Sunday 15^th March – Mad As A March Hare Roundup, Featuring Windmill Fisheries, River Avon At Melksham, Whitehouse Farm & Harescombe Match Lake

Well, you might have noticed I haven’t written a blog for over a couple of weeks and that’s because it’s just been more of the same old, same old. I mean, who wants to read about sh*t weather and cr*p fishing week after week? Exactly! So, now that the weather is beginning to settle down and warm up, the fish will begin to feed ravenously and everything will be hunky dory, right? Yeah right! Here’s a roundup of what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks.

Thursday 26^th February – Costcutter 500 Qualifier, Windmill Fisheries

I think there were only 11 anglers on this one, probably due to the weather forecast for heavy rain and gusty winds. It was still very cold and the water temperature was still way too low for any self-respecting fish to be bothered to come out of their comfort zones and forage for food. So, it was a case of searching your swim to see if you could locate a fish or two. I drew peg 10, which has a very scary, reedy margin on the left-hand side. The edge of the island can be reached with a feeder or bomb, but it’s far too wide for a 16 metre pole. Not that a 16 metre pole was an option on a day that was blowing a fooking hoolie right down the lake. It was defo going to be a short pole day today, with a bomb rod set up for searching the far bank.

So, I had a bomb/feeder rod set up plus an 8-metre pole for out in front and a 6-metre rig for down the left-hand edge. My plan was to fish maggles over groundbait out in front, corn and maggles down the edge, but I would start off with bomb and bread right over. After 30 minutes, there were no signs of life on the bomb, not even a liner, and so I chucked out the maggle feeder. I gave that 30 minutes too, but still no signs of fish anywhere along the edge of the island. Next, it was time to try out in front. I had already primed the swim with some Milled Expander groundbait and a few dead reds, so when I dropped my maggle hookbait over the feed area I was expecting some action. Can’t believe I thought that!

Well, not a single sign there either. I persevered for an hour on that before going down the edge. An hour later and still nothing! Well, when it’s like this, you just keep going round in circles, trying each area over and over. Finally, I got a small carp about 5lbs from my 8-metre pole line on a single red. It would be an hour before I got another. Meanwhile, on peg 11, I had Lionel Legge for company. Lionel was struggling for bites too, but then he hit on a method that nobody else was trying… he chucked out a maggle feeder topped off with groundbait into open water. Hey presto! He had a run of carp. WTF? It was turning into a ‘give anything a go’ type of match, but it didn’t work for me. With about an hour to go, I was well and truly pi**ed off and ready to go home, so I began slowly packing bits and pieces away. I chucked my 2 carp back along with my 3 perch as I knew someone had a 2lb plus skimbo in my section, laying claim to the top silvers prize. Well, Lionel won the match with 36lbs (or it might have been 38lbs). Everyone else was just glad it was all over. Enough said.

Sunday 1^st March – Kingswood RBL Club Match – Bristol Avon, Scotland Road, Melksham

I had been looking so forward to this match ever since we booked it last year. It’s a great stretch of river with a good head of fish and it’s been over 30 years since I last fished this stretch. Back then, I was fishing for Kelston Anglers in the West Wilts Winter League and I won my section from a peg just above the footbridge with 18lbs odd of quality roach and chublets. Today, the river looked okay, but a couple of days earlier it was absolutely perfect, fining down after recent floods. However, today it was back up again after heavy rain and just a little too pacey for any kind of float fishing. On the previous Sunday, a club match was won here with 50lbs of bream from the end peg in the park. Needless to say, that’s where everyone wanted to draw, but alas! Golden Boy, Leigh ‘Longshanks’ Wakefield, the absolute draw-bag of all time, managed to pull that wondrous peg cleanly out of the bag.

I drew peg 2, which was to the right of the green foot bridge and apparently produced 20lbs of roach on the last match. Jason Pitman was on peg 3. Well, as I said, the river was in peak condition mid-week but not quite so perfect today. Nevermind, I was still happy to be there and most importantly, the weather was holding up. So, with the wag and the stick float not being an option, I chose to set up a Crowquill Avon (Topper). This would allow me to vary depths quickly and to fish at short and medium ranges. But, it was going to be down to feeder fishing for most of the day. My plan was to fish bread on the hook and liquidised bread through a maggle feeder, in the hope of snaring a couple of decent chub. My first fish was a chub, but it weighed only around 8 ounces. My second chub was a bit smaller, but I stuck at the bread feeder for a good 2 hours before changing to a maggle feeder.

I was getting bites on the maggle feeder but just couldn’t hit them, no matter what little tweaks I made to the rig. They were obviously small roach and not chub and so it was time to make a change. I tried fishing the crowquill at 3 rod lengths, but the pace was just too fast, so I came in short at about a rod length and began to catch roach. Jason was fishing the pole short, but I hadn’t brought a pole today, so I was stuck with fishing a crowquill, and laying on with about 18 inches over depth. I had a short run of roach, but the swim had all but died about an hour before the all-out. I finished up with 2-08-0 for 4^th on the day. Lucky Leigh won, as expected, from favoured peg 10 with chub and skimbos for 11-03-0. Were all hoping we can go back to this venue again next year, subject to availability.

