When I arrived about 06:15 Geoff Mortimer was also there parked up and waiting for me. I told Geoff last week that I would be fishing. Time went on a bit and it wasn't until 06:50 that Leigh turned up. Basically he couldn't turn off the Bath Rd. were he thought he could and ended up going around the long way. Anyway he managed to park up immediately behind me.
Off to Kellys Cafe next for breakfast and despite me warning Leigh about the size of the monster breakfast he ordered it ..... and he finished it the same time as mine which was half the size, but he was impressed.
As we unloaded our vehicles down by Manor Scrap a couple of guys in high viz vests were on the canal bank and next thing we know they had a boat. Turns out they were going to carry out a survey on the foundations of one of the buildings that borders the canal on the far bank. We decided to go upstream out of their way. Leigh settled in just about Clarks Wood Yard and had a few bushes across. I went 2 pegs up with Brandon Tool Hire behind me and also had a bit of greenery, Geoff went a couple of pegs up again just below the Footbridge.
The Canal was a very dirty colour with a fair bit of debris floating around. The tow towards the city was fairly strong.
I set up a 1 gram and a 1.5 gram rig, both would do the bottom of the far shelf and the track. 20 hook on the 1 gram and a 18 on the 1.5. It was about a foot shallower up this end compared to were I normally fish but still a decent depth.
Usual ground bait mix, black lake and pastoncino with a little leam this time along with the usual particles.
It did take a while to get a bite, Leigh was having little or no indications either but I did see Geoff net a few fish early.
After 30 minutes or so I did start to get a few bites across but they were only small dace and the odd small perch.
I fed across fairly regularly with small balls of ground bait and this gave me a positive response and a run of dace followed but it was by no means manic.
Geoff came down for a walk and said he had been getting mainly dace down the track loose feeding hemp with maggot on the hook. I had been topping up my track line but started to fire a few casters and a bit of hemp in as well.
The flow started to back up which suggested there was a tide this morning, I didn't check but that's what it looked like. Tourist barges started to come up and down as well so the locks were opening and shutting at the river end.
I managed a skimmer followed by a decent roach across between a couple of boats going past but after that my far line went dead.
look down the track suggested there was some fish around. Geoff came back down and said he bumped a bream as had Leigh, so they were about.
I saw Leigh shipping his pole back very carefully and knew he had a bream on, it took ages for hime to get it in on the light elastic but patience paid off and luckily no boats came past at the same time.
Nice fish touching 4lbs
The latter half of the session I spent more time down the track and had a good run of roach but felt I hadn't got the feeding right. I did miss a lot of snatching bites but those were small dace.
Geoff and I packed up at 15:00, Leigh was going to fish on until after the rush hour and then go and see his mum but he weighed in along with us.
Geoff had 9lb 8oz (and was also asked to be a witness to a car crash behind him lol)
I had a level 7lb
Leigh had just over 8lbs, he had a big skimmer to go with his bream about 20 minutes to go.
The Bristol Feeder Canal is an interesting venue at this time of year. I have a match on the Glossy on Sunday and may well visit the Feeder again next week.
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