Angling Trust Winter League - Bristol Avon Bradford-on-Avon / Chippenham / Melksham - Round 3

 Another week passed by and I watched avidly the weather forecast, as the week went on it seemed heavy rain was coming our way. The Wye Champs got cancelled as they had lots of rain, but it wasn't until Saturday that we had a proper deluge here in Bristol. The Avon at Keynsham was a big mess by the afternoon, but it seemed the upper Avon was fairing OK. I awoke early Sunday morning (the extra hour helped) and immediately heard the heavy rain which had been going for a couple of hours. The drive to the draw at Melksham was a steady one as their were many huge puddles and I had to be very careful. The heavy rain persisted as we got to the draw at 8am when I was told I was off to Barton Farm. It was still hammering down until about 9am I think, and the river was already coloured and showing signs of rubbish coming down.

I set up a feeder rod with 14N40 to 0.15, a 5g flat float, 3g pole rig, and 2 bleak whips. I was well aware the river was going to get nasty and so did not want to fish that far out and lose the ability to fish there. I plumbed around with a 3g pole float and settled on 8m out. I ran the rig through and also dropped the lead in here and all seemed ok. As we got to 10:30 when the match started the river had already got a lot worse and my 3g rig didn't seem right anymore. I cupped 6 balls of gbait in at 8m to keep everything tight and went in with the flat float. I gave this about 10 mins but this was not working well, and flow was now disturbed and causing the float to move in and out an up and down. A bigger flat float may have helped but probably not for long. I cast a straight lead out over this line (no need for a feeder as plenty of grub in the gbait)  hoping to pick up some early roach. Sadly I had a mare with a snag for about 5 casts. A slightly different cast and with a worm and 2 maggots on I had a definite tremble, I left it to tremble some more and when I could resist no more I struck, it was an eel of about 10oz, saved the blank.

Next cast no bite and no snag, next cast another trembler resulted in an eel of almost the same size as the first. A couple more casts with no bites saw me changing to the feeder to get some more worms and casters in the peg. Well nothing showed itself other than more snags and I was cheesed off putting on new hooks, so I decided to try the whips for bleak, I guess this was just over an hour in. No bites at all from bleak. Back to the feeder which was more snags and no fish, and I was frustrated as I wanted to give this a good go but was being bad

ly hindered, I even tried fishing further out and whilst I did snag up a lot less I never had a sign. Trying my 4m whip into the flow I had no signs of bleak. Coming in shorter I finally caught a tiny bleak, at least  I think it was a bleak. I could now catch these small 3 or 4 to the ounce bleak, it wasn't one a bung but I was just happy to put something in the net. I kept on these for just over an hour I guess and then they vanished. To be fair the river was now boiling a lot and I am sure the bleak moved off somewhere off (found after that Mark Treasure above me in A section started to catch bleak in the last half of the match and it just got better for him).

The last couple of hours for me were poor and whilst I did have looks for the bleak it was never long as they did not come back. In fact I had my third bite on the feeder 5 minutes before the end when I had a 4oz roach out of the blue. I had no idea what had been caught in my section, but didn't think my 2 1/2lb estimate would be very good. I packed up and dropped down to the last peg in the section as I had the weighing in board. The last peg in the section had a massive slack, and the angler on there Kev Morris won our section with 4lb 2oz of small roach on a 4m whip. I weighed in 2lb 12oz for 3 points out of 6.  My board below, Paul below me had the same trouble as me, snagging up mostly.

I was of course disappointed with that result, and I think I made a mistake of actually fishing to close in, and maybe 11m would have been less snaggy. However, chatting to many locals they all said it wasn't a great peg in the conditions. Very few bleak were caught in my section, more upstream, and the section below was even worse. The river we were fishing at the end was rancid and full of weed and not much fun for most. There were of course a few anglers who had some fish in front of them and did the business...

Kev Rowles was the winner today with 15lb of mainly roach and a few big perch all caught close in on the pole on his peg at the top end of Barton Farm. 

Derek Jarman was 2nd from a peg in Chippenham Park, he had 3 bream for 10lb 13oz

Mark Brush was 3rd with 10lb 2oz of bleak from end peg at Scotland Road.

On the team front DGL won the day with 35 points, my Thatchers came second with 31 (that's the same place every match so far), and Devises were third with 30 points.

