Tuesday 28th March
I was up early and heading into Bristol to fish the Feeder Canal at 06:30, you need to get there before 07:00 in order to park as its in an industrial part of the city. I had good results on the Feeder Canal last year but was fishing it a few weeks early this year. Weather was fine but the water was a bit dirty. I fished a spot down near Bristol Commercial Vehicles and Manor Scrap (gives you an idea of the environment).
Two top 4's were set up with a 1.5 gram and 2.0 gram float to cope with the changes and pace of the flow, the depth is around 8 to 9 feet. A 20 and 18 hook to 0.10 fluro completed the rigs. At the start I cupped in 3 balls of hemp caster and chopped worm in a Sensas Noire and Roach mix.
Starting off with maggot I was expecting a bite fairly soon but it did not happen for around 20 minutes and then the maggot was just nipped.
The flow was all over the place, left to right, right to left, still and at times very pacey. The high tide coming through the docks was affecting the Canal big time. I persevered but only ended up with 4 dace and a perch.
Thursday 30th March
I dusted off the Fly Rod and headed up to Chew Valley Lakes for a bit of fluff chucking. A ticket after 15:00 is only £16.50 and you can take 4 fish and do catch and release as well. I got to the Lodge at 15:15 and I was hoping to fish Whalley Bank but the wind was quite strong and blowing straight on to it. The Ranger suggested Wick Point right over the far side so thats where I headed.
On arrival two anglers were out in the water with chest waders, the wind was coming just off the back of the left shoulder and not too strong due to the wood behind.
I fished the first piece of bank beside the car park for about 20 minutes without any pulls. I had two dawn bachs and a black buzzer on.
The guy at the end packed up, he had his 8 fish limit after fishing all day. The angler below me carried on and caught two nice rainbows within a few casts of each other. He too decided to call it a day after another 30 minutes, he had 3 fish in total.
After he went I moved down by the bird watchers hide, I was able to wade out (waders) a good distance and felt I could get a few fish.
I had my first pull around 16:45 but missed it. A further pull came 15 minutes later and it was clear there was fish not far from the end of my cast. I slowed the retrieve down and was rewarded with my first fish at 17:15 ish... it was a good fish around 3lbs.
I continued to cast as far as I could and had a further 2 fish before packing up at just before 19:00.
one on the buzzer two on red dawn bachs
Sunday 2nd April
Clevedon Club Match, Woodlands Lake Trinity Waters Fishery near Bridgwater.
12 of us booked in for this match so plenty of room for everyone. I ended up on peg 6 over on the far bank, not really a good area but Steve Bonwick informed me there were some big lumps up the right hand margin.
I started off on the straight lead with popped up bread but after 30 minutes not even a liner. Not much if anything was being caught from what I could see. While out on the lead I was feeding my 13 metre line regularly with 4mm pellet but no evidence of fizzing. I had also feed my right hand margin in two places with meat.
I gave the lead an hour without any success, even changed from bread to meat. Time to try the margins and my near right one first. This resulted in lots of little dips of the float, small roach attacking the meat but then it buried and I was in to a decent carp which duly swam under the pallet and it was 1 - 0 to the carp. I went 13 meters up the margin with meat and soon had carp number two on which was successfully landed, a fish of around 6lbs. I stuck this long margin the rest of the match and landed a tench, a big perch and a real zoo monster of a carp and a personal best.
my PB, all 18lbs 6ozs of it on the pole
My two carp went 24lb and I had 4lb of silvers for nowhere.
Down on peg 15 Kev Perry had a real red letter day catching 180lb 8oz of carp shallow for 1st on the day.
Kev with part of his catch, his biggest fish was around 14lbs.
Paul Nichols on the opposite bank also had a good day catching 126lb 10oz mainly in his margins and 2nd place.
Paul with part of his 126lbs, poor pic due to sun
4 pegs down from me Brian Slipper persevered fishing shallow and had 80lb 4ozs for 3rd place.
Brian Slipper
Wednesday 5th April
Back on the Bristol Feeder Canal. On arrival at 07:00 I could see lots of fish topping all the way along the Canal, the tide was ok as well so hoped for a good day.
I selected an area opposite Clarks Wood and set up my rigs and mixed GB as the previous week.
I had bites from the off, small roach and dace. The roach were a bit rough and getting ready to spawn.
Best dace was around 5ozs and best roach approx 8 ozs but in the main fish were small averaging 3ozs but still an enjoyable day.
I ended up with just over double figures.
I asked a lady passer-by to take a pic for me on my phone but she did not get it quite right lol.
looking at the sense afterwards I think she smeared some butter from her sandwich on it hence the cloudy effect.
So that was a quick round up.
On the Gloucester Canal Sunday 9th April for a practice match and the first of the teams of 4 Spring League follows the week after. Mid week next week I will probably be back on the Bristol Feeder Canal.
