Wednesday 29th July - Staverton Open

Back to Staverton again for another well attended afternoon / evening match. All the usual suspects plus a couple of new guys from Cotswold Angling.

I have in the past picked up the draw ticket nearest to me when Gerry throws them up in the air and been drawing rubbish. This time I went for one in the middle and was gutted when I opened it revealing I was on 26, an absolute crap area so fishing for a section win at best.

Arriving at the peg I recognised it from a couple of years ago, very comfortable and a bit of shade but this would be a pole only job as I could see weed just under the surface all the way along the far bank.

A fairly even depth, little flow and no colour. 

1 and 1.5 gram rig to 5 and 6 elastic at 13 metres plus a 1.5 gram at 7 sections to 6 elastic to fish to my left under nearside bushes.

I had plenty of hemp and caster with me so decided to feed heavy with hemp long and caster on the inside. I did cup a couple of balls in with hemp and caster at 13 metres initially.

So....starting long and also feeding the short line I had a sail way bite on hemp first put in, a roach around 3oz then nothing more on the hemp in the first 20 minutes despite feeding regularly with the catapult. 

A swap to caster on the hook brought a flurry of bites but all gudgeon, not a bad size to be honest but wanted roach. A bonus 5 oz chublet was most welcome and after an hour and a half I thought I had about 1lb.

No need to panic though, it was a crap peg and sometimes better fish come late.

I came on the inside where I had been feeding the casters and not a sausage after about a dozen run throughs, could not believe it.

I decided to feed maggot on the inside instead from then on and eventually had a net roach and a couple of smaller ones. I also hooked a big perch but he done me in the nearside vegetation, bollocks!!

I didn't catch anything else down the near line after that so just kept catching gudgeon long. pike were prolific and attacked the incoming gudgeon frequently, still a bit of excitement on a dull day.

At 7 p.m. with an hour to go I was thinking of packing up but convinced myself to stay for a late flurry of roach but they didn't come.

Packing up Simon Lloyd down on the next peg, 24 said he had about a pound, I thought about chucking back but was glad I didn't.

Andy Pratten had the scales and did not weigh on 14, peg 16 weighed 1lb 9oz then Mark Kember put 10lb 9oz in the net off 21. We thought that would at least frame so I was hoping for a default section.

Simon on 24 weighed 1lb 4oz and my mainly gudgeon based net went 2lb 11oz ....lol.... get in.

So....never give up ..... always weigh in.

Mark on 21 went on to win the match, Kev Abigail was 2nd off peg 12 with 8lb 1oz so well done to them.

Mark with his winning catch

Super League Round 5 at Newbridge on Sunday.

Catch Up (wish I could catch at the moment)

It's been a while since I blogged for various reasons 1) my blog set up changed for some reason and it took me a while to work out how to post etc, 2) a few projects at home (still ongoing) and 3) busy with my Club and Super League duties as captain.

Wednesday 15th July saw me at Staverton, drew peg 11 and had a couple of roach on the tare in 2 put in's. After that just little knocks on the tare and a few on hemp but they were a poor stamp of fish ended up 4lb plus for nowhere.

Saturday 18th I was on the River Kenn for our Clubs annual Charity Match. It was a good turn out with 32 attending and bream had been caught during the week. I drew peg 7, a good draw but only had 2 bootlace eels. 10 bream were caught during the match. Dan Dymond had 3 off peg 3 in the last hour of the match for 20lb 8oz and a match win. Craig Fletcher had 2 off peg 4 for 15lb 1oz for 2nd place and Paul Tedman-Whitemoor had 2 off peg 8 for 14lb, his first one was hooked and netted in the first minute.

Winner Dan Dymond

£300 was raised for the Orchard Trust which supports people with learning difficulties so a good result.

