Back to today...... this was my 3rd year fishing the brilliant Wednesday Opens at Staverton. The draw is at 14:00 with fishing 15:00 - 20:00 up until mid August. The pegs are very well maintained and you can park behind everyone of them. Team mate Sam Johnson was also fishing today due to being furloughed and at the draw another team mate Mike (surname cannot be published due to legal reasons) also attended.
The venue is one of the most picturesque stretches of the Bristol Avon, no walkers just the odd canoe (1 or 2), some days none.
26 fishing today which is slightly above average due to the current situation.
Terry the organiser done the draw, well he threw the peg cards on the ground and everyone sort of social distanced picking them up. I picked up 56 and was reasonably happy with that but when I got to my peg the only pleasure angler on the whole stretch (almost 80 pegs) was just packing up!
Jerry words were f@&^£*g hell bleep bleep bleep! Sorry Ivan go in on 76 if that's OK.
I knew Martin Barrett was on 77 as I had already passed him on the way down and I was hoping there would be a bit of space between us.
Thankfully there was and the peg did look OK.
It was quite a nice day at this point but rain and thunder forecast later on. 2 wanglers already set up, deep and shallow for across and one 2 gram pole rig for 11 metres out in the channel.
Two big balls of ground bait cupped in laced with hemp and caster was left to settle.
Starting off on the shallow waggler right across spraying maggot gave me a few chublets around 4oz each but was getting pestered by bleak. I went on the deep waggler after 30 minutes and picked up a few small roach but the bleak were still a prob.
After an hour I went on the pole and didn't look back. First run through I was surprised to get a net roach and more followed. Martin shouted down asking if I was catching, I said yes.
I hooked a huge chub and it bottomed out the 6 elastic, it was like a washing line across the water. I got him on the surface but just as I thought I was gaining control the hook pulled out.
It didn't seem to disturb the swim as a few chublet's followed immediately.
Can't remember what time the rain, thunder and lighting came but it was torrential. Rain droplets were bouncing off the water making it hard to see the float.
Martin came down to have a look as he didn't fancy sitting on a carbon box holding a carbon pole with lightening. He said he could only catch bleak.
I did persevere despite the weather and light conditions and had lots of bites. Around 18:45 I hooked a bream which took me right across the river but the hook held and I was glad when the net went under it, a nice fish of about 3lbs.
I finished with 11lb 4oz which was enough to win the Section so £30 covered my costs for the day. I wasn't far off the pace coming 5th from 26.
As expected in the early season bream showed down the bottom end with 23lb 6oz winning it off peg 4. A few other anglers also had bream from the early pegs.
1st Andy Ankers 23-6 peg 4
2nd Stuart Keble 16-5 peg 6
3rd John Williams 15-8 peg 2
Sections
Mike Poolman 11-4 peg 27
Mike Stellard 6-15 peg 52
Ivan Currie 11-4 peg 76
Weigh sheets below...
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