AAF Gp2 Match 4, Bristol Avon, 18/2/15

I was in charge of pegging this match as I know the stretch quite well, so it was a 0500 start for me and then a long walk along the whole match stretch, fortunately I had done a recce at the weekend so I knew roughly what pegs I would be putting in and that mnade the whole process a lot simpler.

I arrived at the draw venue in good time to find it still shut so it was a case of getting my bait for the day off Dave and then finding a coffee in Café Nero.  Whilst I was waiting in the queue the rest of the lads descended upon the hapless staff who were after a quiet morning.  I explained the pegging and we did the draw in the café as Wetherspoons had let us down, I ended up on A9 on the shallows then Ben was along the dead stretch and Daz along the line of trees so it wasn’t a great draw but I was hopeful especially after all the time had spent on the run up on the river.

As I drove from the draw venue my van started to make a funny noise of the rear end and I knew I had a problem, but as always I drove on to the car parking before checking it out. There was a large bolt sticking out my rear tyre so since it wasn’t life threatening I got my gear out of the van and went to my peg.

This was my view for most of the day as the swim is 2 ½ feet deep and on this occasion it was quite heavily coloured there was only 4-6 inches visibility so this was not ideal for the wag which is how I would have liked to approach the venue.

Tactics for the day though were a 3m whip for minnows and gudgeon over groundbait, I still set up a 2 swan truncheon wag to fish over depth ¾ of the way across, a maggot feeder and finally a lonk ledger to fish bread for the first ten minutes as I saw a chub or barbel roll in my swim as I was setting up.

So at the all in I fed a small ball of groundbait at 3m, and cast out the link ledger, I then got to watch Carl on the next peg bosh in 10 balls of groundbait, so that was most of the big fish spooked for a while, but I started to feed the wagler anyway.

After two hours nothing had happened so I phoned Pez up to moan about how hard the river was fishing, and I only went and moaned a pound and a half chub on, I followed this up with about 10 minnows on the whip and then a couple of hours later in the space of three casts on the tip I missed a bite, lost a trout and landed a 1lb chub. (All whilst moaning on the phone)

That was then end of my action and my 2 chub and 10 minnows were 1.39kg and enough for 2^nd in section and 3^rd in the match. The team came second which was a great result, considering the draw, and we are now within striking distance of the Nomads.  K&A in a couple of weeks but I am working away so cannot practice.

Thanks to the guys who helped me change my wheel and thanks to wilts council!!!!!!

What would I do different?

1.       I would have liked some pellet to try on the tip for the first hour.

2.       Other than that it was a good day, perhaps I should have not bothered with the wag but by loose feeding I felt as though I was pulling fish up from downstream of me.

A Couple of cheeky practices

With the next group match happening on a stretch of river that I hold dear to my heart, well I had my first barbel, river carp and 30lb river bag from the stretches around Chippenham so I know them quite well. It was because of this that we decided that I should try and get the team down there as many times as possible on the run up to the event.

My first trip saw me sat along riverside drive in some truly horrendous conditions and I ended up finding a swim on the back of the wind and fishing a stick float taking about 5lb of half decent roach and some dace. I was using a 6Xno4 lignum stick in the 5 foot swim and found that the fish were not that line shy so I could get away with a 0.1mm hooklength which is always handy when there are a few chub and perch about.  I also found that having a no.12 split shot halfway along the hooklength improved bite registration no end and caught me more fish. This session was cut short by work phoning and me having to go back in to sign some paperwork, I wasn’t best impressed.

The next session saw me going to Melksham as I had a ticket for this stretch and it fishes similarly, again a lignum stick was my weapon of choice and I shotted it with over 20 strung no.8 shot, I struggled this time due to my choice of swim and it deepened off before shallowing up and this caused dramas on finding the feeding fish, it was also quite snaggy and this cost me a few hooklengths, I also tried the link ledger but the swim was far too snaggy for it to work and it just frustrated me more.  I still managed a few chublet, bleak and a couple of nice roach, but don’t try to swing everthing to hand!!

The next session was a week later and I took  Jim along Monkton park to help him get to grips with the waggler, Jim set up the waggler and I set up the kitchen sink on the next peg up.

Jim had a nice day catching quality fish on the wag, I had a swim fill of tiny chub and struggled to put any fish together, I tried the feeder, Bolo, stick wag and ink ledger, caught on them all for 2.5kg.

My bag

Jims Brilliant net

Jim had 5kg + all on the wag and learnt a lot.

What would I do different?

Find out after the next group match.

South West WL, Rd 2, Newbridge

So it was a drive through a sleepy Bath city center at 0730 for me followed by a meet for the second round of the South West WL on the Bristol Avon. My team again was Premier Amalgamated and even though we had been joined by fellow Fosters Team Army stalwart, Kev, we were still down 2 anglers come the draw. I was team captain for the day and due to the fact that we had waited so long for the last 2 anglers we were the last to draw so I couldn’t even use my magic drawing hand.

Kev was sat on the bridge itself so had the chance of a good day, I was on permanent peg 24, and this looked good for a few of the target species but I ended my match near enough whilst setting up. My Z10 had been delivered a couple of days before and I was soon sat on m y box plumbing up a couple of rigs for a long roach line and a short lobworm line at the base of the near shelf 10m downstream. I also decided to try and catch bream or skimmers out of my peg so set up a groundbait feeder to fish just short of the far bank foliage. I was ready for the all-in even having had to mix two different groundbait mixes without a drill as I had left it at home, but as it sounded out went 8 babies heads on the pole line followed by 8 cricket balls onto a line just short of the far bank tree line.

