Commercial House Winter League Round 1

I was asked by Jerry Pocock if I could fish with his team the Midland Spinner in this league. I’m able to fish four rounds as have to give my primary support to Thatchers team events. It’s always nice to fish the local river, but many other anglers also enjoy it travelling from far afield.

Have to mention the lovely day out Saturday watching the Gas win at home, cracking match, and was celebrated with a few ciders. It was an early kick off so a long time to celebrate 😆.

Sunday morning I picked up Jerry and we got to the draw at the Crown at Keynsham. Jerry had pegged the match and told me 2 sections were at Newbridge, 1 at Swineford and 3 at the Crane. Soon after a breakfast roll and a cup of tea Jerry drew and it seemed to be ok, especially for me on dolly peg 15 at Swineford 😊.  I’ve won on this peg on the pairs league this year with 18lb of chub and roach and was really happy. 

My view today. A bit of shade for a while but boy did it get hot later in the match 🥵.  Andy Reid from Lobby’s was above me and Bristol City fan Leigh Wakefield on end peg 17. Leigh’s peg had loads of chublets and chub swimming under the surface and I was not sure if I could get the better of him. Top bloke is Leigh, not all City fans are bad eggs 😉

Gear put up today, waggler, crowquill, pole rigs; 1.5g with 18 N20 to 0.10, 2g with 16 N20 to 0.11, a 4x14 with 18 N20 to 0.10 for fishing mid depth.

We started at 10:30 and I crashed in 10 balls of my usual Sonubaits Black Roach and Black River with a good helping of casters and hemp. I chucked the waggler looking for the early chub, but I hadn’t seen any and my peg was full of bits and dace. After 15 minutes I put that down and tried the pole at 13m where I fed, first run down on a caster and hooked a roach, but a jack pike grabbed it. Eventually the pike let go of the roach, I was not looking forward to hooking more pike! The next 15 minutes it was a bite a chuck, a couple of bleak a dace and small roach. I stuck a tare on the hook, I find these much easier to hook than hemp though can’t say I’ve had lots of days where you catch on tares. Well first drop in on the tare produced a roach, and so did the next one. I was getting a bite every chuck but missing too many, so I pushed the olivette up and spread the two droppers more. This made a difference and I hit more bites.

I was feeding a pouch of hemp one run through and then next I fed a pouch of maggots and casters across the river. Soon the roach were coming off bottom and I had to shallow up a foot. Bites were coming as soon as the rig settled if not before and i hardly had time to feed. I was soon needing to shallow up again but the rig felt too heavy for this depth so I tried the 4x14 rig. It worked but it felt like I was catching slower waiting for rig to settle, so I went back on the 1.5g and the roach just carried on gobbling up the tares!

An hour to go and I decided to stop feeding the waggler line as the small fish were still there. I had a little go on the crowquill to give my body a rest from shipping 13m of pole. I had 3 roach on this on tares and then missed bites so back to the pole. It proved that there were tons of roach in the peg bottom to middle.. solid!

When the match ended I was feeling the heat, the sun was burning my pole and landing net pole, but the roach carried on feeding. I was sure I had 20lb of roach, I had fed nearly 2 pints of hemp.

Swineford fished very well and I won the sectional with 24lb 7oz. Rich Whitmarsh had 16lb and then Leigh had a 14lb, Andy Reid 13lb that just beat Andy Britt 13lb, Mike Goodhind had double figures too!

It was a nightmare back at the pub as the sports ground opposite wouldn’t allow us to park in there, and there’s not much parking in the area as it’s all double yellows! Managed to get parked up and walked back, and was soon told that I had won the match as Sam Johnson was second best weight with 16lb 8oz from the Crane, then Rich Whitmarsh was third. Poor old Rich got beat up by pike so could have weighed a lot more, once again the pike stayed away from me after the first fish, that’s lucky!

Here’s part of my catch today, 18lb in this weigh.

Some very good river anglers were here today and you’ll see a few of them on the sheet below with section and overall. Great to win against these guys, another win for the Gas too 😆😆😆

Here’s the team positions after round 1 and pleased to see our team win today. The team was Jerry, me, Derek Coles, Shane Caswell, Craig Pinker and Jeff Surmon. Local lads who just love fishing the river.

