Welcome to my fishing blog… August 2022

August 14th – RBL AwayDay Match, Warkwickshire Avon

Every August, the Kingswood RBL AC has an “Away Day” to some exotic location, which is usually somewhere we have never seen or fished before. The whole idea is to give club members a free day’s fishing in acknowledgment of their support for the club throughout the year. The first few years of AwayDays involved a lot of organisation because not only was a far-out venue selected for the day, a coach was booked, a meal was booked for a stop in a pub on the way back, and all the family could come too and have a day out shopping, sightseeing, or a trip to the seaside. Needless to say, it was VERY popular. But as time went by, interest waned and the event has since been downgraded to a simple day out for the lads.

So, we had booked the Stannels stretch of the Warwickshire Avon for this one, meeting up at Michaelwood Services on the M4 to set off in convoy. It’s a fair trek and probably the last time we will travel such a distance for a day out due to costs. We only had 8 anglers interested in this, for some reason, but it was hot. I mean it was like 34 degrees in the shade. It was so hot, 2 of the guys went to seek shelter from the sun under a tree and fell asleep for half the match. The best points about this venue are 1. You can drive right up behind your peg. 2. Every peg has a platform and 3. The scenery is beautiful and the river certainly looked as picturesque as you might imagine a lovely river to be.

Now the not-so-good points. Well apart from the stiflingly hot weather, in which everyone was literally melting, the river was low and gin clear but all these things would change on another day, so they don’t really count. The bright sun and the low, clear river were always going to affect the weights and so a small fish approach was the only viable option. In hindsight, I should have set up a whip and just targetted the small roach, dace and bleak. Instead, I set up a feeder rod to fish the maggot feeder, a waggler rod to explore the far bank and a pole to fish inside and down the middle.

The feeder setup was my 11ft Drennan Vertex with a Shimano Ultegra 3500 reel loaded with 6lb Matrix Horizon line. A medium Drennan maggot feeder, size 18 Guru MWGB hook to 12 inches of 0.13 Guru N-Guage hooklength. For all that, I only had a few small perch and roach on this method. Waggler rod was a 13ft Shimano Hyperloop with a Daiwa Harrier 120M closed-face reel. Yes I know it’s old but I love this reel. Reel line is my usual 6lb Matrix Horizon, carrying a 5BB crystal waggler float, with a size 20 Guru MWGB hook to 8 inches of 0.11 Guru N-Guage hooklength. This brought a couple of small chub and roach to single red maggot.

As expected bites were slow to come, so for the second half of the match I focused on fishing the pole with a long line. I mean like 6 feet of line from tip to a small 0.1gm pencil float. The hook was a Guru GMSB size 20 to 0.11 Guru N-Guage. I fished this rig at about 3 feet deep both on the inside and out towards the middle for a steady stream of small roach and bleak plus the odd small perch. It was definitely hard going and the heat from the sun was really intense, making it difficult to concentrate, even though I was shaded under my brolly.

Two of the lads decided to take cover under the shade of a nearby tree, falling asleep in the process. However, on the end peg,  Tony Humphries (AKA Mr Whippy) was bashing them out on a whip and won the match easily with a nice mixed net for 9lb 7oz. In second place was Kev Murch with 5lb 9oz and Jason Pitman was third with 5lb 3oz.  I had just 4lb 2.5oz for my efforts but to be honest I was glad when the match was over. Glynn, Jason and myself decided to stop for a cold beer on the way back, which turned out to be the best part of the day.

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January 2023

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June 2022

July 2022

August 2022

    7th – RBL AC v Alcove AC – Whitehouse Farm 

   14th – AwayDay – Warks Avon – Stratford

   21st – Riverfest Qualifier – Warks Avon – Stratford

   28th – Whitehouse Farm – Earthcott Green

September 2022

October 2022

November 2022

December 2022

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