had an Angling Trust winter league date on the river up at Chippenham and we had some debate about who should and could fish, but in the end it was all Academic as the Angling Trust decided to put all of their matches on hold for a few months, so no team match. Of course other matches will continue and that's a good thing, and I have seen more stringent rules in place to keep social distancing which I agree with. I was going to fish the Avon, and I knew 4 or 5 others were going to pleasure fish it too, I fancied Swineford for some chub. Unfortunately the rain Saturday morning was to ruin the river yet again and I knew that was now not an option. With it being so cold I just thought the fishing would be hard on most venues and I decided to not bother, instead I booked to go to the gym Sunday morning (at least I can do that again) and have a Nandos take away in the afternoon whilst watching the copius sport on TV. Hopefully the weather, or the river, or a local match will come my way and I'll get the gear out again.

Onto a new diary now, 2002 and January began with most lakes being frozen and I got a sick bu so no fishing ensued until the 20th January when the weather turned wild and windy. I was back at Hill View fishery for their winter league, and team draw put my on the furthest canal (number 4) and I was pegged in the corner, I didn't record the peg number but I think it was 96. With the wind being very bad I was glad I had a corner to fish into now and again, and 8 metres into the corner helped presentation a lot. Just feeding a few maggots by toss pot I had to wait ages for a bite but then had a few small carp. The fish backed off and when the wind dropped I pushed my 4x12 float down to 10 mtrs and caught a few small carp there. When I went across I had 3 in 3 drops and then struggled to hold the pole. All of these carp were between 2oz and 1lb, and a 20 to 0.10 was strong enough tackle. I ended up with just 12lb 11oz but I was surprisingly top weight on the canal and won the section, in this league they paid out first and second in the section.

On January 27th I entered an open match on the K&A canal up past Horton, this was a little practice for our future ATWL semi final on the canal. It was the first time I had ever seen this part of the canal, and just fished bread punch down the middle to begin as I was told this was the banker method. It wasn't prolific by any means but I put odd small roach in the net, I did have one bonus on caster, a roach of 12oz, My 3lb 9oz was 3rd in the 10 peg section and I was happy enough for my first visit. With the semi not till mid march I thought we would practice hard, but when we got star angler Kev Rowles to help us out he advised waiting to practice till nearer the semi itself.

On Sunday 3rd February it was the final match of the Commercial House winter league, it was on the canal and I got drawn at the George section. I didn't start on bread punch (don't know why) but fished 3m to hand feeding groundbait and squatts. I caught gudgeon and small roach on this and had a couple of perch and roach on caster over, I lost a big perch was costly. I had 4lb 12oz and that was 11 points out of 14. My team tied on points for the league, but lost out on weight doh!

Another Hill View league match for the team and once again I was on the back canal. I got it wrong on this day as it fished a bit better and I feel I didn't feed enough maggot when the fish were in the peg, and a number of anglers caught 2 to 3lb carp on corn. My 19lb 12oz was only 4th in the section. Two weeks later and I was back up again for the next round, this time I was on canal 4. I went straight across on maggots and had some little carp straight away. But the wind got up and the canal started towing badly and I couldn't sort it out and struggled to get any decent presentation. Just a few fish came at 10 metres as well as across but I could see the canal was fishing hard and plugged on feeding next to nothing. 13lb 4oz was my final tally and that was 2nd in the section. I remember I used to mainly fish single red maggot on a 20 barbless hook, and occasionally try double maggot. Of course I didn't know about dobbing back then, and I do remember team mate Tony Rixon catching well one match on sweetcorn skins, a slow falling bait of course, always one step ahead was Tony. Hill View is such a different venue now with the many F1's in there, and I would say in general more anglers have a good day than bad.