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.