I shipped my 2g roach rig out onto the longer line and managed 4 fish in 5 run downs but then the swim started to wain almost straight away and by the end of the first 30 minutes I had only managed another roach and a couple of small perch. I decided to give it a couple of small balls of groundbait and then chucked the feeder across the river, this was a nonstarter really and only produced 2 small chublet and a few small perch all day, and I spent a long time on it in between the canoes.

Speaking of canoes, I don’t mind sharing the water with other people but they were sooo bloody minded it was unreal, on more than one occasion I was unable to cast or fish due to a line of boats coming through or they would stop in front of you for a rest/chat….. Not too happy.

Back to the fishing, the pole gave me a few perch on the short line, including some wasps on half a lobworm and I was able to scratch a few more roach from on the pole line but at the end I was glad to finish, especially after not putting a fish into the net for the last hour.

The all out was called and after a wait the scales arrived, the two downstream pegs had pound weights, Andy power had 7lb odd mostly on the wag and the guy to my left had 8lb+. I had guessed at 3-4lb and was spot on with about 3 1/2lb for third in section. Kev walked up to see me after he had weighed and he had managed a section win with 8lb 10oz I think, and we had another second in section in the next section, unfortunately the missing anglers cost us and we were the strongest team on the day propping up the whole table, this last also put us into last in the league.

Off on exercise for a few weeks now so I will let you know how I get on when I am back.

What would I do different?

I should not have balled in on the feeder line, it had been a cold night, I should have gone softly softly to see if any fish were there.

I should have set up a crowquill/ bolo for the pole line so that I could explore more of the swim, the guy downstream managed a few nice Hybrids on the crowquill over the pole line.

Should have set up a wag to fish across as it appears that it was a better wag peg than bream peg historically. 

South West WL, Round 1, Crane and Swineford, Bristol Avon, 5/10/14

Since I left had Browning Andover in the summer I had been looking for something to do this winter, I had been looking at a couple of small winter leagues but it appeared that they didn’t want new teams entering so myself and a few others were all at loose ends. However a few weeks ago a message popped up on facebook from none other than Mark Harper from PI Thatchers asking for anglers to compete in the AT South West WL, I jumped at the chance as I have never fished this part of the Avon before and fancied the challenge of going against the likes of PI Thatchers and Maver Batheaston on their own territory. I was also promised lots of info so who could refuse that offer?

I could barely sleep the night before I was that excited, even with the added stress of moving house the next day, but it was not long until I was trying to park up at the draw venue, unfortunately the owners of the rugby club had heard that I was coming so they had not opened and we were all parked up the main road. Not ideal.

As I walked towards the main throng of people I bumped into a few friendly faces from all over the south of England, including Colin Gittens from Premier Angling, James Carty who is now fishing for PI Thatchers and many many more.

It turned out that the team I was fishing for would be an adhoc team under the premier angling banner, it included Colin and the team plan that we decided on was to catch as many fish as possible in 5 hours. I missed the team getting called for the draw but soon found that I would be sat on peg f5….. It meant nothing to me either at the time. I got given some rough directions but I decided to follow the first car I could to the main car park for ease.  Mark was trying to sort me some info on my peg but I was basically told to fish for roach as I was an end peg and that I might get a couple of chub on the wag under the far bank tree. This was good enough for me and I was soon winging my way to my peg as I was envisaging a massive walk, I was wrong and it turned out that I was the closest peg to the car park. Things got better when I got to my peg as you can see from the photo.

My plan was quite simple and I plumbed up a waggler rig first, well when I say plumbed I set it to 11ft deep and noticed that it had a few feet to go so I left it at that for a start, I used a 4 AAA insert waggler and put a 0.10mm bottom to a size 18 hook in case of the chub. Next was the pole and on plumbing up I found the flow was at 14.5m, with just over a top 5 of depth a 1g pencil and 2g round bodied floats were set up for that line, again with decent hooks and bottoms after the Thames the other week. Finally I set up a small maggot feeder to fish tight across just upstream of the tree tight to the brambles, as this was an out and out bonus fish rig the hooklength was 0.14 to a size 16 hook and I had it about 3 feet long for the start.

I was ready for the all in and once it was called out went 8 cannonballs onto the pole line at 14.5m with little feed in followed by 3 cupped balls laced with caster and hemp, I then sent the feeder across towards the brambles whilst trying to get my eye in with the catty. The wind was deceptive and I was cussing the fact that I could not get the bait far enough across the river when on my third cast on the feeder the tip bounced back. I struck and a good fish headed straight for the tree taking a little line, I managed to turn it and after a few hairy moments near the net a 4lb chub was soon being transferred to the keepnet. It was an awesome start and with shaking hands I rebaited and cast back out towards the far bank, 5 minutes later and a twitchy drop back saw a 6oz perch joining the chub. What a start, I now chinned off feeding maggot on the waggler line as it was difficult to remain accurate and so that I could reserve my maggot for the feeder line, I also reduced the size of the feeder with the idea of casting more often to keep the bait falling through the water.

After only another ten minutes another positive bite and another chub was hooked and carefully played across the river, and this continued until just after the hour mark I had 3 chub and a couple of perch in the keepnet for about 11lb. It had started to quieten down and I was getting indications from small fish so had a quick look on the pole, this was a good idea as I had 5 roach in 5 put ins, they were around 8-10 to the pound so I decided to swap my elastic up from a no.5 to a tight no.6 so that I could swing them more easily. It worked well but after 15 minutes disaster struck and my 14.5m section shattered inside the 13m section and this prevented me from fishing at full distance on top of my groundbait line. I decided to start feeding as close to where I had balled as possible so added a half butt onto the 13m of pole and rested it by chucking the feeder back across.

