Lower Avon Teams of Four

 The second round of this new league which was once again being held at chequers, Jack Whites and Crane, but as we had 2 hospital teams in Swineford was also in. I had not helped with pegging this time as I had been away on holiday for a week in Zante, and only got home just before midnight Saturday. No preparation done and was getting my bait delivered in the morning by Mat Challenger, thanks Matt!

We met at Wetherspoons in Hanham for the draw, had a nice breakfast, Mark Harper did our team draw and I was going to the Crane, second field in the bay, this peg produced chub first match but none last week on the com house. Mark was end peg at Swineford, Rob Manns at Jackies again and Towner at Chequers but not a great peg.

My peg was lovely and calm when setting up with just a very slight downstream wind. To do well I would need some chub and so set up a 4AAA waggler with 16 to 0.13 powerline and a blockend feeder. Also set up a couple of rigs for the pole at 13m, 1g pencil and 2g both with 18N10 to 0.10 accu power. I also set up a chopped worm rig but never used it.

We started at 11:15 and decided to cup 8 balls of gbait in today (Sonubaits black river and roach) to try to avoid pike problems. I fed caster and hemp over to the boats. Dropping in on the pole and it was bleak soup, I was soon pushing the Olivette nearer and nearer to the hook, eventually it was just above the hook length. Caster on the hook seemed best when it got past the bleak, catching odd dace and roach. Didn’t take long for a Jack pike to start causing me some losses, but after a while it went. I kept plugging away but was still frustrated by bleak, after an hour bites only came from bleak so I cupped in another ball and got a few more fish until another pike hit. This one was very big and I was soon bit off, a couple more fish then lumpy bit me off again. Another roach and lumpy took it, I held firm thinking it might let go this time, it didn’t, and all I ended up doing was trashing the complete rig!

It was frustrating but I decided to take a rest from unintentional pike fishing and try the waggler. I was pretty sure this was going to be bleak soup as I’d seen them boiling on my loosefeed. I was right, double or triple caster or maggots was snaffled. To make matters worse the wind had picked up and was now upstream and in my face, meaning I was struggling to get my casters and hemp by the boats. After 20 minutes of being bitted out I tried a piece of corn on the hook, nothing for a couple of casts then a 4oz roach. A few casts later the float went under again and chub on and it felt like a good un. I played it hard as there are lollies and weed in close, luckily everything held and I landed a chub close on 4lb.

With about half the match left I was sure of hooking some more chub, but despite flogging the waggler I never saw another chub. I did manage to catch a few nice roach on the waggler on casters as the bleak became less trouble, but even then I lost a couple to pike and had a few near misses. I didn’t try the pole again as I was sure I needed chub to do well.

When the match finished I was sure I had double figures but gutted not more. Steve Lovell above me had similar pike and bleak issues he said, and Derek Coles below had major pike issues! However, on the upstream end peg in the long ashtip field Ben Rendall had avoided pike and bleak and had a lovely 17lb of roach on the long rod to win my section, I ended up second to Ben with 12lb 10oz. Steve had just under 10lb and Derek and Gary Cross both had 8lb 1oz. 

Back to the Lock Keeper for the results and once again there were some good weights with team mate Mark Harper winning with over 26lb of roach! Ben was second and Lee Gregory 3rd with 16lb at Swineford.

As Ben framed I got the default £50 section win, that’s two on the bounce 😆 

Teams on the day shown below, my team were second on the day, beaten by the other Thatchers team, but we are leading at the moment.

I cannot fish this weekend and next trip out is not yet decided until team selection is done.

Lower Avon Teams of Four

 Normally I would be fishing the Commercial House League at this time of year, but the Lower Avon Teams of Four league run by Ben Rendall was more appealing to my Thatchers team. It was looking like 7 teams were fishing, but then I heard that two teams pulled out just a week or two before, shame. I don't know what it is that anglers don't want to fish the Bristol Avon around Keynsham, this time of year it is generally full of fish, I guess easy walks and pellets are more attractive?

I helped peg the match with Shaun Townsend and Ben Matthews on Saturday, we put 5 pegs at Chequers, 10 at Jack Whites and 5 up the Crane. Everyone would have lots of room and hopefully a few fish. I hoped to draw Jack Whites..

Most of the team met at Wetherspoons in Hanham where I had a large brekkie and Cranberry juice. Thatchers have two teams in, and my lot were Towner, Mark Harper and Rob Manns. The other side were Matt Challanger, Paul Isaacs, James Carty and Andy Greenham. Mark did our team draw, no Jack Whites for me... I was down Chequers on the upstream end peg round the bend from the straight, with the other 4 pegs on the straight I was not confident about a good finish. below me on the top of the straight was Derek Coles. Derek was on a peg that I used to know as the rock face, not that you can see it so well these days, but it was always a good peg for roach and chub as the flow pushes across, he would get a few I thought.

