River Avon Fladbury Sunday 6/11/11

This weekend saw us on the river Avon at Fladbury for a Cradley Heath club match, it has been more years than I care to remember since I last fished here so I was looking forward to it, although we thought it would fish hard as the bit of rain we had a couple of days before had failed to put any colour in the water and the Avon normally needs it for it to fish well. I know that there are the odd Barbel & Chub caught from the pegs by the bridge and the rest of it is mainly Roach & bits, a couple of years ago 2 pegs above the bridge Dave Wood won a club match with 23lb of Roach on the stick float so there are fish here if they decided to feed. There were only 13 brave (stupid!) soles that turned up for this one as there were a few of our guy's fishing another match on the river Severn and another few that thought better of it, the water was pushing a bit due to some heavy rain that we had on Thursday but for some reason there was no colour in the water and for that reason we had only pegged a couple of pegs above the bridge and the rest below leaving the faster water below the weir out. As we were about to draw Brian Smith said that he didn't mind where he drew as long as it was not the peg on the fence known as the deeps I asked him what was the peg number he replied "7", yes you know what number I pulled out of the hat yep 7 great start to the day I thought. As I tackled up I soon found out why they call it the deeps Dave Wood on the peg above had got around 6 ft a couple of rod lengths out, I started to plumb up and had 10ft of water right on the end of the rod and around 11ft a rod and half out so that is were I decided to fish the stick float. I threw out the option of fishing the waggler due to the depth and the extra pace on the water so set up a small maggot feeder for over and a straight lead for over the top of the stick float line.

Rig 1, the stick line I fished a 13-14ft float rod with a closed face reel, a 8 x no4 alloy stick, 2.6lb mainline to a 0.08 hooklength and a 20 B520 hook, with no6 shot strung in the bottom half of the rig and 2 no8 down the bottom end.

Rig 2, the maggot feeder was a 11ft 6in rod with 6lb mainline & 0.14 hooklength and a 16 B611 hook, 3/4oz maggot feeder.

Rig 3, 10ft bomb rod, 4lb mainline to a 0.10 hooklength with a 18 B611 hook and a 3/8oz bomb for searching the bottom end of the stick line.

For bait I had brought 2 pints of bronze maggots, 1 pint of hemp and a few worms, I had brought some 4 & 8mm pellets but as I not drawn up by the bridge these would stay in the bag.

I started the match on the stick and after only a couple of runs through hooked my first fish of the day a Gonk, another 5 mins passed and Gonk no2 was swung in and after 30mins my count was up to 5. At least I was catching as the 2 guy's above me were still dry but Brian below me had around the same Gonk count and a couple of small Dace, by the end of the first hour I had managed to put another 2 Gonks and 3 small Dace in the net with 1 of the Dace around 3oz. While the sport was not fast at least I was having a few bites as Dave & John were still dry and Brian below me had around the same number of fish as me, then on around the hour mark the the wind began to blow a bit stronger and it was quite cold and in the worst direction downstream. I thought it was just me but over the next hour me & Brian failed to get another bite? just like flicking a switch they stopped feeding, I had cut back on the feed, tied the straight lead altered the shotting & depth on the stick but all met with the same blank result. With 2 hours gone my phone rang and it was Steve Robson who was on a peg 4 just below the bridge asking how things were going and after I had told him he said that he was doing ok with 4 fish, 4 what I asked he said Barbel? I replied that he must have been smoking a Jamaican woodbine and too stop taking the pee he said got to go my rods nearly got pulled in! With us not catching at the time I would take 5mins off and go for a walk upstream to see Steve, so I poured a cup of coffee and went to see him although he was only 3 pegs above me I could see JB on peg 5 Steve was only on peg 4 but must have been 400 yards above him and was left scratching my head as to why there was such a long gap in the pegs. When I got to Steve he said that he had lost that one on the lead so he was still on 4 Barbel two on the stick float and two on the lead & pellet, he had got the first 2 Barbel out on the stick on just 2lb line and when he realised he was on a few decided to chuck the lead while he re-set up the stick with 4lb line had hooked a further 3 on that? Must be solid I said and went back to my peg wishing him all the best, Stu above Steve was like the rest of us with one little Chublet and I Gonk so it looked like all the Barbel were in Steve's peg. Too cut a long boring story short it never got any better for the rest of us for the remainder of the match I managed another 3-4 Gonks before the all out, it had fished crap apart from Steve, around 3 hours into the match Brian & JB went up to have a look at Setve and said the he had 2 Barbel & lost 1 in just the 10mins they stood behind him and was now on around 8-9 fish? By the end of the match we had all had enough on a very hard day and to make it worse me & Brian had got to weigh in, to give you a feel of the match I will give you a full run down of all the weights from the bottom peg upstream.