I had a quick indication that I missed and then the next cast I lost a chub in the tree when the hook bent out of shape, it was a 14 B560 so I swapped it to a 14 Carbon feeder and also made some floating maggots to offset the extra weight of the hook. As I had lost a fish I went back on the pole and had a quick run of roach and so my day carried on swapping between the pole and feeder trying to eek as many fish out as possible. I had managed another chub mid match and then the fishing dropped of and in the last hour was hard but I did lose one more decent fish on the feeder in the last 30 minutes when it ran in a weed bed under my rod tip.

The all out was called somewhere in the distance and I reckoned I had 15-18lb of fish, depending on the size of the chub, as the scales reached me the Thatchers angler on peg 1 had managed 16lb odd of perch and chub, then there was another double figure weight and then the 2 pegs upstream of me both struggled with 2 pounds and odds a piece. I pulled my net out and it felt good, 17lb 9oz good in fact and this was enough for the section.

Back at the car park I managed to claim my £1 side bet from James and then it was into the pub for the results. Thatchers won it by 3 points over Bathampton, and I managed to win the match by all of 5 ounces.

WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENT?

Not a lot really, maybe I should have spent a little more time on the pole trying to sort out the roach?

I also should have started on a stronger hook as I was not fishing for bream but it fortunately didn’t cost me.

And I will try not to break my pole again in future.

Chasing Shadows pt1

As I have alluded to in previous posts I have decided to try and track down a river carp from the Bristol Avon, hence the title as I am currently working on hearsay and myth.

My latest trip saw me get to the river for around 10 in the morning, and as soon as I crossed the footbridge I spotted a possible problem, there were a number of volunteers cutting massive gaps in the bankside vegetation with strimmers and lawn mowers in preparation for a boat race in a couple of weeks. This would have been a problem if I didn’t think that the fish were subjected to worst on a daily basis so I had a bit of a chat and was able to move into the swim that I had been prebaiting.

This was a nice plan and I soon had my rods up against the far bank weed with a trickling of live system over the top and I was confident for about an hour and a half then the carp gremlins started their little dance in the back of my mind.  I was wondering about the location that I had chosen as just about everyone I was talking to was saying that all the carp came from by the foot bridge or further down by the weir, I was battling the gremlins when a large fish rolled about 8m out in front of me….. Well I didn’t need a second invite and I quickly put a large pva bag of boilies and pellet with a 15mm hookbait over the top and decided that I would give at another hour at least before going for a look about.

I believe that the fish that rolled was probably a bream as within minutes I had small fish pecking and pulling at the rig, if there were carp there the small fish wouldn’t be so time for a move.  I decided to follow quite a strong recommendation from a guy that I was chatting to, he told me that lots of carp copuld usually be seen from the footbridge just upstream and that people fed the ducks bread from the bridge, always worth following where the ducks get fed and as I was packing down half a loaf got chucked at some mallards from the bridge.

No sooner than I had 2 baits in the water and the house up but the heaven opened as you can see above, I was quite happy though as I had a bait under the far bank canopy and a bait just upstream in a gap in the weed. I had leaded about briefly and not found any snags so I was happy with where I was set.

People continued past and conversations along the lines of “I did 2 nights here earlier this year and didn’t catch a thing.” Started to get banded at me and it transpired that for the early part of the season there are usually a few carp anglers along the stretch I started to see that it would not be as easy as first I thought.

The gremlins were in full flow again when a bizarre incident happened a little girl and her mum came along for a quick chat and the next thing that I knew the girl was winding my upstream rod in, still in the rest. Mum apologized, I thought nothing of it until I lifted the rod and found it snagged fast in some unseen obstacle. I was not happy.

To prevent temptation I moved downstream in darkness to a spot off the path where I knew the carpers would have been baiting, two rigs were swung 2/3 of the way across and about 100 baits followed them.  I was desperate for a sign of a fish and bite off anything would have been welcome, so the hookbaits were reduced to 15mm live system on both rods and pellet was in the pva bag. The night passed without incident apart from the party in the play park behind me... Sounded like fun. It didn’t take me long to get settled due to the fact that I decided against setting up the bivvy Less to pack up in a hurry.

I had agreed to meet up with Tony at Withy in the morning and as the fishing was hard this was not a chore, so just after dawn I was on my toes again driving across Wiltshire. I had to stop off at home to swap boilies for pellets and also to pick up a couple of secret weapons but I was at the fishery for just about 8am, Tony was due in about an hour so I did a quick lap of the lake, paid for my ticket, another lap of the lake and I found numbers of fish bubbling up and clouding the water in the furthest corner from the Cafe, so I moved in there.

The set up was a PVA method on each rod and no sooner than Tony had arrived and got set up in the peg to my right but I landed two skimmers and lost 2 decent carp, I was not impressed and decided to change the rigs about a bit, I had been fishing size 12 MWG but as I was still on my 2.75lb TC Scope carp rods I needed a little more metal to play the fish with as I hadn’t caught anything on them yet. The rigs were changed to 1oz inline leads, 10lb florocarbon hooklengths and size 10 hooks baited with 11-15mm pellet and small pva bags to stop the hookbait from pulling into any silt on the deck.

Tony was catching straight away and I got a bacon, sausage and egg butty delivered in reply to his bagging, this enraged him and also allowed me to have a quick look around the lake as the fish had obviously been spooked in from of me.