A weekend off now, then the last round of the pairs league, one more good draw please, or is that greedy 😉😆

Bathampton / Bristol & West Pairs

Round 5 of this friendly competition and it was back at Newbridge for this one. I had missed the first two rounds on here when a fair few bream have been caught so I was hoping to get on few! On my way to the draw I had just got on the ring road after picking up a McDonalds breakfast when I realised I’d forgotten my reels and feeders. Had to turn back and rang Dean Harvey to tell him I might be late. I arrived at the pumphouse a minute past 8am and the draw was underway. Rich Lacey and I were last to draw so it was fingers crossed we had something decent. Rich drew again and put me in A section and I got peg 3 which was behind the pumphouse, Rich got B9 which was peg 63 and meant he was definitely in the bream area. Our nearest challengers had also drawn well so it was going to be interesting!

I last drew this peg in the Poppy match when I had some nice chub, but they haven’t shown this season so far and neither have the chublets, but they are there for sure. Jerry Pocock helped me get my gear to the peg as the path is too dangerous here for a trolley. Jer was on peg 18 again and last time he had 30lb of bream on it. No surprise he was fishing for bream today.

I set up the trusty Preston Absolute platform to get me as far out as possible. Never bothered to set up a feeder here today, not used one yet in the league lol. A 4AAA waggler with 16 to 0.11 Powerline for chubbing was put up, and just two pole rigs; a 1g pencil float with 20 to 0.10 and a 1.5g with 16 to 0.12. With virtually no flow there was no need for heavy rigs, just had to hope that bleak would not mess it up.

The match was just about to start when a couple who live on the orange boat jumped in and swam / paddle boarded/ fell in. I thought it was probably not a good idea to start on the waggler….

Threw 12 balls of Sonubaits finest on the 11m line and shipped out with the heaviest rig, ran it through 5 times and no bites. Picked up the pencil float, ran it through 5 times without a bite but then had a roach. It was a slow start but gradually I was getting more bites on a maggot. All the while I was feeding maggots and casters on the waggler line. I reckon after an hour I had 3lb, roach, dace and one chublet. However, the waggler line was alive with swirling fish, not bleak but chublets, and I had to get on this as it was still cloudy and boats were not too bad. I had bites immediately, and within a few seconds of the bait hitting the water, chublets averaging 6oz but I did have a 2lb chub. I had a good hour on the waggler and even when a boat went through the chublets would come back. The great news was Rich had a good first two hours with about 7 bream and 3 skimmers, so we were looking good.

I had to stop fishing the wag for a bit when about 6 rowing boats lined up along the river. I had a few roach on the pole but not decent size so was soon back on the waggler. I took some more small chub and also had another 2lb+ fish and a couple of pounders. Then the sun started to come out and the boat people went for another swim and this was pretty much the end of the chublets. Luckily for me the pole line was now solid with roach that were well off the bottom taking the loosefeed. I had a nice last hour on this trying the wag a couple of times. When the match ended I knew I had a hell of a day and had been on a right aquarium lol.

Jerry weighed me in and I had totally underestimated what I had tipping all the fish on the scales and they bottomed out. We took the biggest fish out and then took more out, and after 3 attempts got 19lb 8oz, had to put the net back with no photo. The remaining fish went 10lb 6oz for a total of 29lb 14oz, we could get a picture of these my best fish. 

As it turned out Rich won the match with 38lb and I came second, Derek Coles had 21lb of bream from peg 59 in the bream area. Obviously me and Rich had a maximum of 20 points. But even so our challengers all did really well both Ivan “end peg” Currie / Dave Lewis, and Jerry / Nick had 16 points. Rich and I have an 8 point lead going into the last round, but as we saw today draw in the wrong areas and you’re in trouble, with some top anglers struggling for bites. But I had one of my favourite days on the river despite all the pitch invasions 😆😆😆

Here’s the section boards and the overall scores after round 5. Back on the river next week for the commercial house.

Bathampton / Bristol & West Pairs

Round 4 of this 6 match series, round 3 was last Sunday which I missed recovering from the National. Myself and Rich Lacey were now just one point behind Ivan Currie and Dave Lewis and so we wanted to make sure we had a good day today. This round was split with one section at the trees, Salford and one section at Swineford, that meant we had to be drawn by 7:30 so it was an early start, but I made it with lots of time to spare today! As usual, I left it to Rich to do the draw and he kindly pulled out Swineford for me, permanent peg 17, which was one below where I was the last match here when I won. Rich himself had drawn the end peg at the bottom of the trees which can be good for roach, But the top pegs in his section I felt would be hard to be as there’s more roach up there.                  

