The keen eyed among you may have already spotted that I changed my plans and did not fish the river this weekend. I dearly wanted to give it a go (though I could not find any matches) and had a few ideas of where to go depending on the river condition. I had left it late to order any bait, and then I saw the forecast talking about heavy rain on Friday. I decided the river was probably going to be to high to fish and that sadly I was going to have to wait until June to get on it again. For once I got the decision right, because it did rain heavy Friday and again Saturday night, and as I looked today the river up at Saltford was showing a level of 0.8m, to high for a decent day really.
The weather forecast for Sunday wasn't looking great, strong winds and showers, but being free of Covid at last (although my wife has got it now) I was looking forward to getting out. Having booked in with Gerry Welsh I spend a couple of hours Saturday morning prepping, with two tip rods made up, one for the lead and one for the method feeder. If it was windy those rods would be first out. Also made up a few new pole rigs and sorted some elastics out in my top sets. Spent the afternoon at the Memorial Stadium witnessing another fine display by the Gas, it has been like watching a different team in 2022, 10 games to go you never know!
Sunday morning and awake before my alarm (so the Thatchers cider and stuff was obviously not over done) and was soon sat down in Kingswood Wetherspoon having a large breakfast, it's been a while. Only 4 or 5 others in but I knew one of the lads but had not seen him for 3 years so was good to catch up. I think it took me longer to drive down the "track" to the car park than it to get to the fishery from Kingswood, pot hole hell. It seemed the weather forecast had kept the numbers down, with only 7 people showing up sadly. I paid my pools to Mandy Welsh and the draw was soon underway, very quickly there were a few groans when Nick Sanders drew 14 (he'd won off it the last match) and John Williams drew 10 (he won off it the week before). Apparently this is where the bulk of the carp are residing at the moment. I got peg 20, which is up at the wrong end at the moment but can be a decent area. I had nobody pegged anywhere near me so had lots of room.
I hadn't come to the match with any maggots or casters as the silver weights have been diabolical here all winter (1lb won last match) and all I had with me were, micros, 6mm pellets, expanders and corn. My view on peg 20 of the island.
I had the method feeder set up to fish towards the reedbed in the top left of the picture, and I had the bomb set up for casting off to the right. I had 0.17 to 16 GPM on both set ups.
The margin to the left looked lovely and was nearly 3 feet deep, but I never had a bite in the margin, think the water is still a bit clear.
As the wind was already a bit nasty and I assumed it would get worse, I only set up a token top set plus 1 pole rig. Obviously not far enough out as never had a bite on this either!
We started at 10am, and I began on the topset plus one for no bites, and was quickly on to the method feeder with a 6mm pellet in a band, I was using Thatchers original groundbait for my mix to start. On either my second or third cast I had a jaggy bite which might have been a liner but it jagged again and I lifted into a fish, it was a skimmer of nearly 2lb. A couple of casts later and a similar bite and skimmer number two was netted, had I already won the silvers? I then had my first proper pull round and carp on, it was a lovely brightly coloured 3lb common. Things went quiet so I added some micros to some of the groundbait so feed a little something more. Soon after this I had an early visitor in the shape of Mike Nicholls, he saw me miss a bite (or liner) and then get my third skimmer. Mike went off to visit others and left me to it. I made a change to corn on the hook, and my first cast on this saw the rod ripped off and I could not stop the fish and it snapped the hook length. Back out on the corn and I had another near 2lb skimmer, but after this it went dead on this line.
I had been feeding small amounts of 6mm pellets with a catapult off to the right about 3m off the island, and now just after the hour I tried this line with the bomb. As Mike came back round he saw me casting out and said "what's that on your line a plummet" lol, I was using a Preston inline cube. I then had my first bite on the lead and netted my second carp, Mike wished me luck and went on his way. I stayed on the lead for the next hour and had 2 more small carp but was not getting any indications. After trying the pole lines I went back to the method feeder swim with corn on the hook again. No liners or indications for a couple of casts, but then a couple more skimmers graced the net. Sadly the method feeder line never threw up another bite after this.
Back on the lead and pellet and 2 carp in 2 casts, thought here we go but no, that was a real flash in the pan. I had tried feeding a bit of pellet off to my left once the method had died, but this only produced 1 bite, again from a skimmer. I was told that peg 22 often produces good skimmers, so maybe the odd one drifted down to me today, never caught one infront of me or to my right. I was struggling a bit now until with about 90 minutes to go I had 2 more carp in 2 casts on the lead, but as before no more followed. I endured a fruitless hour and 15 mins when I was thinking things would improve. Then with 15 mins to go I dropped the lead out on the right line and it went straight round as I was tightening the line, but it came off about 30 seconds later and I am sure It was fouled. Never mind next cast it went round after 5 minutes for another carp, and next cast it went round again! Then the whistle blew at 15:30 for the end of the match.
I had 40lb on my clicker for the carp, and the six skimmers I hoped would go 10lb. I had hear that Nick on 14 had bagged up on carp, and I could see John Osbourne on 25 had caught roach most of the day but no clue how I had done.
My clicker was working well today with my carp going 40lb 2oz, and the skimmers went 11lb 2oz. 51lb 4oz in total, not a bad day and I actually enjoyed it as I felt I had to work hard all day. I do think in hindsight that I could have fished the pole long, as although the wind strength did get up a few times it was not as bad as I expected. Still we will never know, and there certainly was not a lot of fish in front of me as the lack of liners for the last four hours proved.
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