Sunday 27th October - Bristol Commercial House League Round 5, Bristol Avon, Swineford and Crane

The rain we had on Friday was of no real concern but the down-pours we had on the Saturday were. I did check the gauge on line at Saltford which is upstream of the match length late Saturday afternoon and it looked OK. Further checks in the evening however did show a steady rise leading to a very steep rise before I went to bed.
With the clocks going back I had a troubled nights sleep and was more or less awake from 03:30.
When I did get up at 06:00 I checked the gauge again and saw that it had peaked and was slowly dropping.

When I went out the door it felt very cold and the van windscreen was frosted over (1st one of the year). I decided to leave the pole gear at home and just took 2 feeders rods, a long rod and a whip.

I met team mates Sam and Chris in McDonalds before joining the others at the Crown Pub in Keynsham.

Team today was the same as the last outing.....
Chris (c)
Sam
Rich
Mike
Brian
Me

When we got to the pub the word was the Upper Thames Winter League which was scheduled to be fished on the river at Melksham and Chippenham was cancelled due to the level of the river.

Chris done the team draw and came back with peg 3.
A sect (Swineford) was Brian
B sect (Swineford) me
C sect (crane) Chris
D sect (crane) Mike
E sect (crane) Sam
F sect (crane) Rich

Mike was also in the semi final of the ''knock out'' and was fishing against Rich Lacey.

As a team we were 5 points clear in our Div so needed to build on that as well.

Only one fence to negotiate today which was OK but someone had taken all the pegs from the fence posts but found my peg in the end with the help of Shane Caswell who also lent me a rope to get down the bank safely.

On the face of it the peg looked OK with a slack down the left hand side although there were a few boils. It was a full river and plenty of colour.

I just set up 2 feeder rods with a view to fishing short 30 gram and 45 gram feeders with a 14 and 12 hook. I was all set up and settled with 30 minutes to spare when I noticed a few small fish topping a rod length out so decided to set up a whip. 

A look in the rod bags and no whip.....left in in the van so decided to walk back and get it. As I passed team mate Brian on A3 he asked were I was going, told him and he lent me a whip which saved some time. I attached a 0.6 gram float and set it 10'' deep with a 20 hook.

On the whistle I went straight in with the 45 gram feeder, plenty of chopped worm and caster and a lobby on the hook. It sat there nice but when I picked the rod up to recast it was snagged and lost the lot. Went out with the other rod and cast a bit further out but that also ended up getting snagged and lost the lost again. 

So 20 minutes in and it wasn't going well. I felt my feeders and end tackle were ending up on parts of the bank which would have been visible had the water not been so high and there was also a sunken branch of a tree in the peg as well.

At this point I decided to forget about the feeder and try and get some bleak etc on the whip.

Loose feeding maggot it took me 20 minutes or so to get my first fish a small dace at 6 metres. I soon got into a rhythm and took a few more but only when the ''boils'' in front of me calmed down and the whirl pool ceased.

Lee Trevitt came down walking the bank (after coming back from the cancelled match at Chippenham) and watched me for a while and said I was doing ok.

So the whip it was for the rest of the match, caster brought a couple of better fish as did feeding small nuggets of sloppy ground bait.

I had a real mixed bag, roach, chublets, dace, bleak and minnows.

My net went 3lb 6oz which was 2nd in the whole section but also second in B Div section behind Paul Purchase who fished the feeder all day a rod length for a couple of late bream, a skimmer and some roach for 14lb 8oz.

Paul actually went on to win the match

My section board

Back at the pub we appeared to have done OK ish with Rich and Chris winning their sections and Brian and I second in section.

Our team sheet

Mike also got through to the final of the ''knock out'' so well done to him. He's up against Vince Lunn on the canal in a few weeks time.

Section weights as follows some my default....

            A Div          B Div

A         6-8               5-0

B         2-3               3-6 (me)

C         1-5               3-3 (Chris)

D         4-3               5-15

E          5-9.5           1-5

F          4-3              3-14 (Rich)

Full report and positions courtesy of Vince Lunn.....

The 5th round of the Sensas Commercial House league was fished on the Bristol Avon at Swinford and the crane. Heavy rain the previous day made the river high and coloured. There was an overnight frost with bright sunshine all day. The weights were low with only 8 anglers catching over 5 lbs.

Paul Purchase of M&N Electrical won the match from permanent peg 20 with 14 lbs 6 ozs. He fished the feeder all day just 1 rod length out to catch 2 skimmers and a couple of roach before catching a couple of late Bream up to 5 1/2 lbs.

2nd was Luke Sorokin of Preston Innovations Thatchers with 10 lbs 9 ozs from the beach.
He caught 4 to 5 lbs of bleak on the whip and then caught a bream, a skimmer and a decent roach on the feeder in close.

3rd M Kent (Mosella Bathampton B) 8 lbs 1 oz

4th S Hutchinson (Preston Innovations Thatchers) 8 lbs 0 oz

5th K Dicks (Mosella Bathampton A) 6 lbs 8 ozs

6th L Warden (M&N Electrical) 5 lbs 15 ozs

Preston Innovations Thatchers won the A division to take a 10 point lead into the final round.
In the B Div, M&N Electrical won on the day to move into 2nd place, but Sensas Nomads still have an 8 point lead.

The knockout final will be Mike Withey vs Vince Lunn

On the day A div:
Preston Innovation Thatchers - 14
Mosella Bathampton B - 12
Mosella Bathampton B - 10

B div:
M&N Electrical - 15
Sensas Nomads - 12
Midland Spinner - 8

League positions:
A div
Preston Innovation Thatchers - 68
Mosella Bathampton A - 58
Mosella Bathampton B - 54

B div
Sensas Nomads - 65.5
M&N Electrical - 57.5
Midland Spinner - 56

So still leading our Division with a few points spare and one round to go.

Open on the same stretch next Sunday.