I found them on his other side so did a quick hop with my kit, the rest of the day saw me figure out that I could catch small carp at about a rodlength out infront of me all day, I also had a small snooze and got some more of my book read. Tony caught a few on the method and some skimmers on the pole, I stayed until dusk but only managed 5 carp and nothing over 10lb. Still it was quieter than the river.

 What would I do different?

On the river I would find the fish before fishing for them even if it means walking around all day.

Withy will see me going with the same tackle this winter but I am going to try and avoid small pellet as they attracted skimmers and smaller carp, I also think that the bigger fish tend to live in certain areas on the lake so I am going to start concentrating on them.

A new chapter?

As you are probably aware if you read this at all often I am a bit of a sucker for a spot of carping, well I have decided that over my summer leave I am going to catch a river carp from the Bristol Avon.

If any of you have tried this before you will know that the most important thing is location, followed by location and finally location, for instance the stretch of river that I was looking at concentrating on has a weir at both ends 4.5 miles apart, now that’s a lot of river for them to be hiding in and considering at best you can only see a couple of hundred meters at a time location is hard.

I was at the river for dawn as I thought that this would give me the best chance of seeing a fish or at least some signs of fish, I didn’t count on the extra colour in the water though and I had found a hurdle straight away, I only had a foot of visibility, not ideal for fish spotting. So carrying my rods, chair, tackle and some bait I started walking downstream checking out all the likely looking nooks and crannies. After about 30 minutes I got fed up of carrying my kit so I hid it in a bush (just in case the cows nicked it), and carried on down the river. Every now and again a spot would take my fancy and I would check the depth and bottom make up with the 1 rod I was now carrying and a bare lead, but even though all these places looked really fishy there was no guarantee that there was a carp within a mile of me.

In the end I got bored of walking and timed the 30 minutes back to my kit, I had seen some lovely areas but livestock, power lines and weed would make them tricky to fish so I decided to put a bit of bait into a spot I had found some fizzing in and give it an hour looking for liners or other signs.

Told you there were bubbles

 I gave it an hour and then decided to move on as I was being descended upon by a herd of young bullocks, discretion the better part of valor and all that, anyway I decided to move to a new stretch and after a 30 minute walk back to the van a 20 minute drive not including a stop off at Maccy D’s I was parked up and getting my kit out again. This time I left the chair in the van as the bait bucket would double up as a chair and started walking downstream again, I crossed bridges, forded streams and took on a bit of jungle warfare until I found my next spot, again visibility was a problem but there were signs of anglers and there was a nice looking feature on the far bank, good enough for an hour I thought.

As I sent the two rods over to the far side I found the bottom was clear probably due to the overhead trees but there were small fish topping frequently so fish wanted to live here.

I got bored quite quick as there were very few signs of anything happening again, lots of small fish but they probably wouldn’t be able to eat an 18mm Live System bollie so I contemplated a move (again).

Me contemplating another move

Now for the technical bit, as I was fishing for what I thought would be large uncaught or at least un landed fish my hardware looked a bit like this:

10ft 2.75lb TC Nash Scope rods

Shimano 5500 XTB Reels

15lb ESP Syncro XT line

3ft of ESP leadcore with an esp leadclip and a quick change link on a swivel in the clip.

1 oz lead (more of this later)

8 inches of Fox Cortex to a size 6 ESP curve shank hook, see below for the actual rig.

As you can see it gave a really aggressive hooking arrangement and all the gear was strong enough to moor a barge to, I looked at the rig in the margins and it blended in well so that was not the reason for the lack of action, so it was on my heels again and off to a stretch of river renowned for its carp.

Within 15 minutes I was sat behind a very tasty looking gap in the far bank trees and a quick lead about told me all that I needed to know.

Both of the rods were sent out but due to some weed closer in I decided against the lead core and took it off, then about 100 baits followed the rods out and the wait started. My watch said that the time was one in the afternoon and I had to be away in around 3 hours and for the first 2 hours not a lot happened. At about three, I heard some commotion in the rowing club to my right and thought that I was going to get my usual visit off 10-20 kayaks, so to stop any problems I decided to recast and run a flying back lead down each rod. This would have worked if it was not for the weed down the inside and down the middle of the river so after snagging the first rod up and breaking off it was time to go home.

WHAT I WOULD HAVE DONE DIFFERENT:

Next time I will make sure that I can spend the evening at the very least at the venue as in my experience nearly all my river carp have come during the hours of darkness, and if you don’t get one they tend to show in the early evening.

Secondly PREBAIT.

I am going to have to wait until after the weekend for my next shot as I am on the commercial national at Cudmore fisheries.

Melksham Revival 26/06/14

The river season is finally here and I have decided to join Avon AC based out of Melksham, I decided on this club as we fish the winter league on their waters and also they have got a few well hidden carpy looking areas as well.

The first trip saw me popping down for an afternoon, I decided on a peg in the late 20’s along riverside drive as there is easy access and I would be pretty much left alone by all but dog walkers.

The plan was simple, chopped worm and caster at 6m and then a waggler under the far bank tree with maggot and hemp, I started on a 1.5g Drennan Trio float but later swapped to a 1g Caralusso Torpedo to see if it would make a difference, it was not a lot in the steady flow. Hooklengths varied from 0.12mm to 0.16mm as I got bitten off by an eel mid-session so then stepped it up a bit.  I was feeding through a bait dropper and caught small perch pretty much all day. I managed a few roach and bleak on the wag but it was only getting used to rest the pole line and it never really took off.  I ended up with just shy of 8lb of bits and really enjoyed it.

