Out and about

Here we are then, on the cusp of the resumption of match fishing. I for one am certainly looking forward to fishing some matches again, but I will have to see what venues I can get on as time goes on. I had to get the racking / shelving out the van I bought before I could get my gear in. I've tried to sell it for a week, but despite some genuine interest it still remains unsold (although I had a number of buyers who simply never showed up, just idiots I guess). I was looking forward to giving the van a run out, and I had the opportunity when my daughter had to be picked up from Gloucester University for the Easter break. Anyway, this gave me an idea, right or wrong don't judge me, I would have a drive out that way to fish and pick my daughter up afterwards. I know we are not supposed to travel out of our area and this would be the one and only time and one day before the easing of lockdown, that was how I sold it to myself.

Sunday morning, nice lie in and loaded the van with ease with lots of room to spare. I drove up the M5 and arrived at Hillview Fishery around 11:15. I had a nice welcome from Huggy (he recognised me with my mask on lol) and paid for a day ticket. I opted to fish on Moorhen Lake peg 5, the nearest anglers already fishing were on the car park bank and on peg 10. I was well socially distanced and so it remained.

I had actually gone to the fishery with the thought of going on one of the canals in my head as I had plenty of canal rigs still made up from the last match I fished up here in December. However, the short walk and chance of some bigger fish sold me on the lake. I set up a 4x12 Preston F1 with 16 GPM to 0.13 powerline for fishing a couple of feet away from the bank, where I had a nice 2 1/2 foot of water. Then I made up a fresh 0.4g rig for fishing top plus one and a half sections. 0.4g is bigger than I would normally use, but the wind was horrendous and I imagined the lake would be towing, or at least some of it would be. I made the right decision here I feel as the wind got worse as the day went on. I also had a 16GPM to 0.13 on this rig. The choice of hook on both rigs was because I was going down one hook bait route, sweetcorn.

I fed fishery 4mm pellets and corn down to my left for the margin line, and the same in front on the deep line, both top sets had little Preston pots on the end to keep the feeding accurate. The margin top set had 11 hollo, while the deeper 9 hollo. It was a very slow start for me and after 20 mins I had 2 nice skimmers and a roach, and was thinking corn was not right, especially as the lad up on 10 was doing well on soft pellet out in the deep water. However, all of a sudden a shoal of F1's arrived and I had a nice little run of them up to 4lb, by about 1pm I had a dozen F1, but then they disappeared for a while.

For the next 90 minutes the fishing was steady, odd F1, but nothing in the margin line. At 3pm things improved and I started to catch more regular on the deep line and was able to up the feed and get quicker bites. I really had to hold onto the pole at times, the wind was awful, at times I was struggling to get the 4mm pellets into the pot lol! The guy on peg 10 had slowed after the early bagging, but he had been lucky, he retrieved a number 4 section three times, and his landing net and pole went in twice.

I definitely caught some bigger fish in the last hour, but I swear the F1's were fighting 10 times harder than the earlier fish I caught, a number of times I thought I must have foul hooked something, only for the fish to pop up hooked in the mouth. I caught a really big F1, must have been over 5lb, and this one did an impression of an eel twisting round and round, trying to unravel it I badly damaged the hook length. I decided to try the margin again. A few fish had turned up here, with some more bug F1's and a couple of carp with one being close to 8lb.

I had to pack up and leave the fish feeding as I had promised to meet my daughter at 5pm. It had been a very enjoyable day, I really had to work hard on presenting the hook bait to get bites and I did miss a few but not lots like you can with F1's. I had one fish come off at the net, and never had one foul hooker all day, never happens in a match lol. The fish are clearly waking up, and it was interesting to see the mix of methods working today; quite a few were catching on maggot feeders whilst others like me were catching on short poles. The wind put paid to many other methods working, I could also see a few elastics being stretched on the canals.

