Tuesday 21st February - Pleasure Session River Tone, Taunton

Fellow Clevedon Freshwater Angling Club mate Scott Smallwood has a month off so contacted me about wanting to fish the River Tone down in Taunton as he had only ever fished it once before many years ago and he had seen the catches I had from the free stretch near B & Q. The weather forecast and conditions looked good for Tuesday 21st so I arranged to meet up with Scott in Clevedon at 07:30. As we drove down the M5 it was raining quite hard but the nearer we got to Taunton it began to clear up. It only took us about 30 minutes to get to junction 25 and then a 5 minute drive to the back of B & Q where there was access to the river.
We parked up and had a walkabout first and the river looked in mint condition, a little clear but plenty of pace. I pointed out a few swims to Scott and he choose one upstream of the picnic bench, I went down to my favourite swim in the Copse.

Importantly we both had nice long trot. The stick float was going to be the set up today and I also set up a tip rod for the bread as there are some good chub in the stretch. I advised Scott to continually loose feed as there is a good head of small fish around.
We both got going and I was into fish straight away. A mix of roach, dace, chublets and bleak. A good pouch full of caster and hemp was fired in every trot and after 30 minutes I had my first chub, a nice fish of around 3lbs and a lovely fight on the slim rod. It literally was a bite every run through and another chub soon graced the net,
I started to get pike trouble with one sizeable fish attacking the fish in the keep net. It was biting the metal rings and twisting and turning like a great white shark in a frenzy. Even knocking it on the body with the landing net handle did not deter it, I almost netted it at one point before it disappeared.
Scott came down to see how I was getting on and said he had 2 big chub and lots of small fish which he found hard getting through. He too was having pike problems. Seeing me swing a chublet of around 8 ozs he asked how many of them I had as it appeared my fish were of better quality.
Scott went back to have another crack and I continued to catch although the pike were really starting to be a nuisance and I did manage to land one after the hook some how got caught in one of its fins preventing it from biting the line.
Towards the end of the session I gave the tip a try with bread flake and liquidised in a small feeder.
This made a good difference and I had some good roach and 3 more decent chub.
It truly was a great session. I ended up with around 15 lbs of chub, 10 labs of mixed silvers and a pike of around 5 lbs. Scott had 2 nice chub and about 8 lbs of silvers.

my 5 chub

Mixed silvers and the pike

Scott with his bag

All in all a great day on a free stretch of water, must get back there before the end of the season.

Sunday 19th February - Chippenham Open Bristol Avon

It's been just over 3 weeks since my last match so I was keen to get back out this weekend. I had three matches to choose from..... a club match on a Commercial, the Upper Brue Championships and a Chippenham Open on the River Avon. My choice was the Chippenham Open.
Chippenham AA have a lovely stretch of the Avon and access is very good as are the pegs. I used to fish their water a few times a year when the Avon Commercial League was running and with my old Club, Bristol Post Office. That was about twenty years ago though. I did fish a Saturday Open on the stretch about a year ago but that was in the summer.
Draw was at Witherspoons in the Town Centre at 08:30 and on arrival at 08:00 I met up with Mike Martin captain of the Sensas Nomads Team. Mike had won a recent match here (19lb of chub) and was looking to target them again. Talk was that chub would win it.
Twenty Two were booked in and every other peg was put in between Monkton Park up to above Riverside Drive. Into the draw bag and out comes peg 17 which is accessed from Riverside Drive. The angler on peg 20 had the golden peg and he said we were at the wrong end and needed to be on a peg in the mid 20's. One of the local anglers told me he lived more or less opposite the peg and best option was to fish a stick float down the middle.

The peg did look inviting but most of them do at this end of the river. There was a nice bit of pace so I set up a 4 x No. 4 stick float on one rod and a 3BB avon on the other. As I was plumbing up I found it was about 5 foot deep in front down the middle but shallowed up 30 yards downstream and was a bit weedy. Three quarters the way across it was the same picture. I set up a tip rod for fishing the straight lead with bread in case a chub or two were under the far bank tree.

On the ''all in'' I sprayed a pouch of caster and hemp and began on the stick with maggot. I was expecting an early bite but no joy. A few trots down later a few dips on the float suggested minnows so upped the feed. This seemed to make a difference and I started getting a few small roach about an ounce. I persevered with this and some slightly better ones came on (3 ozs). Although I was getting a few bites I felt it was going nowhere so switched to the small avon float which was bulk shotted. I had a small chublet first trot down and it felt much better. Next run down the float buried and I had a better fish on then saw a trout jump out of the water. I landed it easily as it was around 10oz but they don't count. Very small fish continued to plague me so in order to try and improve things I fed a small nugget of senses roach and noire every trot. The fish remained the same size. I had a look on the tip across but not a nibble.

I ended up with 3lbs 14oz, able me weighed 1lb odd and below me 5lb odd so definetly the wrong end. 19lb (6 chub) came off peg 23 I think and below that a 22lb and a 24lb, all big chub.

Not sure what won it but those weights would have been there or thereabouts.

Going pleasure fishing on the River Tone down in Taunton on Tuesday so hopefully get a few decent fish.