Sunday 24 May 2020

Sunday 24th May - Gloucester Canal pleasure session

First of all......

The Clevedon Freshwater Angling Club (of which I am Secretary) managed to hold our first Committee Meeting for a few months via a Webex Call. Not perfect by any means but it was OK and we sorted quite a few things out. We are also on target to offer Club Permits and Day Tickets on line via our Website, should be ready to go within 10 days. We still are putting books in local Tackle Dealers and will be directing people there in the first instance. We are also going to purchase a couple of weighing net cradles as demonstrated by Clint Elliot at White Acres (the clip is on the Catch More Media facebook page. These will help with fish welfare, lifting and handling as well as social distancing.

I also made contact with a couple of Clubs who announced they were permitting the use of keep nets for pleasure fishing. Although it goes against Angling Trust guidance the Canal and River Trust have endorsed their use (not in matches). As a member of the Angling Trust myself I have written to them asking why both organisations are not singing from the same hymn sheet!

On to today........
Team mate Sam Johnson and I arranged a meet up on the Glossy again after having a good day last week. Sam was going up early again and taking Jack his son. He fancied a bit of short pole fishing for the bream.
I left home around 06:45 and got to the bridge on Castle Lane at approx 07:30. No parking places aside the Canal so had to go further up th road. Not much of a problem to be honest as its all flat and as I only had two feeder rods, landing net, feeder arm, plus box, bait bag, carryall and bucket.
As I walked down the Canal there were a number of anglers just past the boats 6 in total and all had keep nets in. I did inform a couple of them that as far as I was aware they were not allowed on the Glossy. Once responded ''I don't give a f**k and the other ''oh ok''. As I walked down further toward the 400's I came across Ruben Guerra a good angler from Diawa Gordon League Team. Ruben was just setting up at peg 400 ish and he confirmed keepnets were not allowed on the Glossy.

I walked on down where I knew Sam would be and soon found him the Gloucester side of the partially sunken barge. He was on the short pole about 9 metres out and said he'd had a couple of proper bream after cupping in 6 balls. He had caught on worm and also put a few bit feeder fulls across on his tip line.

I went the other side of the barge and set up on 441, this has got to be one of my favourite pegs on the canal.


I had already premixed most of a bag of green fishmeal so after adding a bit more water I was ready to go. Bait tray was just some red worms, live red and white maggot, dead reds and dead fluro pinkies. I had a kilo of worm and corn in the bag just in case.


My Feeder rig was the same as last week a B560 to 0.11 and a 25 gram grip mesh feeder. rod was my 12 foot acolyte and I had 0.10 braid.

I was about to start at around 08:45 when I looked down to see Sam with the pole up and bent over. I walked down to take a quick photo, a nice skimmer.


Jack took a photo earlier of one of his Dads bream.....


I went back to my peg to get started and it didn't take long for a bite, about 10 minutes and it was a hybrid of 8oz. Within the first hour I had 3 bream and the bites were not shy.

Sam came up while Jack had a go on his gear just as I netted a fish.


After 3 hours they were really lining up and I was getting loads of liners so stepped up to a 14 hook with double worm. As expected you had to wait a bit longer for a bite but the size of the fish improved and averaged 3 to 4 lbs. 

I didn't feed any worm at all just dead reds and dead pinkie, only about 10 particles per feeder full.


Sam's son Jack was drop shotting but never had anything but he did manage a few skimmers on the pole so well done to him.

Sam went around noon but I stayed on until 14:15 and ended up with 26 bream, 3 skimmers and 2 hybrids so if you average the bream out at 2.5 lbs each it was a decent day and I wasn't fishing hard. 

As I headed back to the van I saw that the other anglers had gone.

Spoke to Sam when got home and he said when he passed Ruben he informed him he had 18 bream.

Giving some coaching to my elderly neighbour down the Feeder Canal in Bristol on Tuesday evening, his rod and reel are 60 plus years old (we will be social distancing and travelling separately).

Wednesday afternoon up at Chew Valley Lake Fly Fishing with Dan from Cadbury Angling. Next weekend probably tench fishing with Sam down in Somerset on the Taunton / Bridgwater Canal for a change.






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