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.
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