Welcome to my fishing blog… September 2023
24th September – River Avon, Staverton – So Close And Yet So Far (story of my life!)
The match I fished at Staverton on Sunday, 24th September, is the newly named, “Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Match” which is run by Kingswood RBL AC. It’s an invitation match, where we invite anglers from other clubs to join us so we can raise a few quid for the RBL Poppy Appeal. Usually, the Golden Valley Angling Club will help boost numbers by 3 or sometimes 4 anglers but this year there was no sign of any representatives from that club so we were down on expected numbers. More on that in just a moment…
My previous 2 matches were nothing to write home about and so I didn’t write anything… however, they deserve a quick mention. On Sunday 17th, I fished an Alcove club match on the Lido, in Fishponds, Bristol. For some unknown reason the fish were just not interested in feeding… not even the little fish. It was just so unbelievably hard to entice a bite. I spent the first hour fishing single maggle on the deck in 10 feet of water and up in the water, right up to 2 feet deep. This produced 3 small roach.
Next, I went out to 10 metres on the pole in 13 feet of water and I hooked a tench only to lose it in some lily pads right under my feet. I caught just one more little roach on that line. So, I decided to come inside and feed micros and corn just off the edge of some lily pads on my left-hand side. My quarry was tench but I hooked a big carp, which dragged me right round to my right-hand side and buried itself in a thick bed of lilies. It was all going so well… not!
So, I spent the last couple of hours scratching around and caught 2 more small roach and a small perch. I could see Match Secretary, Tony Welsby landing tench and bream from the pontoon peg, which was opposite me. Also, Steve ‘Mr Crabtree’ Brown had come up trumps with his trusty king prawn bait, landing carp and tench from the ‘concrete’ swim next to the bay. Everyone else was struggling for bites. It finished up with Steve Brown winning the match with just over 24lbs, Tony was second with over 12lbs and Steve Dawson, fishing in ‘Smithies Swim’ was third with over 3lbs. I won a section with just 5oz… end of… say no more.
Then on Tuesday 19th September, I decided to have another go at the Bitterwell Lake silvers open, at Coalpit Heath. My previous attempts here have been really frustrating, hooking and landing several carp, which just kills your swim stone dead. This has happened to me numerous times and so this time I had a cunning plan. Don’t Feed Groundbait! I’m sure the addition of groundbait brings the carp in and then they stick around mopping up every single morsel. So my match on this day was going to be different.
I drew peg 15, which is usually okay unless the wind is blowing hard, which then causes a strong tow from left to right. This was the case today and because the wind was so strong I was limited to going out to just 8 metres on the pole. Anyway, my plan was to catch 5lb of silvers an hour, which I reckoned would be enough for a win. So on the all-in I cupped out 6 red maggles and 6 fluoro pinkles to my right-hand side at 8 metres. I didn’t get a bite for about 20 minutes but then a nice big skimmer showed up, followed by a couple more.
At the end of the first hour I had achieved my target of 5lb… great! In the next hour, I carried on with my plan but bites were really slowing now and after another hour had gone by, I had only added another 2lb of fish to my net. I decided to try a groundbait feeder for 20 minutes but only had one fast bite, which I missed. A change to a maggle feeder for a further 20 minutes brought no response. So, I started a new pole line at 8 metres to my left, feeding just maggles and pinkles as before. This produced a few small roach.
Another quick look over to my right and another few small roach obliged before it went stone dead on both swims. I tried single and double maggle on the hook, single and double pinkle, maggle and pinkle, caster, caster and worm etc, etc, but nada, nought, zero, zilch, diddly squat. So, I resisted the temptation to add groundbait in a vain effort to bring back some skimmers and yes you guessed it…carp… Carp… CARP!!!
After plopping in a tiny marble-sized nugget of groundbait to both swims, it was carp craziness for the next 3 hours. The result… 3 completely trashed rigs and 4 carp landed plus 4 carp played and lost. At the end I reckoned I had about 8lbs of silvers, which was way off my 30lb total target so I quickly packed up, chucked the fish back, and went home for a cold beer. The pits!
Right, so back to my latest match on the river at Staverton. I drew permanent peg 42, which I haven’t fished before so I was looking forward to the day ahead. The river had a lovely brown tinge to it and the flow was just right for such deep water. My plan was to fish at 7 metres, down the middle with caster in 10 feet of water and at 13 metres right over in front of some overhanging branches, slightly to my left, in 12 feet of water with maggle on the hook. I had worms as backup and my loose feed would be delivered via some brown crumb and Sonubaits So Natural ‘Deep Water’. This groundbait is quite dark, hence the brown crumb to lighten it slightly. It’s also a heavy groundbait, which is what you need in deep water.