Overall Thatchers have 6 points and DGL are second with 9 points. Three rounds to go and all still to play for. The 4th round is back up here next Sunday, except Barton Farm shouldn't be in this time. The current weather forecast is for no rain this week, and so hopefully a much better river for all to fish... fingers crossed!

Some pics from last week that I couldn't upload before are below...

My bag

The pegging clowns Shaun and Dean

Crayfish caught by Kev Boltz,  bad sign

Commercial House Round 5 - Bristol Avon Swineford, Crane & Chequers

After a weekend off fishing I was waiting to hear from the team Captain as to what I would be fishing, either the Bristol Avon at Chippenham / Melksham or down by me at Keynsham. I was happy to fish either venue but was asked to fish the lower Avon on the Commercial House. As the team was down to peg the match I offered to do that, and had the help of Bristol's finest chippy Dean Harvey. What Dean can do with a good piece of wood is just amazing, at least that what he told me.

Friday and the wife and I decided the alcohol free October had been fun but it was time to crack open a bottle of vino. Call me weak, but I had resisted for a long time and did enjoy a nice Malbec. I was up fine and dandy Saturday to meet Dean at Swineford as we began the pegging out, A1 was the outfall and we new Swineford would be tricky as there are not enough pegs to leave out the shitters, but we did our best. We chatted far too much and also had a few calls, enough to put us off the peg numbers we put in, but luckily we avoided a few cock ups LOL. We got to the Crane and met up with Shaun Townsend, now 3 anglers with their own ideas on what to peg is fun, but we seem to sort it out and even managed to walk Shaun's dogs. Chequers was pegged by venue expert Dean, so he can take the blame for that dross lol. I'll say this now, I've pegged lots of matches out, but without a doubt I had the biggest laugh today with these two clowns lol.

Sunday morning, I am determined to get to the draw with time to get a breakfast without rushing, and I was there 20 minutes before the 8am draw yay. However, the pub was not open, due to a lack of communication by the organisation by the Britt / Goodhind family. A later match start was agreed allowing anglers to get at least a McDonalds. I did the draw again and thought I got a fair set of pegs, I was going to Chequers, one off the end peg on the straight, a chance of bream I hoped but unlikely to best the end peg.

Unfortunately my laptop / phone will not communicate today so I cannot upload any photos, a shame as I had a few pics today, maybe I can add them later this week.

My peg has a willow tree growing out into the water and prevents you running a float in the peg (though a pole would be OK) but with the river heavily coloured and pacey I wasn't worried about that. All I set up today was a gbait feeder with 0.17 to 12 N50 and a 3g pole rig but that was no good. At 10:30 I under armed my feeder out about 13m to the edge of the tree and began with 4 red maggots on the hook. I didn't ball it and just had some very regular casts. I had a couple of small perch quite quickly and then not a lot, so I changed up to a lobworm tail and had another perch but then missed a couple of bites. I thought a dendra with maggots would be easier for the perch to snaffle and indeed I had one quite quickly. About 40 minutes in I had a proper bite and this was met with more resistance and I netted a nice skimmer of about 2lb+, next cast and within 20 seconds a similar bite and a 1.5lb skimmer, next cast same result another skimmer, wow! The next cast resulted in no bite and things went decidedly quiet after those three quick skimmers.

I had a visit from some wanderers, Dave Tippet and Darren Gillman, they told me not much was caught , but below me Andy Britt on the end peg had 3 bream for 12lb. Above me Jerry Pocock (who had moaned like a bitch about his peg) was struggling to hit bites from dace and roach on the feeder. As the match progressed it was strange that I was getting no bites from dace / roach whereas Jerry was. I kept altering the hook baits from maggots to worms etc, but all I was now able to catch was the odd perch, and one tiny eel. The bites began to tail off and my pole line had yielded nothing, so I was drifting off the pace and not feeling good vibes that some bream might show up, then Andy told me had another bream.