The following weekend saw me down there again and I aimed to go further upstream and find some stick float water, however I had packed too much kit and the banks were still virgin so I took discretion as the better part from valour and went back to the early 20’s.

This time I took it as a match and had multiple lines on the go, a pole line at 13m where I fished 3 rigs for roach and perch, a whip line at 3m for bleak and a waggler line. I fed a bombardment of groundbait on the pole line and again caught a lot of perch which was a nice surprise, I managed a few big bleak feeding sloppy groundbait and also some nice roach on the waggler. In all it was a nice couple of days and it was good to get back on the flowing water.

AT WL round 4 Bristol Avon,

My drive to Melksham in the morning was full of trepidation for this match as the river had been carrying extra water all week and it had been raining again overnight. I was unsure whether or not the match would be going ahead so I had also packed some big wagglers and whopper droppers so that I would have been able to spend a few hours at Shearwater wasting bait if needs be. Talk at the draw was of how high the water was and how fast, It had been deemed safe by the peggers, but they had moved a section from Melksham to Chippenham due to the Forest section being unfishable.  We all respected a 2 minute silence before the draw and then the good stuff as Barry and Dave went up to conduct the draw, It was an alright draw with number 5 being where we would be sat for the day, I was on K5 which as it turned out was around 500m from the draw venue as the crow flies. After a 2 minute drive, a 10 minute walk (I used the wrong car park!) and then another 10 minutes trying to find the peg number I was at my peg.

As you can see it didn't look too bad and I thought that with the speed of the flow and depth of water that I know is in that area that a simple match would be best, I set up a feeder rod to fish across with bread for the opening 20 minutes, a 3m whip to fish down the inside in a small slack, a flat float for 6m out just into the flow and a waggler to chuck to the far side looking for chublet and bleak if it was hard.  I mixed 4kg of groundbait and then started to check that my kit would be right for the job, it was at this point that I discovered that my 3g Flat float was woefully inadequate so I put on the biggest one I had (8g) and over shotted it by quite a bit. This was a little better and I thought that I may be able to present for a short period over the top of a baited patch so the plan stayed the same.

At the all in I potted 12 balls of groundbait onto the 6m line full of chopped worm, caster and dead pinkie (i was hoping to snag a bream on this line), a small nugget of groundbait and a few pinkies went in on the whip line and then I cast the feeder full of bread over to the far side. This time the feeder did not work and after 20 minutes I went on to the whip, this proved to be a good idea with 6 Roach and 4 Perch coming to the bank in the next 40 minutes, but the swim was slowing drastically.

I decided to rest it by having a look on the flatty and I discovered that the float was still too light and in order to be able to get the bait down I had to slowly trot the rig over the area, 5 minutes was enough to convince me that that was a no go for the day so I started casting the feeder onto the pole line. This allowed me to present a static bait at least but there were still no indications at that point. I started top rotate the swims and found that I would get a quick bite on the whip and then nothing until it had been rested for a length of time. By doing this coming into the last hour I was up to 14 fish, I was on the feeder at this point and out of the blue I missed a quick bite, I tried one more chuck in that stint to no avail, rotated the swims again and managed a small perch from the whip line then twenty minute from the end and without seeing a bite I lifted into my biggest fish of the day on the tip, a roach of about 5-6oz, and then before you knew it the all out was called. We were on scales so I got to see how the section had fished, hard is the answer with the top 2 pegs being 1&2 and both having to go for the bleak in front of them for over 4lb. There was an invisible barrier between them and the last 4 pegs as we had no bleak to show for it, I managed 2lb 5oz for third, then there was another low 2lb and the bottom 2 both had ounces.

The team on the day was 4th which keeps in 4th overall, a point behind Swindon Talisman, the goal posts have changed and we are after being best of the rest behind Garbolino Blackmore Vale and Daiwa Gordon League.

Bristol Avon Practice, 12/12/12

I decided to go to the Avon for a quick practice and to try a few things before the match on Sunday; I pegged myself on the dead stretch two pegs above the blue footbridge (not too far from the parking), but I had no idea as to how to approach the river.

As you can see there had been a small frost and on my journey up to the river the thermometer had not gone above -5 degrees C, not a good sign. But there was a tinge of colour and the water was moving quite fast so I decided to fish a ground bait line down the middle of the river, worm down the inside reeds and a waggler line across. I mixed the ground bait and before setting up the pole I chucked out a licky bread feeder to the far side to see what would happen, the answer was that I would catch 2 chub for a total of around 3lb in the first 10 minutes whilst trying to set up pole rigs. The hooklength was 0.12 and a size 14 B560 with a 7.5mm punch of bread and a small wire cage feeder, cast and wait, easy.

After the initial flurry I decided that I had better start feeding the far side so I started to introduce some maggot only around 10-12 every run through and then I balled in 8 jaffas with no feed and cupped in 4 smaller balls with a mix of caster, hemp and dead pinkie in them. This was all on the 13m line and I then droppered in some worm and caster down the inside hoping for a perch.

Starting on the long pole and a single maggot the flow was proving to be troublesome even with a 2g float so I decided to set up a bolo rod with a 3g float, the difference was instant with runs of small dace and roach from further down the swim than I could reach with the pole rig. When the flow was not as strong and especially straight after topping up the pole was still better as the fish seemed to be higher up the swim and I would get a bite most runs through a couple of inches off the deck. The water level was fluctuating alot though as usual for down this stretch and staying in touch with the fish was tricky.

I tried the worm line a number of times throughout the day but did not get a bite, I do not believe that  it should be written off but in future I will fish it at the base of the near shelf, possibly feeding the worm in soil or leam and fishing a flat float over the top. 

