Sunday 8 September 2024

Commercial House Winter League Round 1


After a break my Thatchers team put a team back in the league this year. I was personally happy as it meant more chances to fish my local Bristol Avon, though our focus as a team is on the Angling Trust Winter League. Today’s first match was from New bridge down to the trees. Eight teams of 6 are fishing this year, plus a hospital team is available if people want to fish it as an open.

The draw was at the Crown pub in Keynsham and I got their quite early and got the team sheet and pools sorted. Team today was Shaun Townsend, Rob Manns, James Carty, Mat Challenger, Steve Lovell and myself. The river had plenty of colour, and with more heavy rain overnight I was sure this would be a bream match, but they’re not in every peg. I did the team draw today, certainly didn’t get the rub of the green as I avoided all the recent bream pegs, James Carty had the best chance in peg 20. I was drawn in the trees peg 92 which is one below the stream, not a noted bream area really. Wasn’t sure if we were going to get to our pegs as Dean Harvey was having trouble getting the gates to the rugby unlocked and a queue was forming! Thankfully Dean sorted it, but he’s no Houdini 😂.

Arrived at the peg and was surprised to see the river was not flowing that fast, but was quite coloured. I was still wondering if the river would rise / get faster as the day went on. This picture was taken after the match, but the river didn’t change.

Although I was not in a good bream area I still felt I would need them to do any good in my section. I put up two feeder rods, one with a size 12 to 0.17 and the other had a size 8 if I wanted to try lobworms. I did set up a crowquill but as I never had a bite on it that will not be mentioned again. I mixed up Sonubaits Sweet Skimmer and Thatchers original for the feeder line. I had some old gbait that I would chuck in at 10m for the float / just in case the river came up.

The match started at 10:15, although some duffer further down in the next section shouted all in at 10 he was soon put right. I threw my gbait in at 10m and then went onto the feeder. After six quick casts I started getting bites straight away from small fish. But the bites were a nightmare to hit, it was little roach, perch and chublets. An hour in and I would be lucky if I had a pound, Jerry Pocock above me on the stream said he had 2lb. Trying big baits resulted in just more missed bites, but after 90 minutes I had a 1lb hybrid that was my first net fish. 

Just over 2 hours in and the small fish bites abated, it was pretty dull now and I started to ring team mates to get a feel for what was happening, not a lot for us it seemed, but James had 1 bream. At 12:40 I was on the phone to Andy Britt when the rod really bent over, bream on. Landed a 4lb fish, next cast and immediately another bream about 5lb. Well the next cast was biteless, as was the next 50 minutes and then I had another 5lb bream. It was the last one though. For the rest of the match I had 12oz eel, plus a few more small perch and chublets. I’d fished the feeder for all bar 10 minutes, so I had given myself the best chance to catch bream.

I had the weigh board but as I was not quite ready Andy Pritchard grabbed it, he was on the last peg in the section and told me he had 10 bream / skimmers, and they ended up weighing 37lb 3oz which easily won the overall section. I was second in the section as my fish went 18lb 10oz. Luckily for me Andy’s team is in A division whereas Thatchers are in B, so I would get the B section money.

Picture of Andy just getting his largest bream out of the net, it went 8lb 4oz. There was a bigger one caught at Newbridge by Steve Hutchinson, his went 9lb 3oz!

As you can see from my section board there were some decent weights here. 

Back to the pub for a beer and some grub, my team results were up and down, Shaun won his section, James was second, but Steve only beat one with 25lb lol, and Mat and Rob were last. That meant Lobby’s won our division and we came second. In A division Bathampton won easily.

Below are the section winners and top individuals. Derek Jarman was one peg below Andy Pritchard by the arch, a good weight of bream from there. Andy Cranston was on peg 40 at the end of the straight. Dave Clapton on the Norfolk reeds. Good anglers on good pegs made no mistakes.

Next week it’s round 2, Swineford Crane and Jack Whites.

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