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.