Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th May - Bristol Feeder Canal and Gloucester Canal

With fishing being allowed from 13th May I was asked by Team mate Leigh Wakefield if I fancied going to the Bristol Feeder Canal. I did and I didn't ...1, I didn't have any bait and 2, thought it would be busy on the bank so declined. Leigh did go and had a nice day catching well into double figures of bream, skimmers, roach and dace.
I managed to get some maggot on the Friday along with some frozen pinkie so fished the Bristol Feeder Canal on the Saturday morning.

It felt strange to be out and at 06:30 there was only one other angler and his young son who turned up. Took me longer than normal to set up down by Manor Scrap as I went back to the van 3 times to get stuff I forgot. Keep net was left at home.

I was finally ready at 07:30. Usual set up which I have mentioned many times. Ground bait was a nice dark mix, Clive Bransons ''black bream'', gardons, noire and mole hill.

I did not have any caster so put in some micro pellet, dead pinkie and dead reds plus hemp.

After feeding 3 balls on 2 lines I was expecting to catch straight away, I didn't. It took about 30 mins for a bite and it was a small dace.

Long story short...ended up with just 20 fish after 5 hours, best fish was a 8 to 10 oz hybrid and a net roach.

Two anglers walked down from the top end and said it had fished hard all morning. Think it might have got hammered on the Wednesday and Thursday.

I planned to go up on the Gloucester Canal on the Sunday and arranged to meet up with Team mate Chris Hook at the Castle Section, my other Team mate Sam Johnson was also going but early, very early.

I met Chris just before 08:00 and we both walked down toward the 400 range of pegs, takes about 20 minutes tops. As we passed the first pegs past the boats 2 anglers were pole fishing. One had 4 bream, he said he fished the same peg the day before and had about 10lb of skimmers but threw all his leftover bait in before leaving. Both anglers had keep nets in. I did ask why and the replied like I thought they would i.e. what harm is it, it's not a match.

We walked on down toward the sunken barge and just beyond it saw a feeder being cast out. Chris decided to set up on about peg 435, Sam was already on 441 so I went in on 443. The pegs offer a good amount of room from the foot path behind you.

Sam said he cast his first line at around 06:30 and had 3 bream. He had some very small skimmers and roach initially after starting on the bread but switched to fishmeal and dead reds. As I was setting up he was into another bream.

I only set up my 12 foot acolyte rod with a 1.5oz tip, 25 gram cage feeder, B560 16 hook to 0.11.

Ground bait was my favourite green fishmeal.

With just a few dead reds and dead fluro pinkies in the feed and 2 dead reds on the hook I had 3 fish within the first 35 minutes.....

First skimmer

Third fish

As the session went on the fish got bigger...

I ended up with 15 proper bream, 3 skimmers and 2 hybrids for around 40lbs would have been nice to use a keep net but playing by the rules at the moment.

Sam had around 7 or 8 bream, Chris had around 3 proper bream and 10 big skimmers so all in all a good day.

Might go fluff chucking on Wednesday up Chew Valley Lake as it is open now.

Stay safe all.