Jerry came off the feeder and tried running a bolo float through and he started to get bites on this, his peg was shallower than mine and flowing more than mine, as I had slack to 12m, so it seemed roach and dace were happy in his shallower water. With about 90 minutes left to go and the peg quiet I decided to throw in 5 balls of gbait laced with worms, casters and dead reds, shit or bust I guess. It didn't give me any immediate response if I am honest. It was about now that a guy on a boat opposite decided it was a good idea to go for a swim... twat. He jumped in and despite his best efforts he could not swim against the current, and was soon complaining of cramping up. Luckily for him he managed to get back to the boat and out of the cold water. I found out that Andy Britt had a dog go in his peg, it couldn't get out and the owner stripped off and jumped in to get the dog out and Andy helped the bloke get out. What a palaver!

In the last hour I had a couple more perch and then a decent eel of over a pound, finally 10 minutes before the end of the match I had a 6oz roach, my first of the day.

I didn't know how my section had fished, I knew I was well beaten by Andy who was admitting to 21lb, but was hoping I could be second to him in the section. The scales started up at peg 1 and when I caught up with them only 3lb+ was best, that was until Jerry weighed 5lb 6oz. My turn next and my fish went 11lb 3oz which I was happy with, 1 roach, 2 eels, 14 perch and 3 skimmers. Andy then weighed 23lb 3oz to win the section and be the top weight at Chequers overall. However, with Andy likely to frame I was going to pick up the section money, nice :-)

The pub was if course open and happy to us after the match, so the results were done with a few beers and some grub. I thought Andy would have won the match but as it turned out he didn't..

1st Andy Pritchard 29lb 6oz bream and skimmers from just below the boys hole at the crane.

2nd Andy Britt 23lb 3oz

3rd Andy Ritchings 22lb 9oz bream at Swineford first field

4th Derek Coles 21lb 2oz bream end peg Swineford.

5th Dean Harvey 20lb 15oz bream upstream end peg chequers (first out the money bad luck)

6th Mike Shellard 18lb 15oz chub on feeder from peg 17 at Swineford.

As you can see all the sections of the river managed to get into the top 6 today, good pegging out I guess lol. There were some roach caught too, up to 10lbs of them, so not bad given the conditions I think.

Bathampton won A div today with 13 points, my Thatchers team were 2nd with 12 points. Overall with one match left Thatchers are winning the A div by 8.5 points which should really be a big enough gap to win it I hope.

B div was won by Bathampton B and they lead the B div by 11 points and are going to win that unless they all get bolloxed and don't turned up.

It is the final round next week, on the K&A canal, but I won't be there as my services have been called upon by the team for the ATWL up at Chippenham which I look forward too.

Commercial House Round 4 Bristol Avon Newbridge

 I think I mentioned last time that I was not having any alcohol during this month, I forgot to mention there are two exceptions to this; a pre booked gin festival and a family birthday celebration. The gin festival was yesterday and it was a lot of fun and my wife and I were really glad we went, I was back home by 6:30pm and no more liquor touched my lips.

I was looking forward to fishing Newbridge as the river level had held up well after the rain and I hoped it would be a decent match. Last week it fished well, but that was the first wash through for ages and it seemed to stir the fish into feeding. After the last CH round where I drew for the team and we came last I was not planning on drawing again, running a tad late I called Towner to order me a brekky so it would be ready as I got there, cheers Shaun. As I sat eating my food Ben Matthews wandered up and asked if I wanted to go into the £5 super pool, I did and was glad he asked as I would have forgot. Then it was the draw and when Thatchers were called up to draw nobody was in the pub, so I had to go an pull the peg again, yikes! I was hoping for a draw in A,B, or C (pegs 3 to 52) but I found myself in D section below Newton St Loe bridge somewhere. I ran outside, gave my team mates some Sonubait black river and black roach, and told them the pegs they were on. Off we went.

It is a bit of a walk to from the rugby car park to my peg, but straight forward and pretty flat so no problem. I couldn't see my permanent peg number, but reckon it was about 77. I was happy, but thought the two pegs above me would be hard to beat, as would the peg on the stream. The river was flowing nicely and had a nice colour, looked like it should fish I and many others thought.

I mixed up two lots of gbait, the aforementioned roach mix for the pole, and some thatchers and F1 dark for the feeder. It is a nice peg to fish as you can get your box in the water and the bottom is flat and hard. I set up a crowquill, a gbait feeder with 14 N30 to 0.13 powerline, and three pole rigs; 1.5g 20 N10 to 0.10, 2g 18 N20 to 0.12, and a 4g flat float with 16 N20 to 0.13. I didn't set up a waggler as the wind was upstream and in my face and the river was covered in leaves.

