Sunday 28th October - UTWL, Bristol Avon Melksham and Chippenham

First of all I would like to wish (as do a lot of other anglers) Simon Hebditch all the best in his knew job. Simon has left M5 Angling after 20 years and to say he has served the angling community in the S.W. superbly is a gross understatement and I am sure M5 will miss him as will his customers.

Not a bad angler either so he will still be around on the bank

Back to Melksham and Chippenham again to fish the same sections as last week for Round 3. I said to Mike Martin-Davis before the draw ''short walk again for me please''. When he came back as a team we had the same pegs as the previous week but I was on exactly the same peg G6, all the rest were shuffled around. So generally not a great draw but we knew the details of each peg, especially me!

Most of you will be aware the temperature dipped by 10 degrees week on week and there was also a very cold NE wind so fishing would definitely be affected.

I was soon parked up at the bottom of Portman Rd and handballed my gear in 3 trips across the football pitch to the peg. DGL Phil Bendall was also in my section as he was the previous week but on a different peg.

My rigs were more or less the same as last week and just a small adjustment to the depths here and there. I also set up a bread rig to fish at 7 metres in case it was very hard. The wind was a real tough downstreamer so I lengthened the amount of line between the dracon and the float to combat this at 13 metres.
The sun was out and the temperature went up a bit before the all in so I mixed up some soil, black lake and noire laced with worm, live pinkie and caster. On the whistle at 10:30 I cupped in 6 medium sized balls at 13 metres and didn't feed anywhere else to see how it went.

Starting off on the caster I had about 6 runs through and not a sign which did surprise me. I put on a maggot and the float slide away as soon as it settled and I had a net roach. During the first hour I had 20 fish of various sizes (all roach) and kept swapping hook baits.....single fluro pinkie, double fluro pinkie, worm head and maggot, still not a bite on caster.

I then started to loose feed the 7 metre line with maggot and put another ball in at 13 metres. I could only see the angler on peg 7 and had been keeping an eye on him as this is where Phil Bendall was the previous week and had 8lb odd for a 2nd in section. I did not see that much activity down there.

A guy came walking up an asked how I was getting on, I told him about 1.5 lbs or so. He said most were struggling especially the two end pegs (7 & 8). As they were the two best pegs the week before I thought I had a chance.

Going into the second hour I had a perch over the ground bait so shipped out a 2 gram rig to hold back hard with a lobby tail on a 16. No sign of life at all after 15 minutes so I decided not to waste anymore time and just try to put anything at all in the net.  Last week I caught towards the end of the run but not this week, it was right on top of the feed or nothing.  I had a reasonable next hour and a half if you call catching about another 15 fish. Coming in on the 7 metre line the fish were very small but given the conditions I was happy catching them.

By the time the ''all out'' was called I thought I had around 5lb more or less the same as the previous week.

I had the board and the guy with the scales came down looking for me, he was on peg 2 and said they had struggled big time above me .... heard that before.

Turned out it was quite a tight section and I did OK earning 7 points from 8.

I was back at Spencers Club quite early and team mate Mike Withey was already there. Mike had 7 points as well and he said Rich had also done quite well but the rest of the team missed out on mid table points or more by ounces to a pound in some really tight sections on a difficult day.

Mike and I picked up 2nd in section cash so not all bad.

Winner on the day was Pete Phillips with a superb 46lb 11oz of bream and roach from the Golf 

Pete with part of his catch

Course in Chippenham which included 12 bream al caught on the pole.

Second was Nick McCartney with 21lb odd of chub from the Sea Cadets peg (Chippenham)

Third Martin Barrett with 14lb 4oz (chub at Chippenham)

Teams on the day...

1st   DGL 47 points

2nd  PI Thatchers 43 points

3rd   Sensas Lobbys 39 points

4th   GBV / Wyvern Anglers 36 points

6th   Devizes / Sensas Nomads 30 points 

Needless to say we are bottom of the league but with the last 3 rounds on the canal anything can happen.

I am out again Wednesday fishing the first round of the Avon League at Bradford on Avon then back on the Lower Avon on Sunday in the Commercial House League.

Not too sure whether to continue with the blog as Facebook appears to be taking over, I'll have a think about it.