Sunday 25th March - Bristol Feeder Canal ''Knock Up''

I had arranged this ''Knock Up'' a week earlier but heavy snowfall meant it had to be cancelled. It was re-scheduled for the following week and 8 confirmed they could fish. There used to be a Thursday evening series of matches on the Canal quite a few years ago but none since. It is a cracking venue which runs into the City of Bristol Docks and its proper Urban Fishing. I usually fish it during the week while the River Close Season is on and have had some cracking bags of Roach, Dace and Bream. If you search my Blog down the left hand side and click on Feeder Canal you will see the evidence.
The draw was at 08:00 on the Feeder Rd which runs alongside the Canal so the kit simply had to be taken across the road, no need for trolleys. Entry fee was £15 paying 2 Sections of £20 and 1st £45 and 2nd £35 so a 50% chance of a pick up as Sections by default. Fishing was 09:30 - 14:30.

There were a couple of pleasure anglers further down the Canal and they had only caught a couple of dace so not looking good.

The colour looked spot on but no sign of fish

There was much debate prior to the ''all in''.

At the start I fed the track and up the far shelf with a couple of balls of ground bait filled with hemp and caster plus a few dead pinkies. The flow towards the City noticeably increased and the 1 gram and 2 gram floats suddenly became the wrong choice so upgraded to a 2.5 gram. Normally you get an indication pretty quick on this venue and sometimes its a job to get through the small dace. No such problem today it soon became evident it was going to be rock hard.

It must have been 2 hours in when Team Mate Sam Johnson sounded a cheerful chuckle netting a small dace. Up until that point no one had caught. 

As time went on and it did ...there was no bites to be had and everyone but Sam was blanking. 

It almost went right to the wire before Jeff Surmon had a dace about 5 minutes from the all out.

That was it, fair play they all stuck it out.

Sams dace went 2 ozs and Jeff's went 1.5 ozs. We had to have a luck dip for Section pay out and Adrian Dennis and Leigh Wakefield were the lucky dip winners.

Sam with his winning fish worth £45

Despite the seriously poor day they were all keen to give it another go in April, I will give it a try before the next ''knock up'' though.

Not sure what I am doing over Easter if anything, there are a couple of matches on. I have been out fly fishing up Chew Valley Lake and managed 2 on a cold windy day so might go for another visit.

First 2 of the season.

Spring....really

Well I had a good St Patricks Day with my two daughters, nice meal and a pint followed by watching Ireland win the Grand Slam, perfect.

I had arranged a friendly ''knock up'' on the Bristol Feeder Canal for the Sunday. Originally I had 12 but over the week it had dropped to 8 for all sorts of reasons. Looking at the weather forecast it suggested the Bristol area might not be too bad so I went to bed Saturday night with the hope of still running it.
A call of nature around 2 o'clock and a look out the window confirmed what the forecast had said....some light snow flurries but on the whole not too bad.
I woke up just before the alarm at 06:15 and was surprised how much had changed over the 4 hours.
Team mate Leigh text me to ask what it was like down my neck of the woods as he lives near Chippenham. I made the decision to cancel and sent a text out it as it was still coming down.

it was a good 5'' thick in North Somerset

Although disappointed everyone said I made the right decision.

I also saw from posts on Facebook that other local matches had been cancelled, namely the Commercial House Charity Match on the K & A Canal as well as the Gloucester Canal Championship. 

Over on my local Commercial Fishery, Acorn Lakes a few hardy soles did turn up for the Over 55's match.

photo from Cadbury Angling who also opened up, fair play.

Well its a tidy up day then for me, hope to get out Tuesday as well as try and re-arrange the Feeder Knock Up for next weekend.

I'M BACK

Well its been a very busy year so far.....

In January I became Secretary of the Clevedon Freshwater Angling Club moving up from the Press Officer and Committee positions. I still hold those positions with the added responsibility of Secretary. In the same month I helped develop our new Website http://www.clevedon-fwac.co.uk and its much more user friendly than the old one. The Club is also progressing the development of our own lake in conjunction with Portishead Town Council so its just as well I am retired.

I was away on holiday from 1st to the 25th February, flying into San Francisco, picking up a Cruise Ship and sailed to Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand and Australia. It was a bit of a shock coming back from 30 degrees to 1.

