Round 5 was on the lower Bristol Avon and we had Newbridge, Swineford, Crane and Jack Whites available. Myself, Shaun Townsend and Andy Ottaway were on pegging duty. We wanted to peg the match based on how the fishing was on the Poppy match. Shaun and me spent more time digging steps and making 2 new pegs at Jackie whites. A lot of the pegs here would benefit from having a rope as the predicted heavy rain would make the bank slippery. Not long after we had finished I was told that any peg needing a rope would be deemed unfishable. I was livid, and didn’t know what to do, in the end we put 1 section in at Jackie’s. Later my mood was worse with another Rovers loss at home, I had a cough getting worse and not feeling the best and thought a blank on Sunday would finish me off!
I was up early despite being up a few times in the night clearing my airways and chest. When I got to the draw people were asking me how it would fish after 3 frosts, I just said honestly I didn’t know. I drew the peg set for the team, not the best but not the worst I thought. I was off to Newbridge in the little field on original peg 5 or 7. Andy O had said he had seen fish topping in this field and thought I would get some chublets. By now the rain was torrential and walking to the peg and setting up was not fun. Nicky Johns on upstream end peg 3 was having problems getting the line through the rod rings, but he showed me a pipe opposite him was pouring dirty water into his peg, this had to help the fishing. I do like peg 3 over the years it’s produced lots of fish and I’ve won off it a few times.
My peg was still clear but by the start of the match it was coloured. This picture I took about 2pm when it was clear again
I was struggling to set up and get everything ready with the rain, in the end all I had set up was my trusty 13BB crowquill with 0.12 to 18, and a feeder rod with 0.15 to 14.
We started at 10:30 and I threw 8 balls of Sonubaits River and roach in at about 15m, didn’t put lots casters and hemp in this time. I cast the crowquill out with double maggot on, trying to avoid the many leaves. The pace was quite fast and I thought if this carried on I would be on the feeder. About third cast the float buried right over the gbait, a 12oz chub was netted and I had avoided the blank. A couple of casts later the same result and I was suddenly feeling better about things despite coughing my guts up. The first two hours were great getting regular chublets mainly 8oz to 12oz, but I had a couple of 1 1/2lb fish also a few dace. I did lose one to a large pike but I gave it some grief and it never bothered me again. The river started to run clean where I was and flow stopped just like last week, this slowed my catch rate right down. I was soaked through to my underwear and cold and needing a pee, so I quickly walked up to Nicky to see how he was doing, he was on a maggot feeder and said he had 30 chublets so had more than me, it was noticeable that he still had colour in his peg across.
Back to my peg and I tried a maggot feeder over to the boats but continued to loosefeed casters and hemp at 15m. First cast on the feeder and I hooked a chub but it got me snagged in close and I lost everything. Set it up again and gave it 30 minutes but no more bites. Back on the float and it was hard work but every now and then it would go under with a chublet. I lost what felt a big fish down the peg, but it just pulled out and the bait was not touched so perhaps fouled. I just kept working the float and changing depths and feed to get the odd chublet. In the last 10 minutes I had my first and second roach of the day.
Match over and I had the scales so packed up as quickly as possible trying not to slip on the mud. We weighed Nicky first he had 40lb 4oz a lovely net of chublets.
My turn and I had 30lb 13oz similar net to Nicky just not as many. Below me Jim Brockie had 19lb + and so less fish as you went downstream, here’s my section board, second for me.
I got back to the results with Jerry Pocock who I was giving a lift back, news had already filtered in of bream going on a munch at Jack Whites, the last three pegs were solid, can’t help feeling that even more fish would have been caught if we had 2 sections there. Mick Withey probably would have won, but he walked up the crane to get a second keepnet. Amazing weights, but that’s what bream can do if they decide to have a munch. Well done Andy Powell on the win, a proper bag of bream!
The Crane was mostly poor, the roach shut up shop, and there were a few blanks, also a few blanks in C section at Newbridge which was the section we didn’t want to peg.
Nicky Johns tied for fourth place with Alex Clements who had big chub from the cattle grid on the crane. I got the section win money by default 🤩.
Devises absolutely took the match out with 40 out 48 points!! My lot were tied second with DGL but we got third as less section wins. Overall DGL still lead with Devises second.
I had a bit of a brain fart at the results, I was drinking orange juice and lemonade as feeling rough, but then I picked up Paul Isaacs pint and took a swig 🙈, he told me I had to put it on my blog 😂😂. Anyway I’m glad that the team is now off the bottom league with one match left, and very glad to have had a warm shower and hot food. No fishing next weekend need a rest.
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