Sunday 17th June - SW Super League Practice Match Bristol Avon, Barton Farm and Staverton

This match was published as an Open with 60 pegs but just under 40 were booked in mainly due to Fathers Day I guess. The draw was at McDonalds in Trowbridge and it was a right drive around the town. I think they have more roundabouts in Trowbridge than Milton Keynes. Simon Hebditch was running it he done a good job.
A number of our Sensas Nomads Team were fishing today......

Richard Candy
Andrew Thomas
Mike Withey
Leigh Wakefield
Chris Hook
and myself

Mike and Leigh drew at Barton Farm and the rest of us at Staverton. The majority of anglers had not fished either stretch for some time or not at all.

I had 77 at Staverton which was an end peg put the upstream end which was not good. I only have fished Staverton a couple of times and never saw anything great come off the 70"s, I also had the scales.
At Staverton you can drive to and park behind all the pegs and to be honest when I got to mine it looked OK.

A 1 gram top 4 rig at 13 metres with 0.10 fluro hook length to a 20 went through nicely as this was were most of the flow was. A choppy line was set up for just past the pads, a waggler for fishing across and finally a window feeder for under the trees. Ground bait was Sensas Roach and Noire.

Bait tray consisted of hemp, caster, maggot and worm.

I cupped in 4 medium sized balls at the start down the middle as well as some chopped worm and caster just past the pads were it was 5 foot deep.

Starting off on the waggler shallow feeding hemp and caster I caught a few cublets and bleak but nothing of any size. After 15 minutes I went squirrel fishing ...ffs... fortunately all I lost was the hook length and set up again before trying the pole down the middle.

This went well for 40 minutes or so and then died on me so I cupped in another small ball and went over on the window feeder with double red maggot and had a chub of around 8oz straight away and then the tip just sat there motionless.

A quick look just past the pads and a perch of about 4oz took half a dendra, not that impressive.

I picked up the odd small fish on the waggler and the pole and by 3 o'clock decided I was flogging a dead horse after making a few phone calls so tipped back 2lb and proceeded to pack up. As I looked down the bank others were doing the same.

Leigh done really well winning his Section by default at Barton Farm with 11lb 6oz, must have been the casters I got him.

Team mate Leigh with 2 bream and bits

Simon Hebditch won my Section with a nice bag of small fish going 8lb 9oz.

Simon had a lot of perch

The 2 Sections at Barton Farm fished really well as did the early pegs at Staverton. Lots of anglers at Staverton did not weigh tipping back around 2lbs.

Overall the match was won by Charlie Vallender from peg 3 at Staverton with a magnificent 77lb 8oz of bream on the pole.

Results as follows....

1st      Charlie Vallender 77-8 peg 3 Staverton

2nd     Phil Bishop 41-4 (bream) peg 11 Barton Farm

3rd     Andy Richings 23-5 (bream) peg 3 Barton Farm

4th      Richard Chave 21 - 4 (bream) peg 6 Staverton

Sections.....

1 - 13 Staverton, Andy Thomas & Andy Ottawa 5-1 (double default)

14-27 Staverton, Ian Sheppard 12-11 (roach)

50 - 63 Staverton, Derek Jarman 5-13-8

65 - 70 Staverton, Simon Hebditch 8-9

1-6 Barton Farm, Alan Jones 12-4

7-12 Barton Farm, Leigh Wakefield 11-6 

I hope to fish the Wednesday Open at Staverton this week then Chris Hook and I are booked in for the Canal Pairs Match this Sunday (24th) on the Gloucester Canal.

The Super League Match at Barton Farm and Staverton is on 1st July. The Team has been selected plus we have a Team entered at Evesham on the same day. Nice to be fishing with a bigger squad.