Matches start here from Wednesday, and there is a Saturday and Monday open on over Easter, think I will give the Saturday a go, but need to make a few more rigs up for the lake in case I draw on that. If you are going out on a match this week, then I wish you good luck and have fun, let's hope this lockdown path can remain in place.

Whoops

 Oh dear, I forgot to write a blog Sunday, truth be told I was pretty busy and ended up going for some nice walks and I just never thought about the blog!

The good personal news is I finally got myself a fishing mobile, yay! A Ford Transit Connect van which being a Long Wheel Base version will allow me to get the gear in nice and easily. Now I just need to go fishing and get a road test out of it, maybe I will get a chance to go Saturday this weekend. However, I am really looking forward to going somewhere Easter weekend, a match would truly be nice, but I imagine most will be booked up, I will have to see if anything is available.

I am just a tad fed up with the football, Rovers are absolutely shite, 3 managers cannot get a decent team on the pitch and that tells me we have shocking players. Joey Barton I think can do the club some good, but he can't make these turds look polished, he needs to build his own squad. That's enough about the football, I think we are doomed to league 2 sadly.

I took a walk to the river at Jack Whites on Sunday, it looked nice, a little pacey but lovely colour. Of course as is typical we cannot fish it... I spent some time watching a large shoal of dace feeding on a hatch of flies, I think dace spawn early and many were going up into the stream so looking like they are getting ready to spawn. There are very healthy numbers of dace in the river, Jack Whites and Chequers as well as down at Conham, has been for a long time, be nice to have a float only match down there one day and see what comes out, rather than a handful of bream weights taking out the framing places.

I do look forward to the clocks going forward, I love that extra hour of light on an evening, just gives me a bit more time outdoors, especially after work. Just need the weather to warm up a bit as we move through April. I doubt we will get a repeat of last years hot spring, but a few warmer days please.

I'm not really prepared for commercial fishing, I haven't been able to put my mind to making rigs, or hook lengths, partially because I couldn't see when or where I would be match fishing. I will get something sort I guess, maybe I will go back up to Hill View, at least I should get some bites up there even if I get smashed up lol.

Fingers crossed for only good things going forwards. 

Bitterwell Lake

First thing to pass on today is the sad news that angler and angling reporter Roy Garland has died. Roy spent many years taking photos of anglers for the reports he put in the Bristol Evening Post and Green Un. I got to know quite well as he took a few photos of my team and of course I got a few results which he needed to report on. Roy had a good sense of humour too, and he always used to stay to the end of a match results to have a beer and chat. Overall, Roy did a lot of good for local angling by promoting in the papers, and there was many a time that non anglers told me that had seen my picture in the paper. God Bless you Roy, RIP.

A long time friend Clayton Hudson told me a while back that despite living in Bath for about 20 years he had not fished the K&A canal, he managed to put the right today and had a few hours out by Bathampton. His pleasure session was very similar to how matches go, dropped in some bread, caught a skimmer first cast and then had an hour of catching them before all went quiet and he struggled then for odd small roach. Couple of pictures of where Clayton fished and his catch. 

My blog title today was supposed to be something like "last day of the river season", but the rain came again and unfortunately made a mess of the river by me. I had ordered some caster and maggots and so thought I will have to get out somewhere and use them, and decided upon Bitterwell. That meant more thought on how to get a bit more tackle into a Toyota Aygo this week, I got my box in and a net bag, plus a container with a reel and wagglers. One rod tube and the landing net pole. I was just going to the fish a waggler.

I got out to Bitterwell about 10:30 and there were not many anglers there, I think Mother's Day had kept a few away (I'd seen my mum the day before). I chose a peg on the road bank where it appeared that the wind would be almost off my back, conducive for waggler fishing. I set up a 4AAA Preston waggler (blue coloured with high visibility insert) and put just 1 no 8 and 1 no 10 down the line. 0.10 Accu Power to a 18 SFL-B hook. As ever the lake was pretty much flat calm as I began, but wasn't expecting this to stay the same all day.