peg 13 John Bab 4oz 8 drams

peg 12 Ade 4oz 8 drams

peg 11 M.Whitmore D.N.W

peg 10 Baz Robson D.N.W

peg 9 Martin 2lb 13oz 3rd a big 1 1/2lb perch on the feeder helped.

peg 8 Brian 15oz

peg 7 me 1lb 10z 4th

peg 6 Woody 2oz 8 drams

peg 5 JB 8oz

peg 4 Super Steve 94lb 7oz 1st but only just my 89lb?

peg 3 Stu 7oz

peg 2 Big Ritchie 5lb 12oz 2nd 3 Chub on the feeder above the bridge.

peg 1 K. Whitmore D.N.W

Steve ended the day with 16 Barbel and losing 5 with all but 2 falling to the bronze maggot and stick float the other 2 on the lead & pellet, well done to Steve which is the best bag of fish I have ever seen from the river Avon probably from any river, I still told him he was crap for not breaking the ton, he said it was the best days fishing he had ever had and better than catching 200lb of Carp, for the rest of us it was just Crap.

Blythe Pairs Winter League Sunday 30/10/11

This weekend saw us back at Blythe Waters for the start of this years pairs winter league which me and my travelling/fishing partner Jon (Stavros) Baker are the defending champions the title we won earlier this year in May. This year we had decided to limit the league to 9 pairs as we are only going to use one pool Cherries, last year we had it on two pools to re-leave some of the pressure off the Cherries pool as the league was getting more popular with 13 pairs which is to many to have on one pool so we used Bridge pool as well, so this year was a first come first served basis. We had planned to come up for a practise the in the week leading up to the match but I failed to get the time off work so we were going to have to rely on passed knowledge of the venue, the weather was still very mild for the time of the year in fact the temperature went up to 15c and I fished in a t-shirt all day is this 2 days before November! We walked around the pool before the draw and it was like a lot of pools around the country at the moment suffering from a low water, the scaffold tubes that hold the floating boom down that runs along the length of the pool were now around 2 1/2ft out of the water where normally they are around 1ft out so the pool has lots around 18 inches. I sent Stav up for the draw so I could blame him if we got bad pegs he came back with peg 20 for me and 29 for him two very good pegs so it was now down to us to catch a few and we had no excuses off these pegs not to do well, My peg 20 is the last peg in A section and a corner peg with a long right-hand edge to it's self and probably the shortest pole reach to the boom at 13m, Stav's peg 29 is around 14.5m to the boom and has threw up a few good weights over the years as with next door peg 30 the both stick out on a point making them able to reach the boom the peg either side 28 & 31 have to throw a feeder/wagg to reach it. I have won a Halesowen club match off peg 20 a couple of years ago with 78lb caught mainly shallow by the boom, a lot of people catch well from the edge on this peg where as well as the usual Carp there is also a few Chub that hang the reeds down the edge so this was how I was going to attack the peg. I planned to fish pellet shallow & on the deck up to the boom and fish worm & caster down the edge at 13m with a back up pellet/corn line down the edge at 6m where I could feed by hand.

Rig 1, 13m shallow pellet rig 0.30gr Maver Jurassic dibber, 0.16 Silstar to a 16 Preston PR27 hook with a lasso for a 6mm hard pellet fished from1 to 2 1/2ft deep with Preston 13 hollo elastic.

Rig 2, 13m on the deck rig for pellet or corn, 4 x 14 Maver Jona, with the same line and elastic as above but with a size 3 Tubertini 175 hook.

Rig 3, 13m edge rig for worm, Preston Durra 10 4x12 float, 0.16 line to a 3 175 hook, with black hydro elastic set on the deck in 3ft of water.

Rig 4, 6m pellet/corn line all the same as above but only around 2 1/2ft deep.

