Sunday 7^th July – Kingswood RBL Match, Bristol Avon, Staverton – At Least You Can Drive To Your Peg!

Prior to my RBL club match at Staverton, I fished a match at Windmill Fisheries again on Thursday. Only 9 anglers turned out for this one and I drew peg 1, which I was happy with. I’ve drawn peg 1 more than any other peg on this lake and I’ve had my fair share of good days and bad. Today, there was no reason to think it would be a bad day as I had the wind off my back and nobody on the next peg to my right. I had a lot of water in front of me and lots of choices. As my main approach, I chose to fish paste in front at 7 metres and 2 edge lines. However, I would spend the first hour slapping down the edge of the margin to my right-hand side.

With an hour gone and no signs of fish on the slapped pellet, I started feeding my 7-metre line with micros and Power Scopex groundbait. My pellet paste was made from soaked 8mm Skrettings fishery pellets. I have had some success on this paste on various venues. The trick is to get the consistency right. After 20 minutes on this line, I hooked into a skimbo, which went about 2lbs and then nothing for the next 30 minutes. I decided to give the swim a rest from feeding and so I chucked out a maggle feeder toward the island and made a cup of tea. Typical! As I’m making a cuppa, the tip flies round and I’m into a carp. Tea everywhere!

I finally managed to subdue this one, which was about 10lb. Further casts to the island resulted in a string of small perch so I gave up on that and went back onto the paste line. On the first put-in, I bumped off a big skimbo so I changed the top-kit for one with a lighter elastic (10-12). Then 10 minutes later I hooked and landed another skimbo of about a pound and a half. It was incredibly slow, having to wait an age for a bite, even though the swim was fizzing. Another look down the edge with a slapped pellet proved futile so I began feeding my 2 edge lines. On my right, I fed a few micros only and on my left, I dropped in a small ball of Scopex groundbait.

During the course of the day, I had nothing from my 2 edge lines and I tried several different baits. It was sooo frustrating to be on a nice peg and yet struggle for bites all over. Well, I decided to spend the last 2 hours just fishing paste out in front in the hope that carp would show up. I did hook and land 2 more decent-sized skimmers before all hell broke loose. The carp finally arrived. The first one shot out into the middle of the lake never to be seen again. The 0.15 hooklength gave out like it was cotton so a change to a 0.17 hooklength was required. The next 2 carp I hooked were obviously foul-hooked and came off within minutes. Then the next one was a right old biggie and a wise one too. After playing it for about 10 minutes it managed to get right in behind my keepnets and left the hook embedded there.

That’s not the first time that has happened to me on this lake and I’m sure these fish are getting smarter. Another little trick they have is getting under your landing net when trying to land them. Well, 4 carp fooking hooked and lost and it wasn’t over yet. It was beginning to look like a pantomime as the next 3 carp were all foul-hooked and lost too. FFS! I don’t think I’ve ever sworn so much during a match as I did today. So, I finished up with just one carp in the net for about 10lb plus about 7lb of silvers. Only one word to describe it… cataclysmic! At least 2 anglers said they had double-figure weights of silvers and so I chucked everything back and packed up.

Sunday 7^th July – Staverton

Despite the unpredictable fishing on this particular venue you just can’t help liking it for many other reasons. You can park behind your peg… it’s relatively quiet and peaceful, except for the odd passing train, and there are no boats or paddle boarders. The water here is very deep and mysterious, averaging 11 feet across the stretch. Today I drew peg 7, which was permanent peg 23. Only 3-11-0 came off this peg on the previous Wednesday evening match, which is pretty much par for the course here. I hadn’t fished this one before and to be frank I wasn’t too impressed with what I was looking at.

It was quite wide at about 26-28 metres from bank to bank, 13 feet deep, and no overhanging trees as such. Unlike many of the other pegs, it didn’t look too “chubby”. It did have a nice colour however, and after some heavy rain showers during the night, it had a steady pace. Well, big chub live in this stretch and you need a few if you want to win. The odd bream can show up unexpectedly almost anywhere too but predominantly it’s going to be small roach, perch, chublets and bleak. So, I set up a 13-metre pole rig for fishing down the middle, on the bottom and one for mid-depth. I also set up a margin rig for fishing worm, targeting the bigger perch.

The obligatory maggle feeder rod was set up for fishing right over close to the far bankside vegetation. BUT! I didn’t pack a float rod FFS! I thought it was already in my holdall but it wasn’t and I really wanted to fish a Crowquill Avon float right over in mid-water. That’s the problem with fishing a lake and then a river in the same week. You take your river gear out and leave it at home, forgetting to put it back when you venture back out onto the river. Well, obviously I do. I guess age has something to do with it too. Well, the first thing I had to do today was to have a go for any chub that might be present.