As I began by feeding lightly with maggots and casters Fishery Manager and Thatchers PI team mate Paul Isaacs came round to collect the day ticket money. I had a small roach straight away and a few casts later a 6oz skimmer. I felt a bit rusty if I am honest, and needed to change catapults to get the bait where I wanted it, but was soon in the swing of things, cast, sink line, feed. For the first hour I had regular bites from small roach and one little 6oz carp, but had to keep swapping from red, white or fluoro maggot on the hook. I had started off bottom and went deeper to try to catch some of the skimmers that are in there, I could see that over the lake Chris Davis had caught a few small skimmers on the pole. A regular local angler then came walking around and started to chat to me, and during this time I had bite when the rod was not in my hand, I struck to hard and snapped the hook length, doh. 

A nasty bit of rain and wind then appeared which had me reaching for my coat, and not long after this I hooked a better fish and it was skimmer of about 1.5lb. Next cast and a pounder, and then a few casts later another nice skimmer. They disappeared as soon as they arrived, and the swim went a bit quiet after this, switching to a fluoro maggot I had a few small roach and perch. Going back to red maggot was much slower but it was all the skimmers would have. I had another visitor as I was fishing, Les Williams, I haven't seen him for quite a long time and he had a very large camera on him as his hobby these days is photography, mainly wildlife. He showed me quite a number of pictures of birds that he had taken, and he is clearly very adept at photography. Whilst Les was by me I managed to snare my biggest skimmer about 2lb.

The wind was gusting all over the place after the early calm, and feeding had been a nightmare. My bites had really slowed up and I noticed the waggler was beginning to tow through. I added a little more depth and stopped feeding casters and increased the maggots. This pretty much had an immediate effect with roach and perch responding. I was catching quite nicely again, but the temperature was dropping really fast and my hands began to get very cold as more light rain fell. Desperate for a pee I decided it was time to pack up and go home. Chris had already gone home, we had a quick chat as he passed me and said he had about 14lb. An angler further up from me had struggled to catch early but had a nice run of skimmers on the pole when he put some groundbait in. I did my best to take a photo of my fish in the keepnet,  felt like about 14lb I guess.

I enjoyed that today, fishing a waggler is great fun and busy fishing. I am sure a pole approach added in as an option would have given me a few more skimmers but I it's nice just now and again to not pick one up.

Before I finish I noticed that another mate of mine Brian Gay has been filming some underwater videos, he has put them on YouTube. If you search for "Angling Images Fishing Media" you will find them. Very interesting to watch how the fish react to some bait going in, take a look, he's got plenty of other stuff on there too.

Back To Basics On The Bristol Avon

 First of all I just need to say that I will be writing about some actual fishing action today, as after 72 days I have finally got out there and done some fishing, yay!!!

I have made some small progress in my search for a used van, putting a small deposit down to hold a van that popped up a couple of days ago that was what I was looking for. Need to wait for the van to go through the workshop checks and get a view of it, so am really hoping everything will be fine.

I was thinking this weekend I would finally get out and fish, I hatched a plan to go on Sunday and the weather forecast was really promising, I was looking forward to going.

Trying to think what to type now, as I am not quite clear in thought tonight, tired and a little achy but nothing nasty. I had the covid vaccine yesterday, and was aware that I could get a few issues, just depends I guess? Mike Nicholls suggested I take paracetamol or Natch to keep the effects at bay lol, I went down the red wine route. I did wake up feeling a sore arm, and a slight swelling there, but that was it. Speaking to a couple of other anglers Dave Stiff and Ben Rendall they felt really bad after their jabs, shame. Of course this could have put a spanner in my plan to fish had I felt really ill, but luckily for me it didn't. Anyway, my plan, how to get myself and my gear to Swineford in a tiny Toyota Aygo lol!!!  I had to go back to basics, right back. I took one heavy feeder rod, landing net pole, and  bankstick which I would carry by hand. Had a backpack with a reel, feeders, hooks, line, disgorger, scissors, bread, and food and drink. A Sainsbury's carrier bag with my landing net, gbait, 1 pint of maggots and a bowl. I probably blended in well with the other anglers lol.