For bait I had brought the usual array of pellets from micro-8mm as you could be feeding 4-6mm pellets for a shallow line like today or feeding 6-8mm pellets for the pellet wagg on one of the wider pegs or micro's for the method on the same wide pegs so you have to bring everything at this time of the year to cover all eventuality's depending on your draw, I had also brought 2 pints of casters, 3/4 of a kilo of worms (which I failed to use a couple of weeks ago on a Chubbing match on the canal), a couple of tins of corn and a few 6mm expanders for the hook.

I started off by feeding a pot of worm/caster with the odd grain of in on the 13m edge line and fed a few 4mm pellets with the odd grain of corn on the 6m edge line for later, I mounted a 6mm hard pellet onto the lasso and shipped out to the boom with the rig set around 18 inches deep and started to fire 6-8 4mm pellets over the top. Only 5mins into the match and after lifting and dropping the rig every time I fed to try and simulate the loose pellets falling through the water the float carried on down the hole and my 13hollo elastic following, I shipped back a bit sharp to get the fish away from some roots that were trailing underneath the boom from some bushes that had been cropped off above but they had left the roots in. I had found these roots while plumbing up with the deck rig and for that reason I had put a short no4 into my pole and added my 14.5m section to give me a bit more reach so I was feeding a line around 1m away from the roots along the boom, the fish was soon in the net a common of around 3lb and a welcome start to the match so early on. Another 2-3 mins later the same again only a smaller 1lb sample this time and the next put-in I didn't have time to feed before the elastic was pulled from the pole, the first hour followed suit with 10 carp all falling to my shallow attack most of them in the 1-2lb bracket a bit on the small side but as far as I could see up the top end of the pool I was doing a lot better than everyone else I was not complaining. As I re-fed my worm line for later on I saw Stav land another fish in the distance which I had seen him do a couple of times the first hour out of the corner of my eye so at least we were both catching, but as I was the furthest peg up the pool I couldn't see the guy's on the disabled pegs & bay pegs in my section so I just had to get my head down and catch as much as I could. Back out on the shallow rig and Carp no11 was soon hooked but this one hadn't read the script and ploughed straight through the trailing roots off the end of the boom, after trying different angles to pull the fish out of the roots I was sure the fish had gone just leaving my rig attached to the roots some 13m away and as I pulled for a break my 13hollo elastic broke at the bottom end of my pulla kit and shot over to the boom, Great de-elasticated. After a bit of swearing I calmed down and got another top kit from my holdall deciding to up the elastic to black hydro to get the fish away from the boom a bit quicker as the fish grow big in here up to 20lb! It took me around 20mins to get a bite back on the shallow rig and it looked like the disturbance of loosing that fish had spooked them off a bit but at around 5-6lb it was a better stamp of fish, another 20mins passed before I landed another fish this one around 4lb so maybe the bigger fish had moved in pushing the stockie's out of the way in-between these two fish I had pulled out of a couple making me think that the elastic was a bit too strong? But what do you do fish lighter and risk them getting stuck in the roots again? I decided to have a look on the edge worm line and rest the shallow line for a while, first put-in with a worm head on the hook I hooked a fish that shot off along the edge of the reeds towards empty peg 21 I applied as much side-strain as I could without my pole breaking but couldn't stop the fish ploughing through the reeds and shedding the hook leaving me stuck up again only this time some 16m away! Shit! luckily this time I only lost the rig 2 put-ins loosing 2-0 to the carp! After sorting another rig all I hooked was a couple of small roach & a skimmer so I put a big pot of feed in and had a quick look on the 6m margin but after only 5mins without a bite I was back on the worm line, this time the float buried and I pulled as hard as I dared a 6lb common came out spitting water around 30 seconds after being hooked! A've it. Another carp of 3lb was all I could extract from the worm line before all the bites dried up another 15mins later on the shallow rig and I was now struggling to get a bite of any description, with around 3 1/2 of the match gone I picked up the deck rig put a 6mm expander on the hook and shipped out to the boom within 30 seconds I had a 3lb carp and a 1lb skimmer next put-in. Just when I thought I had found them again the 2 bites in the deck was all I could muster and a quick look on both my margin lines produced just 2 small Roach, now we were into the last hour so I was going to stick to the shallow rig which I had most of my fish on and over the next half hour had 5 small Carp in the 8oz-1 1/2lb bracket. With around 15mins left I hooked a bigger fish which found the roots hanging below the boom and the same as the one after the first hour I had to pull for a break loosing the rig this time but leaving my elastic in the pole, that was the end of the action for me but Ollie on peg 19 next to me hooked a fish a few minutes before the whistle he had only had 4 Carp all day but this one wasn't playing ball. A few minutes after the whistle a big swirl erupted by Ollie's net as he tried to net the beast I saw the tail of the fish it was BIG, after another attempt with the net Ollie managed to get the fish in and I shouted " Has anyone got a saddle for this one Ollie could ride this one home" later the scales revealed the fish to be 18lb 8oz! I told you they grow em big up here!. I packed in and walked down to the bay end of my section pegs 8 & 10 where Steve & Chris had fished both of them saying it had fished hard with Steve only having 1 Carp and Chris having 2 lumps in the last half hour to get him our of jail as he was dry until then, it looked like this end of the lake had fished hard as the first three pegs on the disabled pegs in my section weighed in no one broke double figures, Steve's 1 Carp was 4lb and Chris's 2 late get out of jail lumps went 20lb, there was another 20lb+ weight before Ollie put 35lb on the scales with that last lump doubling his weight he had got 4 other Carp to go with it. I had got 20 Carp but with around 13-14 of them under 2lb a big weight was not on the cards but I was more than happy to win the section with 51lb 8oz, I had to have a word with Carl the gaffer about the roots in the peg and the gear I had lost he said he would sort it out, I could understand the ones I lost up the edge on the reeds but there is no need for roots trailing off the boom it would take less than a minute to cut them out with a knife and a boat! Carl himself had caught a few fish on the feeder and up in the water to put 36lb on the scales to put him in the lead in his section Stav said it would be close as he might have around the same weight, there was a couple of 20lb+ weights in the section then Stav put his fish on to reveal 40lb odd and with only 2 left to weigh in his section he was sitting pretty, the other 2 weighed 16lb & 12lb to give Stav the section win and us the perfect start to the league with 2 section wins and a perfect score along with 1st & 2nd on the match. Rock on a great start to the league long may it continue.

