Welcome to my fishing blog… November 2023
November 12th – RBL Poppy Appeal Open – A Slog Through The Bog
Remembrance Sunday is reserved for the Annual Poppy Appeal Open, also known as the Bill Milton Memorial, on the river Avon between The Chequers Inn at Hanham to Newbridge near Bath. It has been running for 42 years although the event was cancelled due to Covid in 2020. I have fished it 40 times, reluctantly missing it only once due to having flu. It’s the biggest river match of the year and a great occasion organised by Ray Bazeley and Paul Benson together with a host of volunteer peggers and other essential helpers. This year the event has raised a record amount of money, so far exceeding £4000, which is absolutely amazing and a credit to everyone involved.
I arrived at the Somerdale Pavilion for the draw at 7.30 am, meeting up with club mates Jason Pitman, Leigh Wakefield and Brian Lloyd. I wasn’t really bothered where I would be drawn but I didn’t fancy a long walk on account of my back playing up. It’s a long story but I seem to have ended up with osteoarthritis after a back injury some 30-odd years ago. It only plays up now and again but today was one of those days. No matter… so into the draw bucket delves the old trusty hand of fate and out comes peg 70. Thanks! Halfway up the ash tip field on the crane section. Sh*t!
This was not only a long walk, it was a trudge through the sludge, especially at the end of the first field next to the kissing gate. A quagmire is too nice a word for it. Anyway, everything had to be stripped from the barrow in order to get over the fence and then reassembled once over. Then it was a slow hard push up the field to the next stile, (past all the good-looking pegs) and then to repeat the procedure before moving up into a very boggy field to find my peg. However, when I arrived I was pleasantly surprised to find I had quite a bit of slack water in front of me. The main river was a raging torrent but from the bank to about 5 metres out there was calm.
I would only need a feeder rod today and a whip for any bleak. I set the whip rig at 2 feet deep with a size 20 hook for fishing single pinkle. The feeder rod was set up with a 20-gram cage feeder and a size 16 hook for fishing double maggle or worm. On the all-in I cast out a feeder full of brown crumb groundbait and maggles. After about 10 minutes and with no sign of a bite I decided to reel in only to find a roach hanging on, which then promptly fell off. A good sign but also a bad omen. So, I carried on casting here and there around the swim in search of anything resembling a fish but instead, almost every time I reeled in I had a tree branch or a bunch of dead reeds attached to the hook.
Four hooks and 2 feeders later, I decided to use my whip to plumb up around the areas I was fishing. The bottom was all over the place from about 18 inches deep to 5 feet deep with no flat spots to be found. I lost my plummet on a snag too. Well, it wasn’t looking good so I tried the whip for bleak. I must have spent 45 minutes chasing nothing on that method so it was back onto the feeder. I tried alternating between a maggle feeder and groundbait feeder with a combination of maggles and pinkles. Nothing, not a single twitch.
I spoke to Jason on the phone. He had drawn on the Trees section at Newbridge and he seemed to be doing okay, with some big roach in the net on double worm. So, I changed to worm only but it wasn’t until I added a pinkle with the worm that I started getting little twitches. It was signs of life at last and I was desperately striking at every quiver on my quivering quiver tip, missing them all until… finally a fish. It turned out to be a gudgeon of around a half ounce… oh my days! Well, I felt like packing up but I stuck it out to the bitter end hoping and praying that a bream would snaffle my hookbait. Alas, it wasn’t to be.
The guy next to me said he had 5 small roach and as he was in my section there was no point in me weighing in. Now for the sludge trudge all the way back. I kept telling myself it was all for a good cause but couldn’t help wondering what the f*ck I was doing out here in the middle of nowhere, in the pi**ing rain slipping and sliding through some mucky fields. Well, that’s probably similar to what some of those poor young lads were thinking more than 100 years ago. At least I would be going home… so I guess I’ll do it all again next year.
With the river in flood, weights were always going to be low and there were many DNWs. Only 14-14-0 was needed to win the match, with some small bream from the Chequers stretch caught by Nigel Wyatt. Top gun, river ace and match supremo, Tim Ford, was second with 9-1-0. Our Legion lads, Jason and Leigh both collected section wins. Well done to everyone!
It was another Bitterwell battering for me on Tuesday but it looked a lot worse than it actually was. Everyone was struggling in this 22 peg silvers open but I had heard that some tench had been caught and someone had a few skimmers. All I had was roach and perch although a couple of the roach were nudging 12 ounces a piece. Anyway, I reckoned I had about 2lb plus but when I lifted my net I think it was probably nearer to 3lb or more. Anyway, it was never going to be enough to win anything and so I tipped them back and settled for a DNW. As it happens, weights were much lower than I expected and I would have finished up about halfway in the table… but that’s still nowhere so it didn’t really matter.
Okay, so that’s my roundup for the week. Next Sunday I’ll be back at Whitehouse Farm for the first match of the Winter League series. Now, I have every intention of winning this year and I’ll be pulling out all the stops for this one so look out everyone! Keep you posted…
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January 2023
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July 2023
August 2023
September 2023
October 2023
November 2023
12th – RBL Poppy Appeal Open, River Avon
19th – Alcove Winter League #1, Margarets Lake
26th – River Avon, Riverside Dr, Chippenham
December 2023
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December 2022