Gave a lift to Jerry Pocock who like me was at Swineford again. He and Nick Coles were on the same points as me and Rich, but I didn’t fancy Jerrys peg today.

One good thing about my peg is that for a large part of the day it would be in the shade. Some people call it the chub peg as over the years it has produced many chub, but definitely better from Autumn. Derek Coles had it last match and had 7lb of roach and tiny chublets.

I set up a crowquill today that was far too heavy for the depth but I wanted to get through the bleak, 14BB went on! A 16 and 0.12 fluorocarbon finished it off. A 4AAA waggler with 16 to 0.13 powerline, and a lead rod threaded up but not used.

I was set up way before the 10:30 start so had a wander around, I had Alan Mapston on 15 and Mike Weston on 19. End peg was Ivan Currie and we all fancied him to win the section from there as he’s on fire at the moment.

I began by throwing 6 balls of Sonubaits black roach and black river with some hemp and caster in it. Then I had an early look on the waggler which I was just about to give up on when I hooked a chub, but after 5 seconds it had shed the hook. Another 15 minutes of catching bleak / tiny chublets was enough and I had a go on the crowquill over the gbait line. Well it was just as bad here tiny bleak grabbing the hookbait, and when I did get below them the roach were minuscule. However, as I found last time you do need to try to keep going and the better fish should turn up.

Two hours gone I went for a walk as I only had about 2lb, around me most were saying 2 or 3lb so it was tough. By regularly feeding small balls of gbait I began to get less bleak and the roach were now a better stamp and I started to enjoy it. Not long after Jeff Surmon came along and sat behind me. Jeff should be fishing but he recently hurt himself in a fall and is recovering, but he’s on the mend. 

Jeff sat behind me at the time I was catching best so I think I entertained him lol, but seriously we had a good chat. I did start to have some pike problems and lost about 5 hook lengths, but after that the pike went. I carried on catching odd roach till the last 40 minutes when the flow slowed up, less bites and missing most of them! I was reluctant to try the waggler as every time I fired a pouch of maggots across the surface exploded with fish and they were still tiny. But I needed to do something and so I cast the crowquill across the river. The hook bait got to the bottom which surprised me, and then it went under. I had a 6oz chub, the next three casts produced identical fish, missed a couple of bites then had a roach and that was the all out.

My immediate thought was I should have tried that earlier, but it’s easy in hindsight. I reckoned I had double figures Jeff said 11lb.  I had a fair wait to find out my weight as Ivan had the scales and he had to mountaineer to get out the peg. Ivan had 14lb of roach and had done well, Mike above me struggled and had to move peg when a moored boat came loose and stuck in front of him, he had just under 5lb. My fish went 11lb 14oz, a lovely second half of the match, just missing a couple of chub.

 As it turned out I came third at Swineford beaten further upstream by two ounces, but luckily for me the angler was fishing it as an open, meaning I got 9 points out of 10. Here’s my board from Swineford.

No bream caught here today, hence why Dean Harvey came last I guess 🤣

Below is the board from the Trees, only 1 bream caught by Deans partner Derek Coles, but Derek only weighed 1 bream as everything else swam out of a hole in his net 🙈. Rich did well because as expected the other end of the section was much better for roach and Graham Hunt moaned on 15lb 8oz to win.

Results were back at the Swan, we were all glad of a cooling pint! I’d got the section money which Dean kindly paid me mostly in coins, 🙈🤣, but the bar staff were pleased to get them. You could tell the anglers who had caught a lot of small fish by the state of their clothes, Ali Gibbs one of messiest 😬

Dean tried to do a quick tot up of the overall points, but he forgot his abacus and didn’t get it right. I reckon Rich and me are in the lead, 4 points ahead of Ivan and Dave, with Jerry and Nick just a couple of points behind them, it’s still all to play for.

One thing I forgot to mention when I got my bait Saturday, I walked through the front door and dropped the bag of maggots which split. I shouted to Wendy to help but she took one look at the maggots and couldn’t help lol. I ended up getting them rounded up with a dustpan and brush, and Wendy did help by grabbing me a couple of bags. Fingers crossed I got them all 🙈😆

Well there’s no significant rain in the forecast and the river is going to be very low and slow or almost stopped soon. No fishing for me this weekend, up to Newbridge for round 5 the week after.