Angling Trust Winter League round 3 - Lower Bristol Avon

After a long weekend away in Benidorm last week I was refreshed and looking forward to getting back on the river. The good news was that my Thatchers team had come second on the Avon on round 2 and were joint top. 

The rain is still not doing much for the river colour but has put a bit of flow in it. Saturday morning was spent pegging Swineford and Crane with Shaun Townsend, we had to do a bit of digging too.

I got to the draw nice and early, I think most people did given that the clocks had given us an extra hour lol. After a nice breakfast in the Crown Inn I was then asked to do the draw for the team. With 4 sections up at Saltford in the trees, two at Swineford and two at the Crane I just wanted to avoid the trees.  Well that was the first bad thing to happen when I drew myself in the trees, but I thought 5 of the lads were on decent pegs. How the river was going to fish I really had no idea!

As I pushed my trolley along the river I was getting concerned as I went downstream from the arch, lo and behold I found myself on a peg that’s been very poor for a while. I just thought I would be lucky to not come last in the 5 peg section. That said I didn’t get a monk on and had to try my best for the team. My peg view.

I set up the usual stuff, 1.5g pencil float, 2g bodied float, a 2g chopped worm rig (lost the first rig in a snag plumbing up!) and a gbait feeder. I didn’t set up a float rod as time was short and the wind was bad, I hoped that would not come back to bite me.

We started at 10:30, I put a few balls of gbait on the pole at about 12m, then chucked the feeder. First quick cast on the feeder resulted in me snagging up. But after pulling for a break the snag came towards me, a great big branch as in the picture! My hook had straightened out so I had to change that, I then cast further downstream and had 6 or 7 quick casts and no snags.

No quick bites on the feeder so onto the pole, trying both rigs I never had a bite for 30 minutes. I fed my chopped worm earlier than planned and tried the feeder again. First cast and snagged again and lost the lot and had to set up again FFS!  

After about an hour team mate Guy Manton who was walking the bank got to me and said the section below was awful and Andrew Trudgian below me had 3 roach and a perch. I finally had a bite and caught a 2oz roach to cheer me and Guy up. At this point I was beating 2 in my section that were blanking. Working the rigs I took another 4 small roach before it was gone. I tried the worm line but no bites.

Back on the feeder and a few clear casts and then lost a hook then lost the lot again. Another set up and I prepared to cast shorter. Just over two hours in and with maybe 8oz in the net I was running the pencil float through with a pinkie with 22 to 0.08. I was about to give that up when I had a bite and struck to find a solid resistance and I thought another snag, but then it moved. I had a decent fish on and the no6 elastic shot out. After very tense time I was relieved to net a near 1lb perch. That was very much a one off.

Out of the blue after 3 hours I had a roach on the feeder my only bite on the tip). I smashed up another chopped rig on a snag and was cursing my luck with such a snag pit. I did catch a micro roach and micro perch in the last hour but nothing happened otherwise. About 15 minutes to go I don’t know what happened but I somehow managed to let go of my pole and the 13m section landed on my box leg, there’s a nice split in the section now which needs serious attention. Got to be honest I was not displeased when the match ended. 

I was on the scales and Sean O’Neill had the board, it would not take long to weigh in. Andrew below me had 1lb 5 1/2oz, my fish 1lb 13oz… a picture of my haul lol.

Sean had an all perch net of 3lb 14oz on worm which was a good performance. Mark Brush won the section by catching 3 late chub on worm. John Bohane had 1lb 2oz.

This meant I had 3 points out of 5 which was a result for me.

My section and the one below were awful (bar the end peg) but the rest of the river had fished its tits off. There were two sections where 16lb was last in the section!

Andy Pollard was first with 26lb of nearly all roach pegged just below Newton St Loe bridge. The angler below him Kevin Morris was second with 23lb. Andy Ottaway was 3rd from Swineford with 22lb of roach with one roach being 11/2lb. No bream were caught again.

On the team front Devises won with 31 points and my Thatchers were second with 28, just pipping DGL who had 27.

Overall points now are 

Devises 6

Thatchers 7

GBV 9

Matrix Talisman 11

DGL 12

After a rough day for me I was glad it was a team match, but my next match is the Poppy match in 2 weeks.