My peg has no features across, just reeds, and the flow is halfway and across, so I put the pole out of my mind today for roach.

I set up a waggler and a whip (both never used) a feeder rod (chucked out a few times) a 14BB crowquill with 0.11 accupower to 18 N10, and a 6m pole line for chopped worm with my faithful 1g rig with 0.15 to 14 N50.

There was a tide on today and so the start of the match was 11:30 which was great as the river had dropped to normal level by then and was still flowing. I threw 8 balls of gbait to the middle of the river (sonubaits black river and black roach) and then put 8 feeder fulls right across to give myself a place for bream if they fed. I went out with  the crowquill with caster on the hook and I was pleased to get a bite first run down, it felt like a good fish, but it was a foul hooked dace! I had a bite every cast and it was just a case of trying to hit them and work out what was going on, I had a few dace and a few roach. Then the dreaded hold ups, where the body of the crowquill is shown, small bleak and small dace were in the peg now. I had not loose fed the peg and all that was in was my initial groundbait balls. I had no choice but to reduce the length of hook to bulk to get passed the snots as I was sure there were more decent roach to catch. It did work to a fashion, but hitting bites was a bit tricky.

I had stuck with the float for 90 mins but then gave the feeder a line a go hoping for that quick bonus, alas no sign of bream and even double worm was ragged by bits. Back on the crowquill and I was feeding small balls of my gbait mix with hemp and caster mixed in to keep the fish in the peg, and avoided loose feeding to keep the bleak away. I was always getting bites, but hitting them was not easy as many were fast dace bites. Mid match I had a bit of a melt down, the wind got seriously a pain, blowing right in my kisser and causing the line to get behind the spool on at least 10 occasions!!!! I had to snap the line twice and tie it back together, never good to have a knot in the mainline, but I managed. To say I had tourettes a few time would be an understatement, my wife came and sat behind me and watched for a hour, and commented on my swearing lol. About 10 minutes after she went a creature appeared from the far bank and swam towards me, a creature my wife is very, very scared of! It was a grass snake of about 3 feet long and it went into the bank to my right but I never saw it again.

I took about 10 small perch on my short chopped worm line, but this was slowing up and then I hit a snag and lost the hook so this went up the bank! I focussed my attention on the crowquill, and the bits had finally gone in the last hour, bites were a lot slower but when I did connect it was always a nice roach of 3 to 4oz. I had my best fish a roach of 6oz in this last spell on a red maggot, though most of my fish came on caster. Match ended at 16:30 and I guessed I had 10 to 12lb.

Whilst packing away Derek came up and told me had really had a great day and reckoned on having 20lb! Oh dear I might be in trouble as I knew Ben Rendall had 8lb after 2 hours! I had the scales and would soon find out.

My fish were weighed first, and I was happy to weight 12lb 12oz, I think 14lb+ was possible but as it turned out that would not have made a difference. Derek took the section out with 20lb 11oz, 13lb of roach and the rest chub, all on a bolo float fished across in the flow. He lost two big chub which snapped him up! I ended up second in my section which I was relieved to get, Andy Greenham had 11lb 11oz and Ben Rendall 9lb 5oz (his peg died on him big time). 

We went back to the Lock Keeper in Keynsham for the results and I was hoping my team had done well as we had Rob Manns won his section, Mark Harper second and Towner beat one. Indeed our 15 out of 20 points was enough to win the day, so a great start. 

Derek Coles won the match (and that got me the £40 section money by default, happy days!) and ORb Manns was second with 15lb 13oz at Jackies, Ben Matthews third from Chequers with 15lb 11oz. Every section was won with double figures.

Teams on the day..

I've had an absolute nightmare with my laptop tonight, I think it is close to going in the recycle bin, taken me ages to upload photos, arrgh! Anyway I hope you had a great weekend and a few fish, and I look forward to the next round of this league in two weeks time. In the meantime the only other thing I have to say is rest in peace your majesty, and God save the King.

Turner 400 River Thames Calnfield to Kelmscott

 This blog is a week late due to, a late night home last Sunday followed by working away for 3 days. The Turner 400 was being contested by 29 teams of 4, my Thatchers team consisted of some very good river anglers, Andy Ottaway, Lee Trivett, Shaun Townsend and yours truly. The draw was being done at Clanfield football club from 7:30am, but as teams could place anglers in sections we already knew where we were going to be (we did a random draw rather than place) and I was headed for Kelmscott. Andy did the draw and let us know where we were, I was the downstream end of Kelmscott and had to walk from Grafton Lock. I wasn't to chuffed with my draw as I felt I was the wrong end of the section, and I was only about 8 pegs above above Andy who probably wrong end of his section too!