So, on the all-in I cupped out 5 balls of groundbait laced with pinkles and casters, down the middle. Then I cupped out 3 loose balls of groundbait with maggles over on the 13 metre line. My rig for the middle swim was a 1.5gram ‘body up’ style float, bulk shotted at 2 feet from the hook with 3 number 9 droppers. The elastic on this rig was a number 5 Dura Slip. My 13 metre rig consisted of a similar float style at 2 grams, a similar shotting pattern and a number 6-8 Matrix Slick elastic.
I started on the mid-river swim and began catching right from the off. It was a roach at every put-in for the first hour but they were all quite small at between 1-3 ounces. Then I started catching gudgeon and these were absolutely tiny. I persevered for a while but it was gudgeon only now for some reason so I topped up with 3 more balls of feed and then went over onto the 13-metre line. With the odd gust of strong wind, it was a little tricky at times but overall, it was just manageable. After a couple of run-throughs, I decided to drop a big cup of maggles into the swim to see if I could get the attention of a chub.
It worked! I had a chub of just over a pound soon after followed by a small one of around 6 ounces. Then it was a string of roach for a while. I had a quick look over the middle line again but it was still gudgeon mania down there so I abandoned that swim. I cupped out another big pot of maggles and dropped in over the top. At the end of the swim, I held back for a few minutes, making the bait rise off the bottom. The float dipped, I struck and then it went solid. I wasn’t sure if I had hooked the bottom but as I kept the pressure on… there was some movement. I still wasn’t sure if I had hooked a fish as it stayed deep and hardly moved.
However, it was fish… a big fish and it didn’t realise that it had been hooked at first. I slowly pulled my pole back and the fish came slowly toward me until it got to the middle of the river and then all hell broke loose. I tried to contain it within the middle section of the river away from any snags. I would have been happy to just hold it there until it gave up but it had other ideas. As it began to move upstream I still wasn’t entirely sure about what I had hooked as I hadn’t seen it but it felt big. I’m thinking is it a big perch, is it a chub… could it be a carp? Well. My 13-metre pole is now practically vertical and my useless number 6-8 elastic was no match for this powerful fish.
It soon became obvious I wasn’t getting anywhere with this fish and it was beginning to have it all its own way so I had no choice but to ship back and start pulling out elastic like it was going out of fashion! As I did, the fish came closer to the nearside bank and I raised the pole high. With that, the fish gave ground and showed itself. It was a big fat chub around 4lbs (or more) I reckoned. Next, it made a run out toward the middle again and I was sure I was getting the upper hand. With the elastic between the pole tip and float now less than 2 feet, I grabbed my landing net, lifted hard and scooped the water only to miss it by a country mile.
It was really pissed off now and I could feel it getting stronger as I piled on more pressure. Then it made a quick rush for the inside vegetation and although I was now standing up I couldn’t prevent it from burying itself in a bed of solid reeds. I kept the pressure full-on but it wasn’t budging one bit. I put all the pole sections back on to see if I could dislodge it from a different angle but it was solid. After a few minutes of heave-hoing, the rig came flying back out of the reeds and the fish was long gone. I’m surprised they didn’t hear my screams on peg one!
Well, I was now pretty sure that this had cost me the match. You don’t get many chub in a session on this stretch, at least I don’t, and this one was a real beauty. In hindsight, I am my worst enemy… I mean… what was I thinking by using such a light elastic. Had I used a number 12 or a 14, I might have been able to control it but… c’est la vie. After that episode, I changed to a number 14 elastic and carried on for the last 90 minutes hoping for another chance but it wasn’t to be. I did catch a few more roach though and managed to win my section with 4lb 7oz. Jason Pitman beat me by 5oz to take second place and the match was won by Clive Purshouse with 5lb 3oz, so a pretty close finish. Well done to Clive.
I’ll be back on the river in 2 week’s time on the Crane stretch of the Bristol Avon at Keynsham but before that, I have an interclub event I have to get to grips with at Whitehouse Farm. It could be a 30-pegger this one. What should I do? Target the silvers or target the carp? A bit of both perhaps? Hmmm… decisions. Well, as usual, I’ll keep you posted.
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