Last chance on the river

 After the disappointing weather and flooding of the previous week I was really pleased to enjoy a lot of dry weather. However, with football on Saturday and my having to travel on business to Germany Sunday I was going to miss out on the last week. However, I was able to get Friday off work and so was going to get one final crack at the Bristol Avon.

I had my bait still from last week and that was done worms, casters and dead maggots. The question was where to go? Saltford straight was a good place, but then I saw that Graham Hunt had 60lb of bream there Wednesday, but not much the following day. In the end after a chat to bream whisperer Dean Harvey I settled on Newbridge. I got to the river about 9:15, and pegs 14 to 20 were all free, so I chose my favourite peg 18. The river is still pacey but the colour is dropping out and going that green colour. It would be a feeder job.

A 45g Preston open end feeder was put on my mainline, a size 14 PR355 to 0.15 Powerline as ever for bream. I’d mixed a bag of Sonubaits Sweet Skimmer, and added a small amount of Thatchers and Dark F1. I really like these baits for bream and skimmers, and I can add more or less Thatchers to increase the fish meal content.

An underarm cast to about 18m was my chosen spot, 3 or 4 red maggots on the hook. From the second cast I started to get small roach bites, I was happy to get them and keep casting regularly feeding the swim. After about 40 minutes the roach bites stopped, this was now either gonna be down to bream moving in or just nothing in the swim. Ten minutes later a great bite that nearly pulled the rod in, had to be a big slab. As the fish came in closer it started fighting like a chub, when finally in the net I could see it was something I’d not caught for years, a sea trout! About 3lb max, very long but thin.

That was a nice surprise, I put it straight back into the river. It took another 15 minutes to get a bite, this time it was a 1lb skimmer. A chap saw me catch it and told me he was going to fish in peg 16. After another 15 mins I had a bream on worm, and another soon after. Then I couldn’t get a bite on a worm. However, by using either maggots or casters on the hook I had a nice steady  run of skimmers and a couple more bream, treble caster probably the best.

Bites then stopped and when they returned it was roach bites. Whatever I tried it was just small roach. As I needed to be home by 3pm I decided to pack up at 2:15, on my last cast I’d not had a bite and picked the rod up and as I wound in it all went heavy. First I thought bottom, but no it’s moving, maybe a huge bream? It kited downstream and boiled under the tree, I had the keep my rod well under the water. I was thinking a foul hooked bream as it was a heavy weight that occasionally made me give line. Then I saw it, a pike lol, three red maggots showing in its scissors. It took two attempts to net it, another long slim fish, about 7lb.

Not being a match catching two fish that wouldn’t normally count made no difference, and I really enjoyed catching them. I pulled my keepnet out and guessed there was 30lb in there. Whatever the weight it didn’t really matter as I’d had a real enjoyable 4 hours fishing with some good fighting fish. It was a relief to catch them, as I’ve really missed the river and it made up for my Swineford blow out. But that’s it for me another season done, I really hope I can get on the Avon a lot more next season. Good luck to you if you are getting out on a river before the season ends, it’s usually a good time.