Wednesday 28th November - Avon League, Upper Bristol Avon Chippenham

So onto the 2nd Round in Colin's League on the Bristol Avon around Bradford on Avon, Melksham and Chippenham consisting of 6 matches and 21 fishing. After the 1st round disaster at BOA where I blanked along with a few others surely it would be much better this time. It had been cold leading up to match day and there had been some heavy rain .... hmmmm

The draw was at the Brewers Fayre in-between the M4 junction and Chippenham town. It wasn't until 08:30 but in order to get there and cope with the traffic I left home at 06:15 and negotiated the heavy traffic on the M5/M4 OK arriving for breakfast at 07:15. i was the first one there which is not surprising as the rest except Mike Martin (Newport) all live a lot closer.

I drew peg 20 which was the last peg but one down on the Golf Course at Monkton Park, not sure what permanent peg this was but Colin said in was a ''good peg''......how many times have you heard that.
I followed team mate Mike to a parking spot as he was about 3 pegs away from me by the blue bridge. It was a easy walk on a tarmac path and no fences etc. The river was fairly clear and had a little bit of flow on the inside and at 13 metres. I had fished this area many many years ago with the Bristol P O Angling Club and had 35lb odd of bream and tench but I think it was much earlier in the year.

At the start the wind was not too bad and the forecast was for it to increase with some showers. I set up one 2 gram pole rig for 13 metres, a 8BB crow quill for the inside and a tip rod for across.

At the start I cupped in 4 big balls of chop and caster in a soil, gardons and noire mix and then came in on the crowquill loose feeding maggot. Fishing the quill did not seem right and presentation was difficult as the wind got up a bit plus the depth was all over the place further down the peg. I gave it 30 minutes but there was no sign of life at all. Going out on the pole gave me a small roach within 10 minutes but nothing for the next 15. I re-fed a small ball and had another roach straight away closely followed by 2 more then nothing, it seemed pretty dire. 

I was probably about 90 minutes into the match and I could see Nicky Johns above me who did not appear t be catching either.

Out went the feeder about a couple of metres of the far bank with lots of chopped worm and a whole dendra on a 14. It had only settled when I saw a positive knock on the tipping between gusts of wind. I decided to hit it and was met with a nice bit of resistance and a good thud. At first I thought it was a bream as it went deep but instead it was a good perch of around 2lbs. A slightly smaller one followed next cast and I thought I was in for a good day. Sadly I only had another few smaller ones despite trying different spots under the far jetty and up against the rushes. I still kept feeding my two other lines but nothing came from them.

Andrew below me had the scales and board and came up past me at the end as he was going to weigh from 11 down. He said he thought he had 5 or 6lbs wish and ended up fishing off the end of his long rod.

It took a while for him to come back down but the weigh sheet told me it had been really hard for most in the bottom half of the river. There were two 7lb weights and I knew I did not have that.

My mainly perch bag went 5lb 3oz

Andrew won the section by default as I was told the two 7lb weights framed and Gary Etheridge had won it with 8lbs so it looks like I came 5th on the day which I'll take and still keeps me in the running with 4 matches to go. The next one is on the 19th Dec at Melksham.

Here is the weigh board for our half of the river, as you can see its fished very hard.

This coming Sunday its the last round of the UTWL on the K&A at Great Bedwyn to Little Bedwyn. Our target is to stay off the bottom and maybe get a few in the frame, looking forward to it and another new venue for me.

Sunday 25th November - Angling Trust Upper Thames Winter League Round 5, Kennet and Avon Canal near Marlborough

I was looking forward to getting back out fishing again after being away the previous weekend although I did manage a fluff chucking session on Chew Valley Lake and caught 4 nice rainbows from the bank, well I saw bank I was nearly up to my arm pits in the chest waders as the level is so low. Trout fishing finishes on the 30th November so not sure if I can fit another visit in this week.