It was a nice walk past the lock, then three fields to get to my peg, I saw John Bohane who told me my peg had produced 25lb of chub recently in a match, that day the chub could be seen on the far bank, couldn't see any today. Still I was happy to know there were chub in the area and would be have a bonus fish line to go at.

As you can see from the picture there were stick ups right opposite me then a nice tree just below, lots of trees on this venue and I guess the chub find their homes under them. My biggest issue was that the wind was in my face and it was getting stronger as I set up, I could reach the tree easily with a 3.5AAA wag though which I set up with 0.13 to 16. There was hardly any flow and so I dotted the float down. I also set up a 1g chopped worm rig with 14 to 0.15, and a couple of pole rigs for 11m, a pencil float with 0.09 to 20, and a strung out rig with 0.09 to 18 for hemp. Also set the feeder up with 0.17 to 12.

I cupped a few balls of groundbait on the 11m line and fed some chopped worm at 7m down the peg a bit, picked up the waggler and cast out. I tried to feed it but the catapult only got the bait halfway, so I got a stronger catty and that got the bait not a lot further, bummer. I caught a 4oz chublet 2nd cast and a couple of bleak, but it was not any good as I simply could not get any loose feed anywhere near where I needed to and I couldn't all match, I was gutted. I dropped in on the worm line and had a few small perch, then went on the long pole line which was not great, a few tiny perch, dace and one roach.

After 90 minutes I reckoned I had 12oz at best and I was not getting any bites on my pole lines which meant I was in trouble. I guessed I needed a chub and so I picked up the feeder rod with a blockend feeder but to fish worm and caster. First cast and the wind was so bad the tip was blown around, so I put the rod rest down and put the tip by the river, Next cast I had a small bite but nothing, then next cast a proper bite and a tug of war began, with the right gear on I was able to drag the fish away from the tree and land a 2 1/2lb chub. With 3 hours to go I was feeling a lot better about things and expecting to get a few more chub. Well what happened was.. not a lot! I spent a lot of time on the tip getting stupid little pulls which I realised were crayfish, I reeled back twice with no hook, and the pole lines were dead. I did get another chublet and a perch on the feeder but that was it. Last cast and never had a bite but the hooklength came back looking like this, I assume a crayfish did this!

I thought I might have 4lb if I was lucky, and as it turned out I had 3lb 15oz. In the bottom ten pegs that were weighed in, in my section I came 3rd with that. Beaten by Gary Barclay above me who had 5lb 15oz, and John a few pegs below had 5lb+. I was happy with that and hoped I had done OK for the team. Andy in the next section had a high 5lb and was second in his 10 pegs beaten by an 18lb of chub, so looking OK.

When we got back to results Shaun said he was about middle in his section and Lee had done well with a couple of chub. However, it turned out me and Andy were indeed in the wrong part of our larger 29 peg section, with Andy only beating 4 more anglers, and myself beating 8 more anglers. As a team we ended up 10th out of 29, and the Drennan Team next to us who are a good local side had the same points as us and on weight had 12oz more. Again we had to be happy with that and took some credit from that.

Windmill Fishery Open

 Time to get back on the bank and a switch back to a commercial for a bit of carp fishing, which meant changing out a lot of the rigs, hooks etc from the recent weeks Trent challenges. Sunday was the only day I would go fishing so I was hoping for a decent draw at the venue to help me out. However, I woke up Saturday morning with pain in my lower back, it was that bad I could hardly get out of bed. I was supposed to be watching Rovers and so took a couple of Ibruprofen and battled on best I could. It got better as the day went on, but was still painful Sunday morning, but I managed to get the fishing gear into the van.

I had a brekky at Wetherspoons in Kingswood, no silly sights in here today lol and got to the fishery in good time for the 9am draw. I wasn't sure I would be able to push the trolley up the slope to the fishery, but match organiser Gerry Welsh and his able assistant Nick Sanders both said they would help carry / push my stuff, thank you so much! I drew peg 22  which I wasn't that chuffed with to be honest, but then I was told that there were some carp caught in the area on the previous day. The trouble with this peg is it has a large sedge reedbed opposite that comes out about 3 metres, so you cannot get to the far bank shallow water, and you have to apply a lot of pressure on any hooked fish to keep them out of the pesky sedge reeds. There actually is one tiny little area of bank but it is wedged in between the reeds and a bush / tree, a tackle graveyard i reckon.