Sunday 19th I was back at Staverton for Round 4 of the Super League, there were 2 sections here plus 2 at Barton Farm. I drew a cracker of a peg, peg 29 which is a flyer if the chub feed. Sadly they did not and I ended up with 4lb 8oz and 7 points from 17. The rest of the team had a bad day as well.

As expected the long walk way past the sewer field at Barton Farm was the place to be and Dave Micklewright had a magnificent 51lb of bream from A2 with Andy Powell not far off the pace on A3 with over 40lbs.

Dave with part of his catch, think he referred to them as skimmers!

Wednesday 22nd July back at Staverton for the Wednesday Open, drew peg 11 again ffs! I thought I fished a good match and was really disciplined feeding 3 lines all match. I was doing ok on all of them. Wag, pole, whip. The fish were small though and the last 90 minutes I concentrated on the far bank line with the waggler and lost 2 chub in a snag halfway across the river. I weighed 4lb 10oz and the section was won with just over 6lbs so I should have had that. 

Tony Scott won the match landing 3 chub out of 4 in the final hour.

Saturday 25th July Chris and I fished the Angling Trust Canal Pairs on the Glossy. Draw was OK with me on 174 and Chris on 240. The canal was a grey silt colour due to water being pumped in from a dirty River Severn. The bream did not really feed. I think the best weight was 4 bream off the end peg down at Pilot. I had a few eels, ruff, perch and skimmers for 2lb 8oz which was a lot better than some. Needless to say we didn't qualify.

I have had a day off today (Sunday 26th July) as I feel fished out but no doubt I'll be back at Staverton on Wednesday. 

I walked along the River at Bradford on Avon today where the match was in the last Super League. Boats of all descriptions, swimmers, dogs in the water and what felt like hundreds of people. This year has been unique and there are a lot more people using our waterways than normal, I just hope they don't get to like it too much.

There are also a few people I know a bit down in the dumps concerning their fishing performance but that's just the way it goes the best part of the fishing year is yet to come on naturals and I for one will look forward to that.

Sunday 12th July - S W Super League Round 2, King Sedgemoor Drain

Back down the KSD for the 2nd Round of the Super League.

The ''Zoom Draw'' which I received late Saturday afternoon put me back on A section this time A16 where the winner came from the previous week and a couple of pegs down so happy with that. Chris was also a few pegs down from last week on B3 as was Sam on C2. Both B and C have been tough. Mike who has now had his tag removed was officially permitted to venture out of the Principality and ended up on D11 at Bradney, also a tough area.

I done a full matrix peg by peg showing the weights from Round 1 as a guide, we also had some info on how our pegs were approached. The weather this week was completely different and we expected it to be a lot harder.

Warm sunshine, clear skies and little wind greeted us on the day of the match and a few tweaks were discussed when we met up at Sedgemoor Services on the M5.

After breaking the trolley down to go through the kissing gate at Parchey Bridge (good practice for the lower Avon) I only had a short walk to A16.

Above me was organiser Dave Micklewright and below me Steve ''Stretch'' Saunders (end peg) so if there were bream about he would have them on his favourite corn or worm.

My peg was down the bank a bit but other than that the same as any other with a few lilies either side 5 metres out.

My approach the previous week seemed to work so that would be my baseline for today. I did set up two identical short pole rigs in case I destroyed one (bagging up), both 1 gram with 20 hooks. One longer line at around 11 metres with a 2 gram and an 18. In addition I set up a 6 metre whip, waggler and feeder all of which were not used.
GB was Lake and Canal Black.

Fishing was 11 - 4.
Nets in at 10:45

I fed both pole lines first, 4 balls long and 2 short, plenty of hemp, caster and dead pinkie. A bit of chop was also put in long.

Starting off short I was ready for some fast and furious action....., 5 minutes later still waiting....oh dear, this was defo not in the plan. 10 minutes in and the float goes under and a small pommie, they've arrived. Well a few did then they went.
I could hear a bit of splashing either side of me from Dave and Steve but couldn't see due to bushes.

