Welcome to my fishing blog… May 2026
Sunday 10th May – The Gloucester Canal, Purton – Not Exactly A Bream Bonanza But At Least Everyone Did Get In On The Action
Just the one match report this week. The mighty Glossy played host to the latest Kingswood RBL club match on a cold, overcast and breezy day. The North East wind was quite biting at times on a day when a hoodie and overcoat proved to be the most essential bits of kit. We had been advised by the bailiff to peg either side of the Water Works, which meant a bit of a hike, especially for those drawn on the higher numbers.
However, with very little boat traffic and just a handful of walkers and cyclists to contend with, it was worth the extra effort. I haven’t fished this stretch of canal for about 40 years! The last time was when I fished with PSV Match Group in a very competitive encounter, with bream, tench, chub, roach and skimbos all putting in an appearance. Today, however, it was mainly bream that showed up but not in any great numbers.
We all managed to park quite comfortably in the car park by the Upper Swing Bridge, where we also had the draw. I drew peg 9, which was between the water works and the bend, with a clear view of pegs 8 (Tony),7 (Tom) and 6 (Jason) to my right and Adrian on peg 10 to my left. Plumbing up at 10 metres I had 14 feet of water, but I wasn’t sure if I would be doing much work on the pole today due to the wind and so I only set up 1 rig, complete with a 2.5-gram, long stem float.
My plan was to concentrate on fishing the groundbait feeder at around 3 metres from the far bank and I think everyone else had similar ideas. The water was crystal clear and it soon became apparent that my groundbait was just not dark enough. I had a mix of Black Skimmer, SuperCrush Bream Feeder and Red crumb but probably would have been better off with Black Skimmer only or maybe a 50/50 mix with leam.
I also had plenty of dead reds, chopped worm, corn, maggles and pinkles to add to the groundbait… but forgot to get any casters… duh! Due to the long walk, we put the match start time back by 15 minutes, but somehow, I was still faffing around 10 minutes after the all-in! Anyway, I spent about 20 minutes baiting up my far side swim with a big open-ended feeder and then in went 6 balls on my pole line. I started with the feeder and 3 live reds on a size 14 hook and I had a few liners but no positive bites, so I started experimenting with a few bait cocktail variations.
Finally, 2 live reds and a pinkle brought me a skimbo of around 12 ounces. I had to wait until the second hour before I caught another, which was only about 6 ounces. Meanwhile, I could see Jason landing some good bream down on peg 6. He had 4 in the net before I had caught my first proper bream, which was on 3 dead reds at around 1pm. Word came round that a few others had also caught early and so the pressure was now on.
I tried the pole line a couple of times, but didn’t get a single bite, so I gave up on that with 2 hours left on the clock. There were long spells without a bite and so I found myself chopping and changing baits in order to entice a bite. I did get a quick pull on worm, but no follow-up and no further bites. However, combinations of dead reds and pinkles proved to be the most successful bait with 3 more bream coming in the last hour and losing 2 foul-hookers along the way.
I ended up with 4 bream and 2 skimbos for 11-15-0, which was good enough for 3rd place and a little pick-up. Just as well, as I had to give Jason a quid. He finished second with 7 bream for 20-12-0 and the winner on the day was Ian Swanborough with 8 bream for 21-04-0. Everyone caught at least 1 bream. Surprisingly, only 1 roach was caught and just a handful of skimbos showed up. Generally, everyone was happy with the venue and so we’ll be back again in September for another go.
Well, it’s been 2 pick-ups in the last 2 matches for me, but all that is about to change as I head back to Windmill Fisheries on Thursday for another dreary, dismal and dreadfully disappointing day on the Match Lake. I’m still hopeful of qualifying for the Cosctcutter 500… Keep you posted!
—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Hey guys! I really appreciate you all reading my weekly blog and thanks for all the positive comments. It’s nice to know you enjoy reading about my rants, my ups and downs and my general take on events. Please keep those likes coming and don’t be shy in sharing, as all this stuff helps to keep my blog on top of the Google rankings. Cheers!
NOTE: If reading this blog on a PC, you can enlarge the images by right-clicking on them and selecting “Open link in new window” – Or you might be able to just click on the image if you’re using Windows 11.
If you enjoyed reading this blog, then be sure to join the Fish Wag Facebook group HERE for blog updates. Also, please Like and Share… It’s very much appreciated! Check out the links to my older blog posts below…