I was a couple of minutes late start and heard Nicky Johns and Leigh Wakefields gbait go in on the pegs above me (Leigh on upstream end peg). I put 10 balls in with some caster, hemp and pinkie, and went straight over it with the 2g rig with caster on the hook. I was pleased to get a bite and 2oz roach first drop in, and had 4 or 5 more before no more bites, this rig was not getting many bites on maggot so I switched to the lighter rig. It made a big difference with bites every run through on maggot from roach, perch and chublets, all fish were swung in (bar one perch about 6oz) so size was not amazing. Of course this soon slowed right down, but a change to fishing pinkie got me some more fish and I had manage to eek fish out for nearly 2 hours before it was dead. I hadn't fed a feeder line yet as I was hoping the pole line would be the best bet for skimmers and bream too, but I now felt I needed to. I put in 6 feeders of bait, then fed 3 balls of on the pole line, and finally tied and attached the 14 N30 0.13 hook length. I then cast out the feeder with 3 red maggots on the hook and settled in and just made sure everything was to hand for fishing the feeder. It couldn't have been in a minute when I noticed the tip jagging quite severely, I struck expecting an early chublet but instead felt a couple of big thumps. Not expecting to hook a bream first chuck I think my heart rate soared as the shock kicked in lol. It felt a good fish and gave a good account of itself, I was glad when it was in the landing net and I thought that must be nearly 6lb, happy days!

I would like to now write and say how I caught more bream and won the match, but I cannot, that was the only bream I saw today, not even a skimmer. I had a few roach and a couple of chublets on the feeder, and just two more perch on the pole line. I did give nearly all the last 2 hours fishing for bream, but when the leaves cleared I cast the crowquill set at 6 feet deep across the river and could catch bleak on this, a waggler would have been better of course, but I had a few fish here resting the feeder.

The match ended at 3:15pm and it had fished a bit harder than expected it seemed, just wished I could have managed one more bream. It turned out that Leigh Wakefield had made the most of his peg and had 7 skimmers and 2 bream for 20lb 8oz, I ended up second in the whole section with 12lb 10oz, but won the A Div. My board here..

Nicky above me had a lot of fish for his 8lb, all on crowquill and waggler, Steve Skelton below me struggled for some early roach and not much else. The bream came in handy for the section, as without it I would not have beat Nicky.

Back at the Crown Pub results and as the lads came back it seemed we had all done really well today, and I added up we had 16 1/2 points out of 18, and would definitely win the day and extend our lead in the A div. Here is the team sheet..

Not bad weights there really.

Our team did indeed win the day and in B div Sensas Nomads won,

Individuals today

1st Andy Ritchings 26lb 9oz (bream, he won here last week too!)

2nd Leigh Wakefield 20lb 8oz

3rd Rob Jones 16lb 7oz (peg 107 had 2 late bream on the pole plus roach)

4th Rob Manns 13lb 2oz (roach, chublets and perch by pumphouse)

5th Tim Ford 12lb 10oz

6th Andy Britt 9lb 14oz

As you can see I came 5th, they pay the top 4, one out of the frame again so I got £30 for the section... or so I thought. Ben Matthews wandered up to me to advise me about the superpool 2nd, 3rd and 4th anglers didn't go in it, so I got the 2nd money an extra £55, yay! We had some laughs in the pub today, mainly at the expense of others of course lol.

Back home and writing the blog and enjoying a beer, don't worry it's alcohol free ;-) No fishing next weekend for me, need to sort the garden out amongst other things.

Angling Trust Winter League Round 1 - River Thames Grafton / Radcot

 This time last week I was planning for my week away in Edinburgh and had booked to fish a Windmill Fishery open match. My time away in Edinburgh with my wife was absolutely brilliant, lots of history, good tours and rides around and plenty of walking. The pubs were plentiful and all good and I got to try some great Single Malt Whiskies.

Not more than 30 minutes of stepping off the plane in Bristol Airport Friday evening I had a call from Martin Barrett. One of the team due to fish the winter league on Sunday had taken ill and Martin wanted me to stand in. It meant a number of changes to plans but I was happy to stand in and step up for the team. I had no bait ordered but that was sorted by me having the other lads bait, and I spent quite a while Saturday making rigs and tying more hook lengths! I did waste a few hours going to watch the Gas and that was just pants...

