Thursday 16 March 2017

Sunday 12th March - Bathampton Open Bristol Avon, Newbridge

Another visit to the Bristol Avon and my last river match of the season. Good turnout again due to the chance of catching a few bream. The river did look spot on and better than the previous Sunday.
Things did not go to plan at the draw as I pulled out peg 7 in the little field, a good peg if you intended to fish for roach and chublets. This was the peg where I had 17lb plus of roach on the pole to jointly win a recent Winter League Match (with Tim Ford). I spoke to Tim just after the draw when he asked what peg I had. I said I was going the wrong way for the bream and he said he was as well after drawing a peg in the 70's (I think) and too far down.
Graham Hunt told me he had been on 7 the previous week and had one bream but also said it was a snag pit.
Above me and for the second week running was Nigel Wyatt who was also non too happy with his draw. Geoff Surman was just above the bridge and was going to have to contend with all the Bath Half Marathon runners going over the road bridge above him and all their supporters.


peg 7, nice but wrong time of year.

Like the previous week I only brought two Feeder Rods as there was no point in taking anything else as this was going to be an out and out bream match. I had 3 pints of caster, a kilo of worm, maggots and lob worms.
I found the snag Graham told me about quite early in the match and lost a Feeder so had to fish to my left straight down the middle with a 25 gram. Hook was a 14 to 0.13 power on one rod with a 12 to 0.15 power on the other.
I was getting little knocks all the time but only from small fish attacking the lobby and only managed a chublet in the first hour. It was not long before Nigel came down for a walk and he was having the same day as me getting roach on smaller baits. Nigel went down to see Geoff on the bridge with his flask.
I also added a couple of roach when I swapped to three red maggots on the hook but went back to lobby in the hope of a slab or two.
After 30 minutes Nigel came back up a reported that Geoff had one bream but lost a big fish that he did not get sight off when he got it near the left hand bank.
I plodded on casting the feeder every 5 to 10 minutes but the bream did not arrive, I did have a couple of skimmers around a pound each though but I guess they were lost!
The angler on peg 1 walked past me around 14:30 having packed up.
The match finished at 16:45 and I give it my all throughout.

Nigel weighed 5lbs plus of small fish, he also had a trout. I had just under 3lbs.

Geoff on the bridge was the best in our Section with over 9lbs, pic below.


There were some great weights below the bridge on the ''straight'' which is where everyone wanted to draw.



Rich Lacey had a very good day from peg 36 with this nice bag, his biggest bream went 7lbs plus.



Matt Challenger caught his tea.

Top individuals as follows:

1st from peg 38 N Smith 75lbs 12ozs
2nd from peg 36 Rich Lacey 52lbs 2ozs
3rd from peg 30 Dean Harvey 42lbs 13oz (Dean also lost a double figure barbel at the net)
4th from peg 16 Adie West 42lbs 4ozs

Thats it for the rivers now so I'll be on the Bristol Feeder Canal and Gloucester Canal very soon so look out for my updates.

I was invited to fish a silvers match at Hunstrete Lake this week but doing a kitchen re-furb and have daughter down from London at the weekend so prob no fishing until mid week commencing Monday 20th March.

Happy St. Patricks Day (17th March).

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