Back to today ..... I met Chris at Gordano Services again on the M5 at 06:30, it was meant to be 06:20 but he had to wake his partner up as he couldn't find her car keys in order to move her vehicle out of the way in order to get out so he was not popular. It was another fairly long journey for us to Marlborough Football Club, about 70 miles and we done it in just over an hour. The Football Club was easy to find and had plenty of parking plus a variation of breakfast rolls etc where available.

We finished 2nd in the last Canal Match and were looking to do well again. A few of the lads had fished the practice match the previous week which was quite hard and bonus fish (perch) were going to be needed to stand any chance of good points.

Team today was...
Mark Williams (c)
Mike Withey
Ian Stainer
Rich Whitmarsh
Paul Rigby
Chris Hook
Me

Sections today were Wooten Rivers, Brimdslade and Wolfhall and I had no idea how to get to any of them.
I drew E4 at Brimslade and fortunately Rich drew F8 in the same area so I was able to follow him. It was around 3 to 4 miles away from the draw but nice and easy and on arrival good parking and access to the Canal.
I was told I was on the peg that won the practice match the previous week (14lbs of big perch) but when I got there I wasn't. I was about 2 pegs away from it and the person who fished were I was today struggled plus on arrival a pleasure angler was setting up but moved off without any problem.
Diawa Gordon Leagues Dave Micklewright was on ''the peg'' but said someone had come down midweek and pleasure fished it.

13 metres got me across to the far bank but it was only a foot deep. While setting up there were a couple of swirls across with fry jumping out of the water and I thought it was perch chasing them. Turned out it was pike but I only discovered this toward the end of the match when I saw one, I had already wasted about an hour off and on during the match looking for perch across when I should have went down a line in the middle....lesson learned.

I had a good depth down the track, about 4.5 foot and at 11 metres about 3 foot so these were the areas to concentrate on besides my wasted far bank pike / perch lines.
I had plenty of bites all day but they were very small roach, best fish was a 5oz perch on my 11 metre line.

I ended up with 2lb 9oz which was only worth 3 points from 8 my worst result in this league. I know I made a few mistakes and hope to put that right next week I did have a plan but failed to execute it.

Dave Micklewright won the section by a country mile with 7lb 10oz. Dave had a couple of nice hybrids and a pound perch plus bits, think he stuck it out on the worm which was the right approach on his peg. The rest of the section weighed 4lbs down...

Rich done really well on the end peg in his section weighing 9lb 13oz, 3 big perch and some decent roach on the worm. This also earned him 2nd in the match just being beaten into 1st place by an ounce!

Rich Whitmarsh

As a team we done rubbish so hero to zero but we are not bottom and just about hanging on in 7th place.

Results as follows:

Individuals

1st   Nick Ewers P I Thatchers 9lb 14oz
2nd  Rich Whitmarsh Sensas Nomads 9lb 13oz
3rd   Mike Marsden Devizes 9lb 5oz
4th   Ruben Guerra DGL 8lb 2oz
5th   Mark Brush DGL 7lb 11oz
6th   Dave Micklewright DGL 7lb 10oz

Teams on the day

1st   P I Thatchers
2nd  DGL
3rd   Wyvern Anglers
4th   GBV
5th   Devizes AA
6th   Sensas Lobbys
7th   Matrix Swindon
8th   Sensas Nomads

DGL put in a great performance today and are winning the league by 2 points from P I Thatchers.

Back to the Canal again next week for the final round but different sections....Great Bedwyn to Little Bedwyn wherever that is.....but drawing again at Marlborough F C.

Sorry no photos today as camera on phone didn't want to work.

Wednesday sees me at Chippenham for the 2nd Round of the Avon League.

Sunday 11th November - Angling Trust Upper Thames Winter League, Kennet & Avon Canal Seend

I usually fish the ''Poppy Match'' on this Sunday on the Bristol Avon which is organised by Ray Bazeley and Team who took over from the late Bill Milton. The match has been renamed since Bills passing to the ''Bill Milton Memorial Poppy Appeal". Unfortunately due to us fishing the UTWL this year there was a clash of dates which meant I could not fish it.

