Welcome to my fishing blog… September 2022

September 11th – RBL Club Match, River Avon, Staverton

One of the RBL’s points and pairs aggregate matches so, this one is quite important if you’re out to win trophies, accolades and gain some much-needed kudos. I love this venue but I’m also terrified of it in a way because it always looks so good, and you just know you should be doing better here. Last year, I fished quite a few of the mid-week matches here to try and find out how best to fish it but I did;t learn much and many of the regular anglers struggle here too and yet it holds a good head of chub and some big perch. There are also some biggish bream here but they are as rare as rocking horse poo.

So, we all meet up in the meadow behind the stables for the draw. Meanwhile, Jason and Paul Wyatt have gone off to put our own pegs in. The stretch is permanently pegged and we had the whole stretch to ourselves with 77 pegs to choose from. Lots of room and the best part is you can drive right up behind your peg. The river was virtually motionless and clear but it does have the advantage of being deep at around 10 feet on average. Pike can be a problem when the river is clear, snatching at everything you hook. So I drew peg our peg 2, which was permanent peg 6, and one I have never fished before.

I decided to set up a 9-metre pole rig, a 6-metre pole rig and a waggler for right across, where there was a little flow. I had almost 10 feet of water at 9 metres and I needed to get past the bleak, so float choice was a 1.5gm Chianti shape to 0.15 mainline and a size 18 Guru LWGF micro barb hook tied to an 8-inch. 0.11 hook length. The shorter line setup was similar only with a 1gm float. My waggler rod setup was a 13 ft Shimano Hyperloop, a Shimano 2500 reel, loaded with 0.18 Matrix Horizon line. The hook was a size 16 Guru LWGF microbarb hook tied to an 8 inch. 0.11 hook length. I would be using casters, maggots and tares on this setup.

At the all-in, I cupped out a small ball of Sonubaits River groundbait, laced with casters, on the 9 metre line. I started by fishing the waggler close to some overhanging trees on the far bank. Bait was casters. Bleak were a nuisance right from the off, so I quickly changed to feeding tares with a nice big shiny tare on the hook. A few minutes later and I was hitting into some nice roach. Then a pike attack spooked the shoal. I left this line for a while and went onto the pole line at 9 metres. With maggot on the hook I began catching gudgeon, which was not really what I was after. I changed to casters and caught a few roach but they were tiny compared to the roach I was getting on tares.

Then another pike attack and that swim died. The wind began to get up and now there was quite a ripple on the surface so I picked up the waggler rod again, baited up with a nice tare and out I went for a couple more roach before the wind made presentation virtually impossible. So, back onto the pole line. Ony a few bleak and tiny roach were up for it so time to try the shorter line. There are some nice size perch in this stretch and I was hoping for  a bonus fish, so on went a half dendrobena. Nothing… I chopped some worm and cupped it in and then put a whole dendro on the hook. A few minutes later the float dipped and I was into a decent fish. When it surfaced my enthusiasm waned a little as my prize turned out to be a jack pike, which proceeded to leap out of the water in spectacular fashion.

Well, it was just a case of scratching around for the next hour, which only produced a couple more gudgeon. It can be like this here, which is really frustrating as we all know there are some decent fish to be had but much depends on the condition of the river. At the weigh-in, my disappointing catch went just 2lb 9oz. Not much to show for a long hard day. Top rodbender today was Kevin Much who found some barrel chub for a total of 6lb 2oz. On reflection, I was having quite a poor season both on the still waters and on the river. A win was definitely well overdue.

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January 2023

…………………

June 2022

July 2022

August 2022

September 2022

   3rd – Acorn Fisheries – Clevedon

   11th – RBL Match – River Avon – Staverton

   18th – Whitehouse Farm – Earhcott Green

   25th – RBL Match – B&T Canal – Taunton

October 2022

November 2022

December 2022

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