With my back feeling sore I was thinking I don't want to be fishing a long pole in the wind, but it seemed I had little choice as the carp don't tend to be in close for a few hours on this venue. On my right on peg 20 was venue expert Shaun Townsend, he knows that peg well and it has a good clean far bank, and with an empty peg either side of him he was going to be tough to beat today. On my left was one of the fishery management team Dave Haines. I put a straight lead up in case that was all I was able to fish, and 3 pole rigs, a paste rig with 0.19 powerline to a 12 XSH, 4x10 carp shallow with 16 KKM-B to 0.17 powerline for slapping, and a margin rig for fishing corn.

I began the match shipping out to 13m and slapped the rig over a few times with a 6mm pellet, within a minute I had a carp on the hook, and landed it at 6lb. Shipped out slapped a few times and another carp hooked and landed. Shipped out slapped a few times and third carp in the net. Now this was a great start, but Shaun had warned me that this can happen here at present and then you start foul hooking them and then they drift off. Sadly for me Shaun was bang on, I went from being 3-0 up to going to 5-3 to the carp. Frustrating when you are only fishing a foot deep and the elastic gets pulled out and you think that must be in the mouth. I tried going shallower to stop the foulers but every time I did I never had a bite. All indications stopped and I was forced to get the 14.m section and go closer to the reeds and slap. This brought me some more fish but when the bites stopped I had to try something else and rest it. The paste line I had fed short was dead, but as the wind that had been strong started to ease off (and my back was OK) I thought I should plumb up further out and settled on 10m.

It was probably about 2 1/2 hours to go when I started to get indications and fizzes on the paste line, I was behind Shaun who was fishing long and swinging a rig to the far bank with pellets. I had a couple of 8 to 9lb carp and was thinking this would get better, Kev Winstone and Dave Wilmott (more fishery management) who were watching me also thought I had a chance of doing well. Sadly it didn't quite pan out like that, with foul hookers becoming a problem. I struggled the last 90 minutes of the match, couldn't get anything in the margin, slapping was not working and the paste was a frustrating time. With 10 minutes to go I hooked into another bite and threw the pole back to keep the fish away from the reeds, but it soon pulled all the pole out to 10m as I hung on to another fouler that made the pole look in danger of going bang and was up by Dave. This one though stayed on, but I knew it was hooked somewhere near the rear end and I took my time and a few seconds before the whistle netted it. It actually weighed 11lb 9oz and was hooked in the anal fin.

Nick Sanders did the weigh in and my fish went 83lb 13oz, Shaun easily surpassed that with 144lb 9oz to comfortably win the match, but I guess his back was aching fishing long for a long part of the match. Picture of the winner with his shorts that he split bending over, I'll leave you to decide what caused that lol.

In second was Matt Taynton who had just over the ton on peg 12, Matt did well but was also helped by having peg 14 empty as there was a mix up with an angler thought to be fishing not being there. Third was Gerry Welsh with 88lb from peg 1, and I was 4th getting a small return as last in the frame. The last gasp carp I had took me ahead of Nick Sanders who had 82lb 11oz, sorry Nick ;-)

Much like the overall winner, the silvers was comfortably won by Dave Haines with 15lb 4oz of roach, rudd, perch and a couple of skimmers, meaning I had winners either side of me lol.

All change on the gear front for next week, I am fishing the Turner 400 on the river Thames around Radcot. I've yet to draw a dent peg on those matches and end up scratching for bites, you never my luck might change. The back is still sore and not right so I may have to get it seen to if this carries on.

Angling Trust Division 1 National - River Trent

 After the poor draw last week on Newark Dyke I was really hoping to avoid that section this week, that was what I was mostly thinking on the drive up to Nottingham on Friday afternoon, positive thoughts lol. Well your mind does tend to wander when you spend a fair amount of time in traffic jams on Motorways.

We stayed in some digs in the center of Nottingham, bit tricky to find initially but well positioned for a enjoyable evening out, and it didn't disappoint. We actually found out during the evening the sections we were all going to be in. Another amazing organizational stroke of genius by the Angling Trust, they simply applied A section to the first anglers name on the team sheet, next one B, next C, well you get it. That probably meant quite a few captains going to A section, Mark Harper certainly did for us! As for me I was in F section, a split section between East Stoke and Sheldons, G was Newark Dyke and Geraint Powell was the lucky boy going there. 

Sections used today.