The draw for todays match was at Spencers Club in Melksham with the Sections on the Canal about 15 minutes or so drive away towards Devizes. I had fished this Section of Canal before...once...but that was about 25 years ago at least.

Senses Nomads Team for today was....
Mark Williams (c)
Mike Withey
Rich Whitmarsh
Brian Melksam
Ian Stainer
Steve Saunders
Chris Hook
Me

As it was Remembrance Sunday and we would be fishing at 11:00 the Citation was read by Martin Barrett followed by 2 minutes silence at 08:00 before the draw. As an ex-service man I always wear my ''Dolphins'', Poppy and Irish Poppy Badge with pride.

Mark came back with the draw and I found myself on B1. I had no idea where that was but Steve was on A section again just one peg away from where he won the practice match the previous week with 20lb plus and said to follow him. We had a review of pegs and information was exchanged.

The journey to B Section was quite straight forward and on arrival there was plenty of parking. The canal was a few steps away as well. Talking to Andrew Chatterley while I unloaded the kit he said the Section fished hard the previous week with just over 4lb winning it. He suggested my peg was heading towards the better area i.e. A Section.

It didn't take more than 5 minutes to get to my peg, no fences or styles like last week.

The peg did look nice and although I was in between two boats I had plenty of room. There was a small bay opposite and it did look inviting as well as the far bank bush to my far left.

I was able to reach across right into the bay with 13 metres of pole but on plumbing up it was only about 6 inches deep. At about 11 metres I was in deeper water where it started to shelve off a bit and at 2.5 foot deep I decided on this far bank line at 12:00 o'clock plus either side including over to the bush. 6 slip elastic with a 0.3 gram float to 0.10 hook length to an 18. The Canal was quite coloured and I did expect some perch over there. The same rig was fine for the edge of the boats on my bank. But I decided to replicate the rig again but beefed up for the perch i.e. 16 hook to 0.13.

I also set up and identical rig to a 5 elastic and 0.08 hook length to a 20 in case skimmers showed.

Two track rigs about 5 foot deep, one 5 elastic to a 4x14, 0.09 hook length to a 20, the other 6 elastic, 0.70 gram round bodied float with 0.10 to an 18 for holding back if the canal towed hard. Ground bait was 50/50 Sensas Black Lake and Fine Canal Noire.

I was ready with 25 minutes to spare and just took it easy observing the water. The boat to my right was empty but the the one on the right occupied by a lady who confirmed she would not be moving but would be playing the violin! I said play me some Irish music when you get around to it, she laughed and wished me good luck.

I chopped up some worm and made up 5 small balls of ground bait containing 2 chopped worm and caster and 2 worm and squat. 

On the ''all in'' I fed across by the bush and at 12:00 o'clock with choppy and caster leaving the 14:00 line free. The 2 remaining balls of choppy and squats went in down the track straight in front of me. I also fed 2 lots of chopped worm and lobbys by the boats on my inside.

I thought I would start down the track and put on a maggot just to see if I could nick an early bonus fish. The float sailed away once it settled but I missed on the strike, it did look like a skimmer bite. Going back out it went under again and this time I hit it, a small skimmer about 4 ozs. After 20 minutes fishing the track I had about 8 fish, just the one small skimmer and some 1oz roach. A post went through so I fed another ball before going across to the left hand bush with a maggot.  The float went under straight away but it was a very and I mean very small roach which fell off as I shipped back. This happened again and again not helped by a stiff breeze. I did land some but they were about 2 or 3 to the ounce at best. 

I was now about 40 minutes into the match and had a look on the nearside choppy lines but not a sign.

Going back out down the track I had another small skimmer and a run of 2 to 3 oz roach. Glancing down to my left where the other anglers in my Section were I could see about 3 poles out but not the actual anglers, they all seemed to be fishing long. Mick Nowicki was on B2 and I had to walk down to him to free up 2 pole sections as they had jammed. He confirmed he was struggling.

