Welcome to my fishing blog… August 2022

August 21st – Riverfest Qualifier, Warkwickshire Avon

Well the Riverfest qualifier match at Stratford was a bit like a who’s who of angling, which included Dave Harrell,  James Robbins and ex-England International, Mark Downes who was stood in front of me in the queue for the draw. I had done my homework for this match, having already fished at Seven Meadows and Stannells, plus I got a good briefing from the Stratford club secretary about Luddington and Manor Farm. So I had a fairly good idea about the stretches, what fish will dominate in the catches and the expected weights.

However, in the morning of the draw, the organisers announced that they had made a last-minute decision to leave out Luddington and Manor Farm due to weed problems. Instead, these 2 venues were now being replaced by a longer stretch at Barford. Well, I knew absolutely diddly squat about Barford but as I drew on this stretch I was about to soon find out. After the draw, I quickly took a snapshot of the postcode and map and made haste. Barford was about 5 miles away from the draw and then finding the actual access gate to the river proved to be quite challenging. I had already turned into several residential driveways and dead end, so I decided to wait on the main road for any anglers to pass me so I could follow them. One went by and I followed him all the way into a cul-de-sac. Like me, he too was using a satnav and was not a local. Just my luck.

Together we managed to find the access point and the steward on the gate directed us to go across 2 fields. The pegs were certainly well-spaced out! There were about 40 yards to the next peg on my right and about 100 yards to the next peg on my left. My peg looked like a real dreamer with a fast glide running two-thirds of the way across and a lovely willow tree to my left. It screamed chub all day long. The inside was quite deep at about 7 feet and was coming back on itself so maybe a big perch or two in there I thought. I set up a feeder rod, a stick float rod and a 6-metre pole to hand rig. The pace of the flow and the direction of the wind ruled out a waggler attack.

You have to win your 20-peg zone to qualify on this match so there is no time to waste in catching small stuff all day. I had it in mind to go big or go home, so on the all-in, I began loose feeding heavily with bronze maggots and casters with hemp in the pacey water. I started fishing at 3 feet deep in 5 feet of water and began catching small dace. I spent the first hour varying the depth and baits. Single maggot, double and treble maggot plus single and double caster. Whatever I put on the hook was devoured by small dace and chublets. This wasn’t going to win me anything so at the start of the next hour I chucked out the maggot feeder.

The whole swim seemed to be alive with tiny fish, which were a real nuisance and almost impossible to hit on the feeder rig. Next, I went out on the pole fishing 6 meters to hand at first, up in the water, and then hard on the deck. I had the same problem with small fish wrecking every bait I put on. It was now halfway through the match and I reckon I had only about 3lbs of bits in the net. So it was time to try a different approach. I had been feeding hemp all day so I tried a tare on the hook and after about 3 or 4 attempts I hooked a small roach. Another half hour wasted with only 3 small roach coming to tares.

My next choice was to use the pole close in, so I chopped a few dendrobaenas and cupped them on the inside. I put a tail-end on the hook and lowered it in catching a small perch almost instantly but despite all my efforts, I couldn’t get any more interest. There was however, a huge perch on the far side, which kept splashing around and at one point you could see his spiked dorsal fin right out of the water. Perhaps I should have chucked a lead and worm rig out there. Wish I had now.

Anyway, it was time to change to meat. I put on a straight lead and a 10mm piece of meat to a 14 hook and chucked it out to the end of the glide where I reckoned the loose feed had been settling on the bottom. The small fish were having a go but I just left the rig in and waited… and waited… and waited. Then completely unexpected and to my total amazement, the tip went right round albeit quite slowly. I struck into it but all that came back was a large scale. Well, that was a positive sign and the foul hooking meant there were some big fish moving around down there. I baited up again and chucked out to exactly the same area and waited… and waited.

Doesn’t it always happen? You take your eye off the rod tip for a split second and wham! It’s ripped off the rod rest. I grabbed the rod and held on as the clutch screamed like a banhsee. I’m now in panic mode, trying to adjust the clutch while hanging on to the rod and desperately trying to control what was undoubtedly a big barbel. It had already stripped off about 40 yards of line before I thought I had it under control. How wrong I was… I only managed to stop it but I couldn’t turn it and bring it toward me. It made a few lunges from side to side and then everything went solid. It had found a weed bed and buried itself in it.

At this point, I was thinking I’ll just bide my time and wait for it to come out. This one fish could win me the section and another one could win me the match. So I waited… and waited … and waited but it wasn’t going anywhere so I had to start putting some pressure on. My Middy Eclipse feeder rod, while great for bream and chub is not designed for big barbel and it definitely lacked the persuasive power needed. Also, my 6lb mainline and 5lb hooklength was I thought a tad lacking in strength, so I was limited to how much I could pull back.

Mindful that time was ticking by, and it had now been 20 minutes since the initial run, I had to begin ramping up the pressure. I stood up and walked toward the fish, only gaining about 10 metres and then raised the rod and slowly pulled. The tip of the rod was parallel to the butt and there was no more to give but the fish did move out of the reed bed. It moved back out into open water but continued to run away downstream. I tightened the clutch fully and held on. Then the inevitable and instant lack of resistance indicated the fish was lost. Surprisingly, nothing snapped. The hook had just pulled clean out.

So now with just an hour left I had no choice but to focus on barbel. I put on a new hook, just in case, baited up and lobbed out into the same swim and waited. I didn’t have to wait too long when the tip went right round and I was in again. A couple of minutes later and I was slipping my landing net under a nice barbel, only this time it was an infant of about 2 lbs. I carried on fishing meat on the straight lead rig for the rest of the match but didn’t get another bite. I reckon I had finished up with just over 5lbs of fish so nowhere near enough to make any noise.

After packing up I wandered down to the next peg as the scalesman seemed to be taking forever. The guy in the next peg said he had about 8 or 9lb of chub, which was more than enough to beat me. Still no sign of the scales so I wandered back to my peg and on the way, I met the guy from the other peg. He said he had about 10lbs of chub. He also asked if I had caught any barbel and I told him of the small one and the one that got away. He told me he fished Barford regularly and that fish of 12lbs plus had regularly been caught from my peg. He added, on a good day you might get 3 or 4 of them between 8lbs and 12lbs. Yeah great! Local knowledge eh?

With that, I emptied my net and headed for home. Nevermind, back to reality next week. A match on Georges Lake at Whitehouse Farm.

Join our Facebook page HERE

About me

January 2023

…………………

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

www.billysblog.co.uk

© Copyright – Bill Knight

All Rights Reserved

Privacy Policy

Cookie Policy

Web Design by Anglox