The waggler line was the weight building line of the day with numbers of better roach, dace and a few small chub succumbing to double maggot either just tripping bottom or on the drop. I was using my 13ft CC superlight match with a Black magic 30 reel loaded with 4lb Cenex sinking mainline, the best float was a browning 3AA straight waggler with a 0.10 hooklength to a size 20 Carbon Match hook.  Come match day I would have 2 rigs to fish this line a straight unloaded for dragging and a thin straight or insert for OTD or tripping through. A top and bottom float may also be an idea but I noticed that I would catch the odd chub and there was no way of keeping them coming in the clear water, I tried upping the feed when it looked like being a good day but this just killed off everything so I reigned my feeding back in and managed to catch the odd fish until the end. I finished with double figures and a whole host of ideas to make the day on Sunday better; I also chucked the licky feeder out at the end as I was packing up and managed a couple of decent roach so that’s the get me out of jail tactic sorted.  It is raining between now and then so it should be 3g rigs, flattys and lobworms on the Bomb.

AAF Gp2 Match 4, Chippenham

Again for this match it was a very early start with me picking Pez up at 0445 for the hour and a half drive up to Chippenham, we decided that because we only needed 33 pegs that we would spread the pegging out a bit more this time, this saw us having less pegs to lay over a much larger area. A section ran along riverside Drive down to the beginning of the shallows, B section was basically the line of trees all the way down to the dead stretch and finally C section ran from the blue bridge into Monkton Park. There was plenty of room for everyone and I fancied a few pegs A5, A6, A8, B1, B8, B11, C1 , C7, C9-11 for a decent weight and the golden peg was not safe on B10 either as that has form with a small out flow and a bush opposite. Just before the draw I had some news from my mum that started with “Don’t panic but I’m in hospital!!”, if you have ever had one of those phone calls you will know that the first thing you do is panic. She had broken her hip on Monday and I was finding out on Wednesday!! Nice. She was safe and sound however, and there was nothing that I could do so I agreed to let the family know and arranged to see her that night.

The draw went well with Tommy (the drawbag) pulling out a decent team draw, with himself on A5, me on B10 (the golden peg) and Pez on C6. This left us in high hopes of a good day and I dropped Pez off at Monkton Park before finding some off road parking in the housing estate near my peg. I loaded up my barrow and found B10:

As usual I had a general plan that would focus around a pole line and a waggler line; I set up a bolo rod with a small bomb tied under a stick float and plumbed around the swim to get an idea of the contours. I was happy with a steady 6-7ft down the middle and it got shallower by about a foot across the far side and under a small bush that pushed over the water by a meter or so. Due to the depth, colour and flow I decided to discount bread on the pole line in preference for a mix of 30% River, 30% Browning Canal, 20% Browning Etang and 20% brown crumb. This was darkened off with some black power dye wetted and left to settle whilst I set up the platform, box and top kits. Due to a lack of time before the all in I decided to set the waggler up first, this was on my 14ft Xitan Waggler rod with a 030 Black Magic reel loaded with 0.14mm slow sinking reel line. A 4SSG loaded waggler was attached to the line with 3 no.8’s spread down the line towards the 0.10mm bottom that ended in a size 20 wide gape match. I then had enough time to set up 1 pole rig so I decided that a 1.5g carbo on 0.12 mainline and a 0.08mm bottom with a size 20 B511 should fit the bill as when it towed it would be heavy enough to still control bbut not too heavy for when the weir was backing up, elastic was no.5 Cenex through the no. 2 and 3 sections of my Z9.

I balled in 10 Jaffas of groundbait containing 50ml Hemp, 50ml Caster and 50ml deadened pinkies at the all in on the 11.5m line and then catapulted out 6 pouches of hemp against the far bank bush before settling into a routine of feeding 10 maggots every couple of minutes over that line. I was expecting some quick action due to balling in but after an hour of not alot happening, a change to the wag saw the float dip and fish no.1, a chublet, came to the waiting net. A swap back to the pole saw a quick run of small dace then a chublet, back to the wag when it got quite saw another quick flurry of fish and so the pattern continued through the match. I found that a quick run of fish would see them back off so the pole line would get a ball of bait and left whereas the wag line would just get left alone for a while. This worked well and I steadily put fish in the net including a few small chub on the wag and 3 roach for nearly a pound in the last 20 minutes from on the pole line.

At the all out it transpired that the river had fished really hard in A section with only a few fish getting caught, the same fate had be fallen most of B section and finally C section had seen the fewest dry nets and a few big perch came in from the same peg that won the match before Christmas. My net of fish went 3.780kg and was enough for 2^nd in section behind a 3.86kg weight consisting of 2 bream! The rest of the team had equally good results, Tommy had snagged a small chub in the dying moments of the match to get 2^nd in A section (1 of 3 fish caught), Pez had a net of perch from the peg next to the winner again for a second in section giving 11Sigs a points total of 6 and first on the day by a 7 point margin.

AT WL Rd 6, Bristol Avon, Melksham

The meet for the match was at the spencer club and Barry drew the team peg 5 and put me on G section, this was along the forest stretch in Melksham so I did not have far to travel at all. On getting to my peg I was directly upstream of a busy footbridge, and I was reliably informed that the last match had seen the section winner on my peg. I looked at the water and decided to fish a bread line on the pole, a stick under the bridge and I would also set up a tip rod if it was hard.