Before I went away our Maver Cadbury Angling Team Captain had a letter from Maver saying they were no longer going to support us. I believe other Teams and individual anglers were also culled. We also lost one of our anglers to the P I Thatchers Team, so a bit of a blow all round. Never the less we wish Jack Jones all the best and thank Maver for their support over quite a few years.
But....as they say one door closes and another one opens..... 4 of us are joining Sensas Nomads. They have given us a warm welcome and its fantastic to be part of this historical Team with anglers both sides of the Bristol Channel. I am really excited about it. We are fishing the Gloucester Canal Spring League Teams of 4 as Cadbury Angling and then its up to us to earn our place with Sensas Nomads. The first major series of matches will be the SW Super League.

Since I have been back I have fished a couple of the Tuesday Costcutters at Acorn Fishery, average numbers have been 6 to 12 mainly just for the company and the Rivers were out of sorts anyway. I did ok-ish but not good enough.

The weekend just gone (Saturday 10th March) I fished the Don Sutherland Memorial Match at Viaduct, Silvers only. Don was a valued Team Member and passed away just over two years ago. I fished it last year and done rubbish. This year I drew 118 on Campbell Lake and had plenty of room. Prior to the match I done some research gleaning some information from Des Shipps Facebook page.
I used his preferred ground bait mix and set about fishing 2 lines at 13 metres (10 o'clock and 2 o'clock) and a waggler was set up for fishing straight out in front about 16 metres.
It was a pretty calm day although there was a slight blustery breeze now and then so I set up identical 4x14 rigs to a 0.10 fluro carbon hook length with a 18 guru hook. I got all my fish on my 2 o'clock line. Some nice big skimmers and lots of hand sized ones plus a big perch around 2.5 lbs. I had to keep feeding the ground bait and caught on dead reds, dead pinkie and heads of worm. Plenty of bites all day.
Could only see a few anglers on the opposite bank and knew they did not have that much.
When the scales came around I recorded 24lb 5oz so pretty chuffed with that and it was the best on the lake.

A few of the guys suggested I might frame as it didn't fish as well as expected. When the Section Weights and payouts were called out I guessed I was 3rd but ended up 2nd with 2oz to spare.

Venue expert Gary O'Shea done very well late on Spring Lake peg 3. I believe he caught on corn using the waggler. 

Gary with his winning bag

Here are the results taken from the Viaduct Facebook page.

Good to see 45 anglers here today fishing Don’s match, well done to Gary O’Shea who won the match with 38lb 2oz from peg 3 on Spring lake:

1. Gary O’Shea - 38lb 2oz - peg 3
2. Ivan Currie - 24lb 5oz - peg 118
3. Roy Worth - 24lb 3oz - peg 111
3. Ryan Shipp - 24lb 3oz - peg 4
5. Stu White - 24lb - peg 94
6. John Page - 21lb 11oz - peg 100
7. Gary Clare - 19lb 14oz - peg 1
8. Mark Saunders - 19lb 3oz - peg 103
9. John Fuidge - 18lb 12oz - peg 129
10. Robin Guy - 18lb 8oz - peg 96

Don's wife Julie with Gary and the Memorial Shield.

On the Sunday following I fished the Lower Avon Champs on the Bristol Avon at Newbridge. I drew peg 33 at the top of the straight and was hoping for a few bream. The colour was good but a little to fast.

I only took 2 Feeder Rods as its bream or bust at this time of year.

Long story short. Lost what I think was a Barbel at around 15:00. I hooked it as I moved the feeder and it bolted off downstream and had to backwind franticly. I did manage to turn it but the hook pulled out halfway back. Next cast a 4lb Bream and that was it.  The guy on one of the mid teen pegs had 4 bream for 20lb I believe and then a couple of other anglers had 2 Bream. A few more had single bream but bigger than mine.

So thats another River Season gone.

I am running a Knock Up on the Bristol Feeder Canal on Sunday 18th March which should be interesting, 9 booked in then I shall be concentrating on the Gloucester Canal getting ready for the first Spring League Match on the 8th April. I believe there is a possibility of 25 Teams of 4 entering this year so looking forward to those matches.

Its good to be back.