My short line was not productive at all so I fed a big pot of hemp and went out long.

That was better and a bite first put in. Quite a few roach followed and after that dried up I fed another couple of nuggets.

The inside line produced a few more roach and mommies but you would catch a couple, maybe four and that was it. Re-fed and back out long.
I had 4 skimmers one after the other just fishing beyond my ground bait. Not big but around 1lb plus each.

My day went like this, catch a few nearside, feed, go long, catch a few, feed, etc.

It wasn't fast and furious but I knew listening to what was going on it was fishing hard. I didn't get off the box all day and felt I was doing the right thing.

Ended up with 10-1 which was 2nd in the Section worth £60. 14lb won the Section from A1.

Here's my board....

Kev Bennett who won my Section also won the match, 2nd was Mark Bromsgrove with 14-5, 3rd Jake Fowles 13-13 and Liam Bradell with 10-12.

I was 5th overall so not bad out of 68.

So 3 matches in a row on KSD and 3 pick up's.

Team wise we blew out.

Very well done to Thatchers Sonubaits with a great performance on the day.

Lot's of public on the bank today dive bombing off the bridge, swimming, canoeing and sunbathing, nightmare for B and C sections.

Staverton this Wednesday, Clevedon Charity Open on the Kenn Saturday and Round 3 of the Super League Sunday at Staverton and Barton Farm.

Wednesday 8th July - Bristol Avon, Staverton Open

Back for the midweek Staverton Open which attracted 30 anglers again.

I picked up peg 11 which i have never fished before.

The peg looked nice but when plumbing up the depth was all over the place and seemed to resemble a Manhattan Skyline. The only clean run through I could get was just shy of 13 metres. It was top 4.5 deep and little or no flow so not good.

Nothing over ground bait at all except bleak on the way down.

After an hour I decided to feed hemp and fish tares.

Soon had a 6oz roach and netted it only to miss the keepnet with it ....£$^&*!!!

The fish were responding and I wish I had proper hooker hemp with me so had to persevere with the smallest tares. Lot's of bites but from small roach that couldn't take the tare properly.

Ended up with 4lb 10oz which was pretty average for the whole match length . Turns out I had the golden peg as well and given that 11lb odd won the match I felt if I had the hooker hemp I might have challenged that.

Weight sheets and results below..

Sunday 5th July - S W Super League Round 1, King Sedgemoor Drain

This very competitive League has 17 teams of 4 this year, all the venues are natural so there is definitely an appetite for this branch of the sport (in previous years it was teams of 8)
Although the planning takes place some months ahead final adjustments had to be made to comply with COVID-19 guidelines i.e........

Social distancing
Safe weighing in procedures
Electronic payment of entrance fee's / pools / payouts following the match
Emailing of team sheets
Draw via I T Conferencing
Results electronically

It did appear to be a bit of a challenge as some people representing teams were not used to or familiar with on-line banking etc but all sorted in time.

The draw was done via a ''Zoom'' Conference Call set up by Mark Treasure and Administered by Dave Micklewright with an attendance by Andy Jane and myself as adjudicators as well as calling out random numbers and letters.
The results of the draw were not sent out to team captains until 17:00 on the Saturday.

So in summary no mass meet up on the morning of the match, all admin done in advance and no cash handled. All competitors had to do was turn up at 09:00 on match day and go to their allocated peg.
The downside is it's a massive admin task for Dave.

Team for the day was ...
Ivan Currie (c)
Chris Hook
Sam Johnson
Leigh Wakefield

I had already notified the guys on the Saturday evening what peg they would be on but we still met up at Sedgemoor Services at 07:45 for a chat.

I was in A Sect peg 14.
Chris in B Sect peg B1
Sam in C Sect peg C5
Leigh in D Sect peg D9

We tried to work out the approach based on the previous weeks practice and what was caught within a few pegs of where we were today.
A plan had been worked out during the week and fine tuned as far as possible by Sunday.