Where to fish, that was my dilemma, I walked up the river thinking that I would find a peg in the second field at Swineford. I walked past a few anglers, piking and general pleasure, all had caught but not a lot. I walked up to peg 15, it is a fairly easy peg to fish as it has a lovely flat bank just above the water, but there are tree branches overhead so an underhand cast is required. It didn't take long to knock up a mix of brown and white crumb (no additives) and set the feeder rod up with a 40g open ender. Hooklength was 2 feet of 0.17 powerline, and I used a size 12 Preston XSH barbless hook for gaffing a piece of bread. Now the XSH is designed for bagging carp on commercials, but I fancied it for using it for chub on the river, and today was the day for experimenting, not a match. I began fishing a couple of minutes before midday, and cast the feeder out to just past middle in the fast flow. On the second cast I had a hell of bite, the rod dropping back, pulling forward, dropping back violently! I just could not believe there was no fish attached when I picked the rod up. I had one more little rattle on the bread and I was a little disappointed I had not had a chub. I tried 5 maggots on the hook and this resulted in a couple of bites but again I did not connect.

On about the hour mark I tried a big piece of bread again, and if this didn't work I was going to change to a maggot feeder. Well I had another whacking bite, and this time I was attached to a decent fish, I played it hard and kept it under a lot of pressure to keep it away from any snags that could be around. I was really happy to land this chub, I had no scales, but I would have said it was a 4lber. Managed to take a photo of it in the landing net.

No more bites on bread and I was itching to switch to the maggot feeder, I changed my hook to a size 16 of the same XSH pattern. After only 3 or 4 casts I had another chub of about 3 1/2lb, and as I was netting it I noticed someone stood up the bank behind me, it was an angler called Rich Britton who hasn't been so much in the last couple of years. Rich had arrived at the right time as the switch to the maggot feeder brought fairly regular bites from chub from 12oz to 3lb. Rich was great company and he told me some great stories of fishing past. I was sat on the bank with the sun on my face, a few fish caught and great company, it was just perfect really, I was really enjoying myself.

Inevitably the sport slowed, I imagine primarily as I had no keepnet and I had now caught a dozen chub all returned straight away. Having travelled light the plan was to fish the next peg, so I was quickly out of the peg and looking to get in 17. Bugger another angler had got in the peg just 10 minutes before, so on to 19, damn another angler was just setting up! I walked up to what is now 20, a wide peg but with a willow tree downstream. As I was wanting to catch lumps I went up on the hook size and began with bread again. First chuck, casting downstream to the end of the willow, and a lovely bite which I bloody missed again lol. Next cast similar bite but chub on, about 2lb, and a couple of casts later another chub landed. I then had a couple of casts with nothing, and then had a little rattle but nothing, as I began to wind in the rod suddenly buckled over. I realised what had happened, a pike had grabbed the bread as I wound back, and soon enough it bit me off.

I put some maggots through the feeder with gbait, as I hoped I met get a bream out of this peg, but I didn't connect with any bream, but had two more chub just over the pound mark. I decided at 4:30pm to call it a day, I was feeling a bit tired now. Ended the day with 16 chub, and never lost one, so as far as the hooks go I am really happy with them for this type of chub fishing and glad I tried them.

For anyone looking to get out on the river I would suggest you do so this week, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, as a load of rain is coming which will cock it up. No roach were caught at Swineford today, so it's chub or bream, but I do know that roach are coming out up at Saltford and Newbridge. Get out while you can, before the damn close season arrives. I'm glad I got out when I could, I have not caught chub for what seems a long time, I love days like this now and again.