Welcome to my fishing blog… October 2023
October 31st – Bitterwell Lake (plus Windmill Fisheries disaster report) – My Winter Of Discontent?
So the clocks went back on Saturday night, officially ending British Summertime and heralding the start of winter. For most of us, the winter started weeks ago with bouts of heavy rain, which has continued to persist, in varying degrees, ever since. As most of you will know by now, my winter started with an unexpected event at Windmill Fisheries, where I suddenly had an overwhelming desire to shuffle off this mortal coil, by throwing myself into the lake. Well, not exactly… what happened was… I didn’t pay enough attention to how slippery the bank was and in particular, the pallet at my peg.
It had been raining heavily all night and the pallet… yes a proper pallet, not a platform, was a bit slimy. Also, the gaps between the wooden slats were quite wide so I had a job positioning my seat box so that the feet were resting on solid wood and not over any gaps. While I was faffing around with this I noticed how easy it was to slide my seat box on the pallet… forwards and backward, left and right… but then I just got on with getting set up and didn’t give it another thought. Big mistake! In hindsight, I should have placed my box on the ground and not used the pallet at all… but hey… who does that?
So, I’m all set up now and with just 10 minutes to go, it was time to put the nets in. I picked up one of my nets and stepped onto the pallet. While resting my right forearm on my seat box for support, I chucked out my net. My left foot suddenly slipped from beneath me and my seat box slid to the right causing one of the feet to fall into a gap between the slats. The next thing I realised I was in the water, trying desperately to get back to the bank. That’s not easy when your boots have filled with water and all your clothing has become saturated. The lake bed drops away quite sharply and at one point I was in over my head.
I finally managed to scramble to the edge, by which time the angler in the next peg (John Osborne) had come to my assistance. At this point, all I could do was stand in the water and watch as bits of kit floated away. My exit was blocked by my seatbox, which had become entangled in the pallet and my top kits were attached to a roost, which was attached to my box. As John carefully cleared away the top kits, between us we managed to free the seat box leg from the pallet. I was then able to get out of the water and take stock of the situation. It didn’t look good.
All my bait had gone in together with some vital bits of kit, my extending feeder arm was broken and my keepnet was gone. So, I managed to get the keepnet back by dragging around the bottom with my landing net handle and a blade attachment. However, I was soaked to the skin so all I could do was pack everything away and head for home. As soon as I got home I got into a hot shower and then had a large glass of Tullamore Dew (Irish Whiskey) before putting all my kit away and assessing the damage and loss. My phone had been in my pocket when I went into the water and was not working so I left it on top of a radiator. By Tuesday morning it had come back to life… thankfully.
Well, I hope at least one person will take heed of my experience and be very careful when stepping onto wet pallets and wooden platforms. Alright! Let’s move on. Because I hadn’t had my fishing fix over the weekend I decided to get myself booked in on the silvers open match at Bitterwell Lake, near Westerleigh, on Tuesday. Here’s how it went…
It was the first day back at school for many kids so due to the resumed school run, together with fooking road works in every fooking direction, the traffic on the roads was fooking horrendous. It took me almost an hour to get to the venue, which is usually a 20-25 minute journey. Anyway, I got there with 5 minutes to spare before the draw. I went into the drawbag early, fingered, fumbled and faffled around until finally, out came peg 25. That’ll do I thought. I hadn’t fished this peg before so I was really up for it. When I got to my peg the guy on 24 said he had drawn peg 25 the previous week and done okay. However, I had match ace and ex-PSV teammate, Shaun Townsend, next to me on peg 26 so I had my work cut out.
My plan was to feed a worm line slightly to my left at 11 metres and a groundbait and maggle line to my right at 8 metres. I would also loose-feed a short line at 5 metres to my right for any roach or perch that might be mooching about just beyond some dying reeds. So, on the all-in, I cupped out a small worm bomb onto the long line and a small nugget of groundbait laced with dead red maggles onto the 8-metre line. I thought I’d leave both lines for at least 30 minutes before taking a look. Meanwhile, I started by loose feeding 5 or 6 maggles short and went over with a single red to a size 20 hook tied to 0.8 hooklength. I got a small perch immediately.
I carried on and was catching quite a few small perch and the odd roach at almost every put-in. I did have a least one quality roach of about 12 ounces and I lost one of the big hybrids that show up every now and then. It was at least a pound and came off just as I was about to net it… FFS! Anyway, I became so engrossed in catching on the short line, an hour had passed before I realised. So, I went out onto the worm line with half a dendra on the hook… after 5 minutes there were no indications so I tried the groundbait and maggle line with a single dead red on the hook. I got a small roach but nothing else on either dead reds, live reds or pinkles. So I topped up both lines and went back onto the short line.
Bites were slow this time, I think it was because of the change in momentum. I had a nice rhythm going at first but now I was struggling to get them going again. I persevered and gradually they came back although I had to keep changing depth to stay in touch. The guy to my left (Les Harper), had caught a couple of good size skimmers so I was gagging to get back out onto the longer lines so I could stay within touching distance. However, no matter how I tried and no matter what bait I used, I could not for the life of me get a single skimmer from 
anywhere. I knew this lack of skimmers mullarkey was going to cost me.
So, as precious time was ticking away, I carried on hammering the short line for bits. I did latch onto and land a decent perch of well over a pound, which for a minute or two I thought was a carp. Anyway, soon after the dreaded carp did come in and that was the end of my short line. I spent the last hour scratching around trying the 2 longer swims again and starting a new line but I only had 2 small roach during that time. It was certainly a hard day all round with 4 DNWs and the lowest weight at just 5-8-0. I ended up with 7-4-0 to finish midway and just 9 ounces behind Shaun… remember that hybrid I mentioned? Nevermind. The top pole dangler on the day was Les, next door, with an impressive 24-10-0 and included some nice big skimmers.
So, onwards and upwards… my next match is next Sunday, where I’ll be competing in the Alcove Poppy Match Open at Whitehouse Farm. We’re expecting over 30 anglers across both lakes and I think this one could be tough… Yeah, but when you’ve been through what I have this last week… nothing is tough… bring it on! Keep you posted…
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January 2023
February 2023
March 2023
April 2023
May 2023
June 2023
July 2023
August 2023
September 2023
October 2023
8th – Interclub – River Avon, Crane, Keynsham
15th – Alcove Club Match, The Lido, Fishponds
22nd – K&H RBL AC Club Match, Stathe Drain
31st – Bitterwell Lake Silvers Open, Westerleigh
November 2023
December 2023
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June 2022
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August 2022
September 2022
October 2022
November 2022
December 2022