I carried on concentrating and topping up the track over 3 places as the fish appeared to be a better stamp there. I bumped a good fish on the 2 hour mark, I think it was a perch and wondered if that would cost me.

Looking down as far as I could see the poles did not be going in and out as much as mine, I appeared to be busier (feeding and catching).

The violin started and yes she did play a couple of Irish jigs.....think I pulled!

I did look on the far and nearside lines now and then but stuck at it down the track netting a few decent roach and a perch.

The weighing in was started at peg 8 and I caught up with them at around peg 4. The weights were quite low and just over 3lb was best.

Overall it was a tight Section but I had just under 4lb to win it. Most had concentrated across on the far shelf looking for bonus fish, my gamble had paid off.

B Section board

I asked Andrew Chatts to take a photo for me but despite several attempts he still managed to chop some of my head off!

Back at the Club the Team gradually returned, Mike Withey was there before me and he had got 2nd in Section again, so did Steve Saunders. Our Team scorecard looked pretty good. Nice to have 3 ''pick ups'' as well.

Full match results as follows courtesy of Simon Hebditch...........

Individuals..

1st    Mike Bernsten GBV 12-13

2nd   Charlie Vallender DGL 12-9

3rd    Ruben Guerra DGL 11-00

4th    Steve Saunders Sensas Nomads 10-13

5th    Nat Johnson PI Thatchers 10-00

6th    Andrew Cranston PI Thatchers 9-3

Winner Mike Bernstein with a nice net of fish

Teams on the day....

1st    DGL

2nd   Sensas Nomads

3rd   P I Thatchers

4th   GBV

5th   Sensas Lobbys

6th   Devizes MG

7th   Matrix Swindon

8th   Wyvern Anglers

We are now off the bottom lying 6th out of 8 Teams, need to keep this going with a view to finishing mid table in our first year in this league.

No Fishing next weekend but back on the K&A the week after at Marlborough.

Sunday 4th November - Sensas Bristol Commercial House League Round 4, Lower Bristol Avon

After Wednesdays disaster I was looking forward to this match, the temperature on the Saturday night was very mild and it was going to be overcast all day Sunday with continuous light rain. We had DGL young gun Phil Bendall fishing for us today as Geraint was on the ABC Wye Winter League.

So Sensas Nomads Black squad for today was....
Chris Hook (c)
Sam Johnson
Leigh Wakefield
Rich Whitmarsh
Phil Bendal
Me

As a team we are not doing very well in this league but we have had some individual honours.

There were two sections at Swineford, two up the Crane and two down at Chequers. The Jack Whites section was left out as the banks are very unsafe now, pity as there is always a bit of pace and a few fish to be had. Most fancied Swineford, Chequers didn't fish that well last time and up the Crane would be a challenge in terms of distance and fences.

We were nice and early paying our pools and Chris managed to get the fishing changed by 15 minutes  as drawing at 08:00 and fishing 10:00 - 15:00 is a bit tight, so 10:15 - 15:15 it was.
The team draw came back and I glanced at the sheet which told me normal service was resumed for me in terms of the longest walk, C1 top end of the Crane.
Phil was on A1 the outfall peg at Swineford and headed off to get his head down on the whip. Chris was on B1 near the railway bridge then there was a huge gap before my peg C1, Sam on D1 just above the old Soap Works and Leigh and Rich at Chequers where you could drive to your peg.

Todays pegging guide

So we all headed off to our respective parking areas nice and early and this time due to no section in at Jack Whites I was able to park fairly close to the Scrap Yard which is in the lane to take you up the Crane section. The trouble is along this stretch of river is that unless you know the layout of your peg (and it can vary week to week depending on who pegs it) you need to take the kitchen sink. 

I headed up the lane with Sam and into the field over the slippery Cattle Grid with my one wheeled rigger platform barrow, nearly lost an ankle! The field was muddy and the mud and grass was sticking to the mudguard above the wheel making it hard to push. We came to the first fence and fair play everyone helped each other get the kit over the first obstacle. Sam's peg was comfortable and we exchanged a few words before I headed up to the second fence, again helping hands were appreciated but I still had a way to go. Part way up I left the barrow and just took the two holdalls up to the peg before coming back for the rest of the kit. I was now down to a t-shirt.