I set up 2 pole rigs both Drennan Carbo floats on 0.12mm to 0.08mm Cenex line and 20 B511’s with No.5 elastic through both top kits. One float was 0.75g shotted with no. 8’s as a bulk the other had an Olivetti and required 1.5g. I then set up an 8 no.6 to trot under the bridge down the inside with caster and also a tip rod that was 0.20 slow sinking match line straight through to a size 10 Carbon feeder hook, this I had set up as a link ledger with 2 swan shot.

At the all in I fed a small ball of licky onto the pole line and went over the top with the gram and a half rig, I did not have a touch even after changing to the lighter rig, changing depth and lightening the hooklength. I chucked the tip under the bridge with half a lobworm looking for a chub, tried the stick for 30 minutes and up until the last 15 mins all I had to show was a small perch that I had mugged of the end of my keepnet when it swam past. I also caught 2 roach on bread that I had continued to feed religiously for the duration of the day from on the bread line in the last 15 mins but that was it.

I finished with 7oz; this was enough for 5^th out of 7 anglers in my section and the results for the day saw that the team, even with 2 section winners and a section second had not done well and we were 6^th on the day and 5^th in the league.

AAF Gp2 Mt2 Bristol Avon, Chippenham, 16/11/2011

So it was back to my old stomping ground in Chippenham on the Avon, and after the previous round I was looking for a better result so that I might be able to get my mojo back and start to get back up the leader board again. My day started at 4am with an alarm clock going off in my ear as I had to pick Chris up at 0445 so that we could get on the river early and peg it for the day’s festivities. We had a good run and arrived at Riverside drive at around 0620, it was still pitch black so the pegging was done by headlamps and torches, we had 39 pegs to place and a couple of areas to avoid, namely the straight known as the dead stretch and also the peg that I nearly blanked off earlier in the year. That said we ran A section all the way through Riverside drive and a couple down on Westinghouse drain, putting nearly every peg in due to the lack of flow, B section then started at the shallows in the trees and although we missed out a few pegs towards the end of the line of trees ( we could see the weed and bottom all the way to the far side with pants torches) it still finished well before the Sailing club on some half decent pegs. Finally C section was started at the blue bridge and we ran it downstream into the park trying to leave out as many big gaps as possible to keep it as fair as possible. Pegging the match length let me see which numbers that Ian would need to pull out for us later that morning and the perfect draw would have been A1, A7, A11, B4 or B11-13 and anywhere in C section, as I thought that these pegs would give the team the best chance of a top 3 in each section. Eventually Chris and I got to the draw location, had a breakfast and then the work began. Ian came through the draw and the team had the following, Chris A9, Ian B13 and I was on C1, it looked good on paper with Chris being on probably the favoured peg but both mine and Ian’s could produce with chublet in Ian’s from the far bank and the same for me under the tree cover.

I dropped Chris off at Riverside Drive and then found some roadside parking barely 100m from my peg (Result); I pushed my barrow down the path to my peg and was happy with what greeted me. In the half light when we had been pegging it I had not really looked at the peg but now I was happy with marginal shelf weed and far bank cover it looked good for a few pounds and I decided that even with the lack of colour and flow my target weight would be 3Kg.

 

So I started setting up rigs and decided on fishing a single pole line down the middle at 13m with bread, wag and mag across under the trees and also put a worm line in just past the weed downstream for a perch. I set up a 0.75g Carbo on 0.12mm Cenex with a 0.08mm hooklength of the same material and a 20 B511, this was shotted with a bulk of no.8 shot 18 inches from the hook and 3 no.10s spread under the bulk, this was rigged on no.5 Cenex elastic through 3 sections. My second rig for the middle was a 1.25g DS 14 H with the same line, elastic and hook as the other rig but this time the shotting pattern was an ollivette 2 feet from the hook and 5 no.12 droppers. My waggler rig consisted of a 14ft Browning Zitan match rod, Black Magic reel loaded with 3lb Maxima mainline, a 3BB Browning loaded insert waggler attached by a caraluso waggler adapter, a 0.10mm Cenex hooklength and a size 20 Drennan wide gape match hook. I also set up a worm rig and plumbed it up but that’s about it so I won’t go into it.

I called the all in (Even though I was not ready) and then shipped out a ball of bread feed onto my 13m line, the Carbo rig closely followed it and I had a bite first drop in that I missed, and the second that again I missed. Already frustrated I came down a punch size to 4mm and started to hit the odd bite, Roach at around 10 to the pound and a couple a bit bigger started to come in and at the end of the first hour I had 16 roach in the net for around a Kilo. The bites had slowed so I re fed with a small nugget of bread and threw the waggler across for 5 minutes; this gave me 3 small perch so I went back onto the pole line. It was around this time that disaster struck!

The story is as follows: a month ago I went fishing at Nutford on the Dorset Stour, the field was full of cows but I decided to fish anyway. Whilst I was getting a bucket of water to make my groundbait up with I had a very inquisitive cow stamp all over my kit and it managed to hit my rod bag without me noticing. I fished for the day using the pole up to 11.5m and did not notice anything wrong with it; however, the cow had split the 14.5 and 13m sections and also put long hairline fractures into the 10 and 11.5m sections. I replaced the two bottom sections last month but thought the little cracks would be ok!

Back to Chippenham I was missing a few bite so I decided to work really hard at hitting them, but I got a little carried away on one and the 11.5m section broke in 2 right on the crack that the cow had put into it. I was not a happy bunny. I telescoped the sections through and carried on but I needed a break so walked my section taking a few photos for the newsletter. On my walk I saw people struggling to catch bleak, or anything and it transpired that the whole river was fishing desperately hard so I was doing alright, Pete Coleman however, was catching the odd better perch and I saw him landing one of about a pound as I walked past. I needed to get back to my peg and get my head down so I did, it was still hard but the fish turned on a little in the last hour and I caught 3 chublet for 12oz and also a few Roach on the pole line saw me add around a pound in the last 30 minutes.

