Sunday 23^rd November – Kingswood RBL Club Match – Bristol Avon, Monkton Park, Chippenham

Well, we haven’t been to this venue for a while. The last time was before the major floods last year, when the town got flooded due to a sluice gate getting jammed by a few tree trunks and other debris. Since we were here last time, a new multi-storey car park has been built nearby, so we were able to drive down to the river to drop off our gear and then drive up the hill to park our cars. At £1.40 for the day, the price for parking isn’t too bad, except the machines wouldn’t take cash, which caused a bit of bother for some of us. We all got around it in the end.

Our match secretary, Ian Brice, walked off to do the pegging while the rest of us paid our pools and surveyed the river. The level was lower than expected and quite clear, considering the rain we have had recently. We also noticed that the flow of the river changed from slow running to fast running about every 20 minutes or so. Every time this happened, the level dropped by about 10 inches. Apparently, the sluice gate is partially operative but won’t be fixed properly or replaced until 2028. Anyway, we had no idea how it would fish today, but roach and chub would surely feature in the weights. My thoughts were that bream wouldn’t show, but if they did, it would be from the deeper pegs in the first section before the green footbridge.

When Ian got back, he explained where and how the pegging had been arranged, saying some of us would be in for a long walk. A long walk is really not a problem, as there is a footpath that runs parallel to the river all the way to Riverside Drive, which is over a mile away. So, onto the draw. We had 12 anglers divided into 2 sections of 6. Pegs 1-6 are where the deeper pegs are, averaging about 9 feet and pegs 7-12 average about 6 feet deep. I drew peg 10 and for me, chub would be the main target species with roach as backup. I’ve never seen a bream get caught in this section, so the groundbait stayed in the carryall today. Instead, I would loose feed hemp and fish maggles over the top. In hindsight, I should have probably brought some casters, but then chub love maggles, especially when it’s cold and clear like it was today.

So, I set up a feeder/bomb rod and a 13-foot Shimano Hyperloop float rod with a Crowquill Avon float, set at 5 feet deep. I had decided to spend the first hour fishing bomb and bread for any big bonus chub right over but although I had plenty of very tentative bites, I didn’t connect with anything. There were no real chub bites as such, so I changed to bomb and worm for the next 30 minutes, but the result was just the same… nothing. Don Searle on peg 9 was catching roach close in on the pole and I noticed Jason Pitman on peg 7 catching on the feeder, so out went the maggle feeder. About 10 minutes later, I had my first fish, a small roach. That was soon followed by a couple of chublets.

I was using a 25-gram maggle feeder, but when the flow sped up, I had to change to a 40-gram feeder to hold bottom. I got into a rhythm, but it was still too slow and I had a lot of catching up to do. So, I decided to fish the float when the river slowed to a steady pace and then change to a feeder when the flow increased. The float was by far much more productive, bringing chublets almost every cast but still nothing bigger than 6-8 ounces if I was lucky. Most of them were around the 4-6 ounce stamp. I found that the more I fed, the more bites I would get and so they were really up for it. The problem was, I had already wasted almost 2 hours fishing bread and worm with nothing to show, whereas if I had started on the maggle feeder, I could have easily doubled my weight.

I needed a couple of bonus fish, but they didn’t come. However, I did learn a lot about how best to feed and present the bait with the river rising and falling and changing pace every 20 minutes. So there’s always next time. Jon Amato was first to weigh in our section and he put 6-7-0 of chublets and roach on the scales. Next to weight was Ian Swanborough with 4-1-0 and then me with 4-10-0. Don on peg 9 had 5-12-0 and Ian Brice on peg 8 struggled, but Jason on peg 7 had a good day, with some big roach and a bonus perch for a total of 11-7-0. That was another quid I had to hand over. There’s just no stopping that man!

Anyway, the pegs in the deeper water fished exceptionally well, especially for local man, Leigh ‘Longshanks’ Wakefield. Leigh had an absolute field day on peg 3, landing 7 bream and 10lbs of quality roach, all on the pole for a total weight of 31-00-0. That man must be on drugs or something! Tony Welsby was next best in the section with 9-15-0. Well, overall it fished okay generally, and we’ll definitely be back again next year, albeit all the wiser. Well done to Leigh and Jason and the 2 section winners, Tony and Jon. We’re not back on the river again until January 11^th, when we’ll be on the Crane section at Keynsham. Oh! No! More problems with otters again, I expect. Before that, I have a match at Windmill Fisheries on Thursday 27^th, then a winter league match at Whitehouse Farm on Sunday 30^th, followed by a Christmas match at Bitterwell Lake on December 7^th and another Christmas match at Whitehouse Farm on the 14^th. It’s all kicking off… keep you posted!

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