Sunday 13th January - Sensas Bristol Commercial House League, final round Kennet & Avon Canal Bath Town to Bathampton

After last weeks round I took responsibility to order the Bloodworm and Joker for our 2 Teams as young Andy Cranston who got it for us was not fishing the league this week. I ordered it from Taffy's up in Bolton, I have had it from him before and its been very good. 12 packs duly arrived by courier on Thursday morning and it was pretty good. The cost worked out at £8 including the postage so reasonable enough. Problem was I had to spend the next few days spraying it in order to keep it in good nick....oh the responsibility.

Tim Ford was in charge of pegging for the match and after last weeks match which was rock hard  Tim was going to get as many pegs as possible in the town area. He did well and after pegging out on the Saturday posted in advance how he pegged it.

A1 to A8 long pondB1 to B4 horseshoe B5 to b8 malt house C1 to C6 malt house C7. C8 Richardson bayD1 to D4 Richardson D5 to d8 tunnels Top tunnel not pegged E1 meadow farm to old lock
F1 past old lock F8 near white gate by George pub 

One thing did concern me though was parking although Tim did suggest that anglers double up in the town area's.

The Crown in Keynsham was open for this weeks draw and I got there about 07:30 with Sam after a stop off at McDonalds just in case the cook didn't turn up which has happened before. First priority was to collect the money for the worm which was soon settled.

Our team Sensas Nomads Black today was....
Chris Hook (c)
Sam Johnson
Leigh Wakefield
Rich Whitmarsh
Mike Martin - Davies - special appearance and debt collector
Me

Our other team, Sensas Nomads Green was .....
Mark Williams (c)
Mike Withey
Jeff Sibley
Nigel Saunders
Paul Rigby
Kevin Morris

The draw was done and Chris came back with us on peg 1, Marks team had peg 2.

I was in C Section so headed off to Pultney Gardens in Bath to park up aside the canal. Leigh was in B Section (same parking area) so was going to follow me, on the way out Jeff Sibley said he was in C and didn't know where to go so he followed me as well.

Parking on arrival was tight, I did find a couple of spaces and drove past them to turn around and in the meantime Paul Purchase nicked my spot so ended up parking way up a hill. It was OK to be honest as the downhill walk with the trolley was painless and I would bring the van down at the end.

I waited on the Horseshoe pond where Leigh was and waited for him to come around. I knew the peg so gave him a few tips before heading off to mine.

My peg was on the end of a wider bay and it did look quite inviting.

Plumbing up I found the deepest part of my peg was top 7 out where it was about 4 foot and into the bay to my right. A 4x14 with 0.08 to a 20 would be spot on for this area and intended to start with bread here. Straight across in front of me I had 3 foot a metre out so chose that line for joker feed and set up a 0.3 gram rig with 0.09 to a 20. Finally a full 13 metre line in the middle of the bay, 4x14 set up similar to my short line. I didn't go to the left as Jeff was next to me and the pegging was quite tight. Andy Britt came down with the Section Board to fill in the names, he said I was on the ''flyer'' so no pressure.

There was some strong gusts of wind and it kept changing direction so I had plenty of line between the pole and the float.

On the all in I cupped in 2 balls of liqqy  on the short line and then fed choppy and caster on the long line and a ball of joker in leam and soil across.

Starting off on a 6mm double punch it didn't take long for the float to go under and soon had a dumpy roach. The bread line was performing well and I had a bite a chuck for the first hour and a quarter popping up with little balls of bread on a regular basis and also feeding the other two lines.

Resting the bread line after it went quiet I went long into the bay with a maggot and had a roach straight away then the wind blew the pole hard left and the rig got snagged in the far bank thorns so had to re-rig. I did have a couple more roach but the wind was too difficult so re-fed for later. Going across on my joker line with pinkie I had a small chub and a couple of nice roach.

Andy Britt came down for a walk and said all above me were struggling and asked what weight I had, I said about 2lbs, he said I was pissing the section.
I carried on putting the odd fish in the next from the 3 lines and then Darren Gillman came up for a walk from the Section below me, he said he only had about 8 small fish.

My bread line went completely dead so I potted in some joker and left it for 20 minutes nicking the odd fish straight across. When I did go back on the short line with double bloodworm I had a good run of fish. Two hours from the all out it went rock hard and I only added 1 perch and a ruff.

From what I could see I thought I had done OK but there were 2 pegs in our Section which were the other side of Bathwick Hill bridge and they can be pretty good.
Walking up to meet the scales one of those pegs had 5lb plus but that angler was in B Div, I was in A.
When it came to me I had a level 4lb which did win A Div Section.

Happy enough with my catch in a tough area the lowest weight being 6oz

Leigh came up from B Section to see how I got on, he had won his Section as well catching where I told him to fish.

Leigh had 8lb 8oz

Heading back to the road we also learned that Sam in A Section had also won his with 8lb 10oz which also meant he won the ''Knock Out'' so well done to him.

Back at the pub the team sheet was completed and heres how it turned out...

So 3 Section wins from 6 and the known hard areas lived up to their reputation.

Senses Nomads Green had a good day with 2 section pick ups ( Mark by default) and Kevin coming 2nd overall with 12lbs

Nomads Green capt Mark Williams with his bag (B2).

Kev Dicks won the match from the Tunnels with a nice bag of fish for 17lbs

Kev Dicks

Full results as follows courtesy of Vince Lunn...

Individuals
1 K Dicks Mosella Bathampton A 17 lbs 0 ozs
2 K Morris Sensas Nomads Green 12 lbs 8 ozs
3 P Purchase M & N Electrical 8 lbs 14 ozs
4 K Boltz Stand & Deliver Promotions 8 lbs 11 ozs
5 S Johnson Sensas Nomads Black 8 lbs 10 ozs
6 L Wakefield Sensas Nomads Black 8 lbs 8 ozs

Teams
A Div on day
1 Mosella Bathampton B 17
2 Sensas Nomads Black 16.5
3 Mosella Bathampton A 14
4 Preston Innovations Thatchers 11.5 

B Div on day
1= M & N Electrical 17
1= Sensas Nomads Green 17
3 Stand & Deliver Promotions 12
4 DW Builders 11 

A Div League overall
1 Mosella Bathampton A 93.5 269 lbs 8 ozs
2 Preston Innovations Thatchers 93.5 252 lbs 15 ozs
3 Mosella Bathampton B 87
4 Sensas Nomads Black 78 

B Div League overall
1 Stand & Deliver Promotions 94
2 Sensas Nomads Green 84
3 M & N Electrical 81.5
4 DW Builders 81.5

Not a bad day for us really and I finished 10th overall individually after missing the first match.

Big thanks to Mike and Nicky Goodhind, Vince Lunn and all the peggers for a great league.