Late on Monday night I decided it would be the Gloucester Canal but couldn't decide whether to go but thought about Castle Up / Down or Hempstead Bend. A couple of feeder rods were sorted out with braid on the reels and ground bait pre-mixed.
When I got up on Tuesday morning I still wasn't sure but headed up the M5 and got to McDonalds at Hardwick around 07:45 for a coffee and a bagel.
Pulling out of their car park I turned right and headed up to Hempstead parking near the Swing Bridge in the housing estate to walk down to ''Hempstead Bend''. These are the pegs to draw in a match i.e 45 - 50 although 50 is not that great.
As I got down to the bend there was an angler already set up and fishing 49. He just had a single pole rig set up and fishing at 5 or 6 metres where it is approximately top 5 deep close in. The bream do come in close here but to do well a combination of pole and feeder is needed.
He hadn't caught yet and had been there about 2 hours. I asked him if it was ok to go in on 48 and he said carry on as I would be only fishing the feeder about 35 metres out.
The sky was pretty black and there was the odd shower but nothing to worry about as heavier rain wasn't due until the evening. Plenty of colour in the water as well as floating debris, leaves, twigs etc.
I decided to just take the 12 foot acolyte rod out of the bag combined with a 2oz tip, 0.10 braid on the reel, a 25 gram cage feeder and a size 16 B560 TO 0.11 power line.
Worm, dead reds, pinkie and caster were on the bait tray.
I was fully set up and ready by 09:30.
Casting out was good and I was hitting the clip and immediately sinking the braid before finally tightening up with just a little bit of tension on the tip.
2nd cast in I had a rattle but nothing more, at the same time the angler on 49 had a bream around 3lbs.
I kept re-casting every 5 minutes for the first 30 but not too much feed in the ground bait which was Bait-Tech Pro-natural with extra fishmeal added. Up unit the first 30 minutes I had dead reds on the hook but changed to half a dendra tipped with two flur pinkies.
First cast with the change of hook bait produced a real wrap round and it was bream on. Lovely dark fish just under 4lbs. Soon after the angler on 49 had another but smaller than his first.
I kept with the worm and pinkie set up on the hook and dead on 10:30 had another positive pull and netted a bream of around 3lbs.
Another angler came down and set up the short pole on peg 51. Just as he came down 49 had another.
Plugging away my next bite didn't come until 12:00 ish and it was bream number 3.
After that the peg just got stronger and when I packed up at 15:00 in order to miss the traffic I had 17 bream so must have had over 40lbs.
I know it's a decent peg but you still got to catch them.
The angler on 49 end up with just the 3 and the guy on 50 ended up with one as I packed up.
Lovely day
Poppy match on the Bristol Avon Sunday.
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