Thursday 5^th March – Harescombe Open – Match Lake – Stroud

With no match at Windmill Fisheries this week, it was a good excuse to travel to Harescombe for an open match on the match lake. I booked myself and Steve Mundy in for this one and we were joined by fellow Windmill sufferer, Kev Bush… crazy fool! What this man will do to get away from “The Missus”. Anyway, I think there were 15 booked on for this one with a few familiar faces included. I hadn’t fished this lake in over a year and wasn’t too bothered where I was going to be drawn. What I was bothered about was the wind…again. It was forecast to be gusting up to 40 miles an hour and it’s really exposed out in these hills and valleys. The target today was small carp and F1s and so bait-wise, it was going to be maggles and corn from me, whether they liked it or not.

I drew peg 20, Steve got shallow peg 24 and Kev picked out peg 8, which was directly opposite me. Well, as expected, the wind played a major part in this match, virtually restricting the pole to 9 metres. I had a few F1s top on the far bank, but I couldn’t hold a pole still enough for long enough to present a bait worthy of their attention. Well, I worked hard on a 9-metre line to catch one carp. Then I had 2 F1s from my right-hand edge on corn and that was my lot. Steve managed one carp and I think Kev had 4. Even between us, we wouldn’t have had enough to make an impression and so we all ended up as DNWs. In hindsight, I should have fished up in the water for F1s and not fed so much bait. I won’t be back until it warms up and then I’ll be on Doughnut Lake for some proper bagging. Moving on…

Sunday 8^th – Pleasure Session On Margaret’s Lake, Whitehouse Farm

With no matches worthy of my attention this weekend, I went to Whitehouse Farm with clubmate Jason Pitman. We decided to fish a couple of the deeper pegs, with Jason opting for peg 10. I was happy with peg 9 as I had an island chuck, albeit a long one. We both fished down our left-hand margins and we both had F1s. Jason also had a couple of small carp. I had one chub from the island on the maggle feeder, a big skimbo out in front at 10 metres and the rest down the edge. We both fished a variety of baits and we both finished up with 11lbs of silvers. Jason actually had 5 ounces more than I did, which cost me another quid… FFS!

Thursday 12^th March – Costcutter 500 Qualifier – Windmill Fisheries

Well, despite the weather forecast indicating 45 MPH winds, we still had 18 hardy souls turn out for this next qualifying round at Windmill. Rain was forecast too, but luckily it didn’t come to much. I wasn’t really sure where the best pegs would be today. Wind off your back? Wind in your face? Well, I drew peg 16 and so it was full-on windmills to my left-hand side! Wow! Was it windy! When I got to my peg, it was like a scene from Hawaii Five-0. I half expected a bunch of surfers to come rolling by. I mean, there were breakers on the water! White surf everywhere! And I thought the winds were strong last week! It was defo not a long pole day or even a short pole day for that matter. However, I did set up an 8-metre line out in front and a 4-metre line down my right-hand edge. Otherwise, it was going to be bombs away for most of the day.

I lobbed out a half-ounce bomb toward the edge of the island to set the casting distance, but soon realised I would have to up the weight as the wind was sending it way off course. I ended up using a 1-ounce bomb as it was the only way I could get an accurate cast. So, bomb and bread would be my opening shot today, with bomb and corn as back-up. On the all-in, I cupped out some Power Scopex groundbait, some micros and a few dead reds to my 8-metre line. Then out went the bomb and bread. I had a liner almost straight away and so I stuck at it and 30 minutes later… my first carp was duly netted. A change to corn brought another about 15 minutes later, but the wind was playing havoc, blowing the rod tip around so much that I decided to abandon that line.  

I picked up the pole and lowered my rig in over the feed area at 8 metres, but it soon became obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to do this. Once again, the wind was dictating how I was going to be fishing today. So, I decided to use a groundbait feeder and swing it out onto my 8-metre line instead of using a pole. Meanwhile, I began loose-feeding a little corn down my right-hand edge. The groundbait feeder proved to be a positive means of depositing feed onto the lake bed, much like a bait dropper. I changed the feeder to a maggle feeder, baited the size 16 hook with 3 red maggles and swung it into position. Within 5 minutes, I was into a carp so I carried on with this method and had another fish about 10 minutes later. Then it went a bit quiet. As I began to turn around and grab my flask for a cuppa, my rod was almost ripped off the rest…

Not only did I lose that one, but because I was clipped up, I had a line break right on the clip… FFS! Well, I just picked up the short pole, baited with a grain of corn and dropped it into my right-hand edge where I had been feeding all day. Wham! The float shot straight under and another carp was on. So, I carried on fishing down the edge with corn right up until the end and finished up with a total of 10 carp for just over 60lbs. I had noticed John Williams on peg 12 catching throughout the day and I was sure he had beaten me, which he did. John weighed in over 88lbs to win the match and qualify. Well done to him. I ended up in second place with it all still to do next time. Yep! I’ll be back next Thursday (19^th) for another stab at qualifying. At least the weather forecast is looking much more favourable. Keep you posted!

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