The scales came round quick and it really had been hard, my 33 fish weighed in at 2.230kg so a good day had been had however, Pete had emptied his swim of perch and his 8 fish came in at 3.240kg so he had done me by a clear 2lb!! At the results this proved to be enough for 1^st and 2^nd in the match for the pair of us as well, so the stretch had fished really hard, at the end people were moaning about the pegging but I was fine with that as it certainly was interesting. Congratulations again to Pete and the next round is on the Kennet and Avon Canal at Bishops Cannings so more bread fishing for me.

Pete Coleman and his match winning bag.

AT WL Prac, Bristol Avon

This was my first ever trip to this stretch apart from the odd walk along its banks with the dog a few years ago, I had always fancied a trip there and was pleasantly surprised when B15 stuck in my mitt at the draw. When I got to my peg I had around 20m of width with most of the flow across, there was a tree overhanging just downstream of my peg and I fancied it for a few perch. I set up my platform and soon noticed that there may be a problem in the form of the local rowing club as they were obviously training and boats were up and down like a fiddlers elbow. Unperturbed I carried on and after mixing my ground bait I started to set up my top kits, my plan was to fish a long pole line for Roach, a short line with chopped worm and also I set up a waggler to fish across and downstream of where I was sat. My first rig was a 1.5g float on 0.12 to a 0.08mm bottom and size 20 on no.5 elastic and the other 2 Roach rigs were all the same apart from the floats, with a 1g pencil and a 0.6g nevis also getting set up. The inside rig was a 0.7g FP500 float on 0.14mm main to a 0.12mm bottom and a 16 wide gape match, due to the amount of weed I had this set on 10 solid elastic and I also chucked a weed rake out to 13m in front and to 10m under the tree as the plummet would not settle properly. My long pole line was at 14.5m to avoid the weed and find some flow so at the all in I cupped 10 balls of groundbait containing pinkie, caster and hemp out to the spot. I went straight over the top with my heavy rig double bulked and was rewarded with 4 fish in 4 puts before it got a little harder, then it was a case of catching a couple of fish and then changing something. After about 2 hours I had 30 fish for around 4lb when the rowers stopped, the wind picked up and my swim turned into an unfishable layer of pond weed.

The only way that I could get to fish was with the waggler, so that I did for small roach, chublet and bleak for the rest of the match. Over the last 3 hours I caught about a pound of fish due to being unable to present bait and I caught best when I dragged my float under the pond weed.

My match finished with a credible 5lb 1oz unfortunately only good enough for 3^rd in section with a big 6 and a big 7lb weight both coming from further upstream to my right. I did however; beat the pegs to either side so that made me feel better considering the duckweed ruining my day. Always next week, the team had a reasonable day with a section win and a few other pickups.

AAF Match 9, Bristol Avon, Staverton, 16/06/2011

This was the penultimate match of the league and going into it myself and John Dewberry were drawing on 8 points (best 5 results) so when we both drew in the same section it was most definitely ON!!

I drew permanent peg 63 that turned out to be the most upstream end peg on the stretch, I needed to spend 15 minutes with the weed rake before I could settle down, to clear a lily bed from straight in front of me. Once done however I had a clear run through at 11m and a nice looking hole in the weed at 6m to my left, I decided on groundbait on the long pole and chopped worm and caster in the weeds.

For the long pole I set up 3 rigs, a 1.5g Preston Classic 2 on 0.11 to 0.08 and a 22 511, this was rigged on a top kit with No.8 solid through 3 sections. My second rig was a 1g Garbolino DS14H, with the same line and hook as the other rig but this time on a lighter 5 solid through 3 sections, both of these rigs were set with a bulk and 3 no.10 droppers. My final long pole rig was a strung shotted rig with a 4X14 Tubertini Stix on 0.11 main again but this time 0.07 to a 20 B511 and No. 3 elastic through the top 2. The worm rig was an over shotted 1g Drennan Trio on 0.17-0.13mm line and a 14 Drennan Wide Gape, this was rigged on Red Vespe hollow through a power kit.

At the all in I fed 5 Satsuma sized balls of groundbait, (half a bag Matchblend, ½ bag Noire, 2 pints brown crumb and 2 pints of molehill soil), this contained dead pinkie, caster and hemp. I also fed 2 similar sized balls of the same mix containing chopped worm and caster on my worm line before shipping my DS14H rig out with a pinkie on the hook. He float went under first run through and for the first hour I managed to put about 6 Roach to 6oz and 6 Perch to a similar size into the net for about 2lb. After the golden hour it turned into a scratching match but I was able to take a couple of fish and then change line a few times, I also set up a waggler at 4ft deep after about 2 hours and this was cast downstream into a large hole into the weed and produced a couple of small roach and bleak throughout the rest of the day.

I worked hard for the full 5 hours and with 10 minutes to go I tried hemp for a final time only to miss a bite that saw me persevere with it on the hook until the end to no avail. I was on the boards so I witnessed the whole section weigh in and I only needed to beat John to have had a good day, up until John the best weight was just over a kilo, John had 1.510Kg and looking at the size of his fish I started to worry, I thought I had over 3 lb but was not sure by how much. !.810Kg answered my prayers and helped my team 11 sigs to 1^st on the day, got me a section win and second overall on the day and finally has put me ahead of John in the league by section count back.

Next and last stop for this year will be Viaduct, I hope that I can continue my run there.