I had my second look at the peg and decided to prod the small ledge with a bank stick which was under water down a very high and steep bank to see if the mud would take a platform. It didn't seem too bad and some 40 minutes later I had everything down that I needed level with the water.

It was a long way down (probably further than that!)

Given the logistics of having all the gear to hand the pole stayed in the holdall but I am sure it enjoyed the long trek.

I opted for three running line set ups today, crowquill, waggler and feeder. From a fishy point of view the peg did look nice the plan was to loose fed maggot in front of the boat for a waggler line, crowquill down the middle over ground bait and loose feed and the feeder rod across to the boat if it got hard.

Plumbing up I had about 8 foot down the middle and it was the same across in front of the boat. There was a slight downstream wind but with an 8BB quill it did not affect presentation, on the business end I had a drennan size 20 match hook to 0.09. The waggler was a 3AA with an 18 wide gape hook to 0.10. Feeder rig was a 25gram to B520 16 to 0.12.

That extra 15 minutes to set up made all the difference to me and I was just about ready when the ''all in'' was shouted. Four big balls of Sensas River and Noire went in laced with pinkie, caster and hemp down the middle and two big pouch fulls of maggot across. I watched some footage of the Riverfest on the Saturday and was impressed by the way some anglers were feeding so set out to feed with discipline today. 

starting off on the crowquill with maggot on the hook it didn't take long to get my first dumpy roach. I was more than happy the way the float was running through as its a method I have not used for ages. The fish were really lining up and ''having it'' and i think over the first hour I had 30 fish. I soon got into a rhythm feeding down the middle with caster and hemp every other run through and in between feeding the far line with maggot. The second hour was better than the first and the fish showed no sign of backing off. On the two hour mark the wind dropped a bit and I threw the crowquill over near the boat on the maggot line just to see what was about. It was easy to see it against the black hull and it didn't take long for it to go under. There was quite a bit if resistance and at first I thought it was a big chub. Coming across the river it went deep and fought a bit like a bream. It was actually a perch touching 3lbs. What a fish and the net was used for the first time. 

It was great holding back the crowquill on both lines and my feeding discipline held out for the 5 hours. I cannot remember when I had a day like it. Another big perch was landed about an hour from the end and I was tempted to put the feeder across with worm but with almost a bite a chuck the risk was too great. the waggler and feeder rods were not picked up.

During the 5 hours I fed 2 pints of maggot, 2 pints of hemp and a pint of caster, thats a lot of feed for a November match but like I say they were having it big time.

I knew I had 20lb plus. Shaun Townsend came up with the scales from 2 pegs down as I had the board, he also said he had 20lb plus.

My net of fish went 24lb 14oz

Heres C Sections board (A and B Div) as you can see Shaun had 1lb more than me!

So back to the results and I was grateful for Sam coming back up river to help push the barrow back as I was flagging.

It soon became clear that the Chequers section had fished extremely poor. One of the sections was won with 3oz, the other just over 1lb and there were loads of blanks!

I got the section by default as Shaun just framed (they only pay the top 4) so I was 5th overall from 48 anglers.

Matt Challenger had a good day on the Chub a few pegs below the ''beach'', all on the waggler.

Matt with his Chub bag

Here are the full results courtesy of Vince Lunn.....