On the all-in, I put on a 25-gram bomb and baited a size 14 hook with a large piece of bread flake. There was a small opening in the far side vegetation and I aimed to get right in there. I gave that 30 minutes with no takers. I then changed to maggle feeder with 3 maggles on the hook and cast right out into exactly the same spot only to veer slightly off course and catch an overhanging bush. FFS! Feeder lost! I had been to the tackle shop on Saturday and bought 4 new small Drennan feeders as I was down to my last one. I’ve lost a lot of feeders on this venue. So, another feeder on and off we go again.

I managed to catch a few small chublets on this method but there was no sign of any of the big boys. After about an hour, I hooked into the far bank again and lost another feeder. That was 2 down and 3 left now. I got fed up with that so I went onto my pole line. I had already cupped out 6 balls of dark river groundbait laced with dead reds and casters at the start, so the swim was well primed and ready for harvesting. I had a small perch on the first put-in with double red maggle on the hook. Then I had a string of small fish from bleak and gudgeon to tiny roach but it was hard work and I wasn’t making up any kind of weight fast.

So, it was time to check down the inside line for perch. I had a nice lily bed to my left and I was sure there must be some perch living there. So, I dropped in some chopped worm and dangled a half Dendrobena at mid-depth. Lifting and dropping usually does the trick but after 20 minutes there was nothing. No indications, no signs… nothing. I reluctantly picked up the feeder rod again and put on a new maggle feeder. I put on a smaller, size 16 hook this time and baited it with 2 live reds. A careful chuck and … fooking lost the lot in a far side overhanging bramble. With 3 feeders down, I decided to cut my losses and give up on this method altogether.

Now, with only 90 minutes left, all I had to focus on was the 13-metre pole line. Hoping I could kick-start the swim into life, I dropped in 3 balls of groundbait heavily laced with chopped worm and casters. With a whole worm on the hook, I lowered in the rig and held back against the flow. In hindsight, maybe a flat float would have been better. Anyway, this brought a couple of gudgeon, which were not going to help my cause one iota! I added a couple of inches to the depth and let the rig drag through the swim and then the float dipped. When I struck I thought I had caught the bottom but it began to move.

FFS! I had hooked into something huge. At first, I was thinking it could be a big, big bream as it began slowly pulling with that typical bream-like thump-thump motion. Then I wasn’t sure as it stayed deep and refused to move off the bottom. Maybe it was a massive tench, although I have never seen a tench caught on this stretch. Could it be a big fat overgrown chub? Perhaps a massive perch? Or it might just be a regular old tree branch… All these things were going through my head as I managed to very slowly drag the mystery object toward me. Then I remembered something… I have in the past caught a few jack pike on this stretch… on worm!

Well, now I’m 99% sure that on the end of my pole line is a big pike. Pike don’t count in our club matches so it wasn’t going to be of any use to me but as we had already spent about 15-20 minutes attached to each other, I was curious as to how big it might be. However, if I lost it in the process then so be it. With that thought, I began to pile on the pressure to try and get this thing up on the surface. I really did need to pull hard to shift it and as it got closer, it made a determined dash for the lily bed to my left-hand side. I didn’t want to think, “It must have been a pike”, I wanted to know for sure so I guided it back toward me pulling and lifting all the time.

As you might imagine, with a 13-foot rig and a number 10 elastic, it was no easy feat getting this beast to the top but surface it did. And yes! It was a big, fat ugly old girl of at least 15lb, probably more. I tried several times to net it but it just wouldn’t fit into my landing net. So, I had no choice but to yank the rig and go for a break but as it happened the hook pulled free and the big predator turned and then slowly headed back down into the darkened depths of the river. (Sounds like something out of a Jaws movie doesn’t it?) Well, if I was a pike fisherman I wouldn’t hesitate to get back on this swim with some proper gear and get this lump on the bank for a photo shoot.  

Well, that was pretty much it apart from a few more small gudgeon in the last 20 minutes, taking my total weight for the day to just 1-11-0. It was a hard day for everyone but Jason Pitman did manage to find some quality fish on corn to amass a weight of 5-13-0 for a comfortable win. Well done to him and… every cloud has a silver lining because… Jason was, and is my partner in the pairs aggregate and so we each won a ‘virtual’ trophy for our combined weight today. Oh Yes!

So, it’s been quite a disappointing week for me and I’ll have to wait until next Sunday to try and redeem myself. I’m planning on giving the Windmill Bonanza 1000 another go… (yes, yes I know!) Surely my performance can’t be any worse than last time… can it? Keep you posted!

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