I had never fished above Parchey Bridge before but based on the previous weeks match you wanted A1 to A3, my peg A14 did not appear to have any form.

It was a bit narrower than where I was last week and did look nice, but, they all do.

On my left was DGL's Martyn Howard who was also below me last week, to my right Ben Rendall and below him Mike Bernstsen, the end peg was Lee Trivett.

In was quite breezy and straight into our faces but I did set up a waggler just in case but never used it. A feeder rod for across but also not used. Long pole line with 2 gram and a 6 metre line with 1 gram.

Usual approach on the ''all in'' feeding pole lines and started on the 6 metre line first. As expected bites straight away and to cut a long story short apart from a brief spell long, brief due to the wind getting stronger I stayed short most of the match feeding regular balls of hemp, caster and pinkie. Lots of bites all day long from small fish and no pike trouble.

I didn't count them but must have had around 200 fish and weighed 15-4 which just got me last in the Section money.

Martyn to my left had a big 16lb, Ben 13lb and the 2 end pegs 20lb and 18lb.

So 15 points from 17 and a pick up, happy with that in a competitive Section.

Sam also done well catching 2 tench on the pole plus bits for 12lb odd and 3rd in section (15 points), Chris and Leigh not so good.

Todays winner Mike Bernstsen

League after Round 1

Steverton on Wednesday then back on the KSD again for Round 2 next Sunday.

Wednesday 1st July - Staverton Open Bristol Avon

Another good turn out for this Wednesday afternoon / evening open. Prior to the draw it absolutely pissed down for 10 minutes or so but that was it for the remainder of the day thank goodness.
Team mate Sam Johnson was with me again today while Mike was up at Evesham.

A couple of new faces this week and due to the fact that the Super League has a match on here in a few weeks time.

Gerry asked me to draw the ''secret'' golden peg which stands at £200.
The peg number is not revealed until the match is finished.

I picked up peg 4 which is a good early season peg for bream and mommies but roach probably a bit early. The early pegs did produce bream in the first matches as always but then they drift off.
Sam picked up 44 which was the peg Gary Etheridge was on below me last week.

Immediately below me was Kev Bennett and on the end peg below him Rich Chave, 2 pegs above me was the experienced Tony Scott.
These matches are very competitive and as always the draw is super important.

The river down my end had little flow and lilies were right down the middle of the peg, the deeper part was 6 metres out.

To be honest I think I messed up in my approach. 2 pole lines 13 and 6 metres and a waggler which only gave me bits and I think that was not set up correctly either plus I couldn't really feed across properly due to the breeze.

After messing about down the middle with little or nothing to show I came in on the inside and and had a 6 oz roach first put in which for some reason I decided to swing and yes it dropped off, there's a surprise. Later on I did the same again and got the rig in a right mess.

I could hear Kev and Rich talking and knew they were probably both on the whip.

It wasn't until the last 90 minutes that roach appeared in any number on the inside but they were only a couple of ounces each at the most.

I ended up with a meagre 4lb 7oz well and truly battered below me. Kev had a late 4lb bream to boost his weight and came 2nd overall beaten by a 14lb chub weight off peg 29.

For me the man of the match was young Andrew Cranston who put together a lovely net of roach for 11lbs and 3rd place.

Here are the results and a few photo's nicked from FB.

Team mate Sam done well to win his section, pity he didn't have a few more pounds as he was on the golden peg.

2nd placed Kev with his late bonus bream

Now that's a lovely net of pole caught roach from Andrew

As an aside a friend of mine in the Clevedon Freshwater Angling Club has been out on our local River Kenn this week. Yesterday he had 15 bream and they average 5 - 6lbs, just one of his fish below.

Scott Smallwood

You can now purchase full year and day tickets for the Kenn on line via our website

https://clevedon-fwac.co.uk

Back on the KSD this Sunday for Round 1 of the S W Super League.