Sunday morning up at 5:15 to get ready for 6:15 when Shaun Townsend was coming to pick me up. A bit of a shock to the system after a week of lie ins lol, but as I am having a "dry October" (no alcohol) I was bright as a button. We had a steady run up and had to make a little detour to get to the McDonalds in Shrivenham where we found team mates Lee Trivett and Andy Ottaway, the Bristol Massive. Got to Ye Olde Swan at Radcot and quickly got my bait from Martin and paid my pools and shivered as the morning was cold. The river was flowing and had some colour after the recent rain but well fishable on a float. Team draw done and I was going to upstream of Grafton Lock (Shaun was downstream) a part I have never fished before.

It was a healthy walk to the peg and after a week of walking it was nay bother for me. I was on B2 and that meant I had an end peg to compete with, Andy Jane was on that. My peg did look nice with a tree opposite and another some way down the peg.

I set up a lot of gear for a change, simply as I know on this river you need to be prepared to chop and change, so I had whips for bleak, 1g, 1.5g and 2g pole rigs, as well as a 4g flat float, a waggler and blockend feeder. My neighbours also seemed to set up a lot of gear, though Troy Weaver below me had nearly twice as much as me lol, Steve Long was on B1, but I couldn't see him as he was a long way above. We started at 11am and I was ready for once, I cupped in 4 balls of gbait (Sonubaits Black Roach and River) at 11m and picked up the 1gm rig. I ran the rig through 6 times and it never went under and so with no resident fish feeding I went out on the feeder casting across towards the tree. I put worm and caster in the feeder and had a lobworm tail impailed on a the size 12. Not long after casting out a boat came down, and I had to dip the rod under the water, bringing it back up I felt a bite but missed it. Cast out again, and no boat but another bite and was pleased to net a 6oz chublet. A couple of casts later and a 4oz perch, then a 6oz perch before all went quiet. I had one more bite and landed my best fish, a perch of 10 to 12oz.

An hour had gone and I picked up the pole to try to catch some small fish, I tried the 1.5g rig in the 7-8ft deep swim. It was awkward as it was shallow out to about 7m and then the river got deeper steadily, but as you went downstream the river got shallower! It was a tricky peg to fish and I needed to get good control over the float, but that was not easy in the very strong winds. This pole line was hard, and I only got the odd bite on this, I did get a 4oz roach, a few tiny roach and gudgeon, one reasonable dace and a few tiny ones. Trying different rigs, and different feeding didn't really do me any good and the pole line just died. I flogged the waggler for 20 mins and had 1 bleak and thought that this was not going to work so binned it.

First cast back out on the worm feeder and I missed a bite, next cast and I had the culprit a 3oz chublet. I missed another bite which I was a bit gutted about as the worm was properly shredded, and that was the last bite I had on the tip. In fact in the last 90 minutes I only had 1 tiny gudgeon and I fished for a bonus for a fair amount of time with no success. Match over, and I thought I had about 2 1/2 to 3lb at best and wasn't expecting many points for the team. However, I soon realised that my section had fished poor and even allowing for anglers under estimating things sounded better than I thought. Steve Long above struggled for just 5oz, I then had 3lb 1.5oz, which was enough to beat Troy below me who had 2lb 8oz. I ended up 2nd in the section getting beaten by Stuart Harrop on peg 5 who had a decent chub of near 3lb and some perch for 5lb 10oz.

My paltry net, with half the fish hidden lol.

Back to the results and my team had done well, all bar Shaun who had a terrible peg on a corner with no room when some anglers had 100 yds...

Teams

1st Blackmore Vale 35 points

2nd Thatchers 34 points

3rd Matrix 27 points

4th DGL 26 points

Winner on the day was Ian Sheppard with a brilliant 18lb of dace and roach from Radcot

2nd Rob Randall 12lb 

3rd Kev Bennett 10lb 2oz

This match is always tricky as the river is very peggy here, and it was a relief to get off to a decent start as a team. Next week I am fishing the Commercial House at Newbridge, there was an open there today and it fished well with a 70lb and 50lb of bream.