I was on peg 7 at East Stoke, peg 1 to 6 were in the first field and I was reliably informed many times that all those pegs would do well and likely beat all below them! Barbel were on the cards for most of those guys, with a near 50lb bag of them caught here last week. We were all on the inside of a big bend, and as I expected the river was deepest on the pole line and got shallower as you went across. On my right was a lad called Doug Jackson from Browning West Midlands team, he told me he lived 10 minutes from the river, so a proper local. He was a friendly lad and said we might struggle unless we latched in to any bonus skimmers, or maybe a barbel.

I set up 2 and 3g pole rigs for fishing at 11m, it wasn't a flat bottom with a big rise toward the bottom of the peg, and that had branches stuck on it as I caught a few! I also set up a 0.5 rig for fishing 4m to hand as I could see a lot of bits in close and they might be needed if things were poor. A Flat float, GB feeder, and block end were also put up. No waggler as the pegging was very tight where I was.

We started at 11am and I had a few chucks with the gbait feeder to get some bait in, then put 10 balls of gbait in on the pole line. Doug next to me put the GB feeder down the same line as me so I thought that must be good. I then fished to GB feeder until 11:50, all I had to show from this was one nipped maggot. Doug had a skimmer of 1lb first cast, handy fish. I went onto the pole and the first three runs down were all the same, float held up burst maggot no fish. Maybe bleak I thought, but no I caught a tiny dace and I mean tiny. I messed about with my shotting and depth and could just about catch the odd little dace but it was slow and hard to hook the odd bite I had. I came into the short line and caught 3 little perch and a couple of tiny dace, before it died. I was a bit shocked because there had been so many small fish there earlier I thought I would get some, but they obviously weren't happy in the clear water. Chopped worm caught me 2 perch, but of no size at all.

After about 2 hours I guess all I had was about 10oz in the net, upstream the anglers were struggling but all had a bonus, Paul Glenfield had caught well on the pole. Doug had added a couple of tiny fish to his skimmer, and all talk of the stewards was that it was fishing really hard. More time on the feeder was just wasted, as I never had a bite on either feeder all day despite giving it a good go. I had tried topping up on the pole and it would bring a few bites back but not for long. The inside would yield a few bites but they would go as quick and then it was just bites off minnows. About 90 minutes to go I had 2 roach in 2 drops on the long pole, just as I thought I was going to put a few in the net that really was the end of the pole line.

Not much more to say really, I guess I divided my time up between fishing for bits and a bonus, as soon as the bits moved off I tried for a bonus, the bits would never stay for long sadly. A struggle for me again, and at the end of the match both Doug and myself were saying we had 2lb. As you can imagine I was feeling very hot with no shade to sit in, there was a bit of a breeze at times which helped, but late on it went and it was a proper roasting. Team mate Andy Ottaway was sick and felt ill at the end of the match, am sure he had been affected by the heat.

The scales came down from peg 1 and as suggested I wasn't beating any of them!

Peg 1 had nearly 9 kilos of barbel, peg 2 5.5 kilo of barbel, peg 3 7kilo of barbel, peg 4 4 kilo of bits and skimmers, peg 5 nearly 5 kilo of skimmers and a barbel, peg 6 2.4 kilo. Apparently the top 4 or 5 anglers all had barbel jumping out of the water in front of them most of the day!

My bits went 1 kilo 100g, then I got beat both sides when Doug weighed 1kilo 120g lol. Below him there was another good angler Neil Parkinson who struggled to get 890g. Well I think I can live with that, if the locals can't catch! However, the next angler was a Barnsley Blacks lad who took 3kilo 750g, next angler had 560g.  Well there you have it, somehow the Barnsley lad did something amazing, apparently he had all small fish.  My weight was only good enough to come 33rd out of 49 in the section, so not great, and needed 2.5 kilos to get in the top 15. 

As a team we ended up 18th, which we were pretty pleased with. Andy Ottaway west best performer with 8kilo+ and second in his section, he had a big bream, few skimmers and 2 small barbel at Caythorpe. Martin Barrett had a nice day on the waggler with 5.5 kilo of dace to come 7th in section.

No surprise I guess Barnsley Blacks won again, Starlets second and Cadence Superteam 3rd. Pretty much the three best river teams in the country right there and they all put in many hours of practice.

There were some good individual weights, with the winner in A section having 36kilo 650g of bream, he had just 50g more than the second place angler!!! There were 5 pegs in A section that provided 5 of the top 10 anglers, a big shoal of bream there. 

Not my greatest two matches these last two weeks, and in the past I've always done OK on the Trent, but it was not to be this time. Like most rivers it needs some, well a lot, of rain, and hopefully some will come soon for the sake of all our struggling water environments.