Individuals 

1 M Challenger Mosella Bathampton A 34 lbs 0 ozs (Chub below the beach)
2 I Stainer Sensas Nomads Green 29 lbs 7 ozs (skimmers boys hole)
3 D Harvey DW Builders 26 lbs 7 ozs (bream at Swineford)
4 S Townsend Mosella Bathampton B 25 lbs 14 ozs
5 I Currie Sensas Nomads Black 24 lbs 14 ozs
6 D Gillman Mosella Bathampton A 19 lbs 10 ozs

Teams
A Div on day
1 Mosella Bathampton A 17
2 Mosella Bathampton B 15
3 Preston Innovations Thatchers 14
4 Sensas Nomads Black 8

A Div League overall 
1 Mosella Bathampton A 67.5 
2 Preston Innovations Thatchers 65 
3 Mosella Bathampton B 54 
4 Sensas Nomads Black 47.5

B Div on day
1 Sensas Nomads Green 17
2 Stand & Deliver Promotions 16
3 DW Builders 13
4 M & N Electrical 7
1 Mosella Bathampton A 67.5
2 Preston Innovations Thatchers 65
3 Mosella Bathampton B 54
4 Sensas Nomads Black 47.5

B Div League overall
1 Stand & Deliver Promotions 65
2 DW Builders 58
3 Sensas Nomads Green 55
4 M & N Electrical 53

Well done to the Sensas Nomads green Team today and Mike Withey for winning his Section plus Ian Stainer for coming 2nd overall.

Swineford and the Crane sections fished exceptionally well with only 8 of the 32 anglers catching under 6lbs .... what a river.

Next match for me is this coming Sunday, Upper Thames Winter League on the Kennent and Avon Canal at Seend. It will be a very different day.....fingers crossed for perch and skimmers.

Thank you for all the support ....... the blog will continue...

Wednesday 31st October - Avon League Bristol Avon, Bradford on Avon

This League runs on one Wednesday each month October to March with a practice match in between each round. I believe it has been going for some time now. Gary Etheridge put me on to it back in the summer and I got the details and book in with Colin who runs Premier Angling in Chippenham and Keynsham. £90 paid up front for the series including pools means no money is exchanged on the day. Matches are held at BOA, Chippenham and Melksham with the K&A as a reserve venue if flooded.

Details as follows:

Parking for todays match was at Tythe Barn Bradford on Avon with breakfast in the Lock Inn up on the Canal. Team mate Mike Martin-Davies was also fishing and advised me to park up in Pound Lane to save on Parking Fees. Breakfast was at around 08:20 so I decided to leave home at 06:15 for the 1 hour journey up the M5, M4 and down the A46 int Bath then out to BOA.
Just as well I left early as the traffic was bad on the M5 due to road works and the M4 up to the M32 junction was rammed.

I did arrive in BOA at around 07:15 and Mike was not far behind me. With time to spare we walked along the river to look at the pegging. it was well spread out but the river looked pretty dire. There had been a hard frost, not much flow and lots of leaves on the water. We went as far as peg 11 and decided that out of all those pegs we wouldn't want 7 as it had a lot of dead water.

Back to the Lock in for breakfast and quite a few had turned up. 21 booked in for the league a lot of retired anglers and a few work shirkers.
While we were having breakfast the ''knockout'' draw was done and I had James Carty of P I Thatchers.
Draw time soon came around and Mike and I were near the back. I drew peg 8 and Mike 17. Not knowing the water I was informed by quite a few anglers that it was a chub peg. James who I was against in the Knockout was on peg1, a peg with a lot of form for small fish and a bit of a backwater from the main river.
Fishing was 11 until 4 so plenty of time. My main attack would be to start off on the bread feeder across under some trees, a waggler for fishing the same line and the pole down the middle over pinkie and caster with a few chopped worms.

I fully concentrated for the 5 hours trying everything but could not generate a single bite. I phoned Mike with 90 minutes or so to go and he had not had a bite either along with Andrew Chatterley. Word was it was fishing really hard with just the odd fish being caught.
The leaves were a tad frustrating but my peg was not as bad as some......

This was Andrews peg!

James done the business off peg 1 with over 200 fish for 12lb, Tony Scott and Kev Abigail and 6lb odd for 2nd and 3rd places. Kev was on peg 7 the peg we didn't want!

Not much else to say really, one to forget methinks.

Sunday coming in the next round of the Sensas Bristol Commercial House League on the lower Bristol Avon, think its warming up a bit.