Welcome to my fishing blog… October 2022

October 9th – RBL Club Match – River Avon, Crane, Keynsham

I always look forward to our river matches with Kingswood RBL. It makes a nice change to be able to watch a float meandering downstream instead of being slowly hypnotised by a static red dot, hanging in the surface film. We had a couple of guests from the Alcove club join us for this one. Namely, Steve “Mr Crabtree” Brown and match secretary, Tony Welsby. The river looked low and clear but everyone was still looking forward to a good day’s roach fishing and some might even see a slab or two… dream on.

So, the higher-numbered pegs are always the most fancied on this stretch because there is always the chance of tangling with a bream or even a big chub. That said, some bream do occasionally show up in the lower numbered pegs, generally pegs 2, 3 and 4. So into the draw bag and out comes the end peg, number 14 for me. Whoopee! A longish walk but hopefully worth it.

My choice of tools for today is my trusty 12-foot Middy Eclipse feeder rod and Shimano Sahara reel loaded with 0.18 (6lb BS) Matrix Horizon line. My feeder was a 30-gram plastic cage feeder. The hook is a size 16 Guru LWGF micro-barb tied to 0.15 Guru N-Gauge line. I also set up one float rod, which is a 13-foot Shimano Hyperloop with an Abu Garcia 507 closed-face reel loaded with 0.16 (4lb BS) line. The float was an 8 BB Crowquill (Topper) to a 12-inch, 0.11 (3lb BS) Guru N-Gauge hooklength. The hook choice was a size 18 Guru LWGF micro-barb.

So, on the whistle, I lobbed out 10 feeders full of 50/50 Sonubaits Black Bream and dark crumb, laced with casters about two-thirds the way across. I would let this settle for 30 minutes before going over it with a baited hook. Next, I fired out two large pouches of red maggots to about halfway across and then baited up with a single red maggot on the hook. On the second run through, I hooked a small roach only to lose it to a pike within seconds.

More maggots went out and again I hooked a small roach which was attacked on the way in. FFS! Over the next half hour I had several pike attacks and lost 2 roach with 2 more being badly mauled. So, I picked up the feeder rod and cast it just above where I had been feeding. Nothing on the first chuck but a small roach on the second cast. Then I lose another roach to a pike as I was bringing it across the surface. I changed from fishing a double red maggot bait to worm and caster but only caught another small roach.

I persevered for an hour and finally had a sign of a bream in the swim. A liner brought the tip right over, which then promptly sprung back. 10 minutes later, I was into a big fish. It just slowly nodded its way toward me before deciding to do a runner. It somehow managed to turn and run in the opposite direction with quite some power, forcing the hook to pull out. Now as any angler knows when you hook and lose a bream, you have 2 choices. You can keep plugging away and hope there are more in the swim or give up because of the possibility that the whole shoal has been spooked and bolted.

I decided to keep plugging away and only caught a few more small roach on a variety of baits. I spent the last hour of the match on the float rod desperately trying to add to my catch with as many roach as possible but for every roach I hooked I lost another to pike. There must have been a huge shoal of predators all competing for my fish. So I ended up with just 2lb 8oz of small roach, some of them badly mutilated. A very disappointing and very frustrating day for me.

Our top fishmonger on the day was Alan Maggs who had a nice net of quality roach and perch for 8lb 10oz from peg 12, and not a sign of pike anywhere.

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October 2022

   2nd – Alcove v Silver Bream – Whitehouse Farm

   9th – Alcove v RBL – River Avon- Keynsham

   23rd – Stathe Drain – Bridgwater

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December 2022

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