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.