River Severn Arley Sunday 23/10/11

This weekend saw us back on the river Severn at Arley this time for a Halesowen club match, if you have been reading my blog I won the Cradley match on here some 6 weeks ago with just 2 barbel & 1 Chub for 12lb we were all hoping that the river would fish a bit better this time as there were a lot of anglers struggling for bites that day. This match had been nominated as the fur & feather for this year back at January at the A.G.M so there was an extra incentive to do well today with Turkeys up for grabs, I drew out a peg just one below where I had won the Cradley match from so I was happy with my draw and confident of catching a couple of Barbel from it if they were in a feeding mood. On the Cradley match I had one Barbel on the pellet and a Barbel & Chub on the maggot so they were the same baits I had brought with me today along with a some hemp. I planned to fish the feeder around 3/4 of the way over on the edge of the slightly faster water while feeding the maggot & wagg line down the middle for later if the Barbel didn't want to play ball, I plumbed up on the wagg line and found a nice 7ft of water which I planned to feed from the start while fishing the feeder early on. The river was not clear but had that nasty cold tea colour again which is sediment you can see collecting on your keepnet by the end of the day, there is always a big debate as to why the river fishes harder than it used to but I feel that this sediment blocks the fishes gills which stops them from feeding so well.

My gear for today was my trusty old Silstar TraverseX heavy feeder rod coupled with a Shimano Stradic 4000GTM, 8lb Maxima mainline, 40gram large Kamasan block end feeder, 3ft of 0.22 Slistar hooklength to a 14 Drennan Super Specialist Barbel hook for the pellet.

My maggot feeder set up was a Maver Barbel Specialist rod with the same reel & line as my pellet set up but with a 16 Drennan super specialist hook.

The waggler rod was a ABU Suveran 13ft float, a Shimano Super 2500gtm reel, 5lb Maxima mainline, Dave Harrell 4AAA waggler, 0.14 hooklength to a 18 Drennan carbon chub hook.

For bait I had a mixed 3mm Dynamite & 4mm Sonu elliptical halibut pellets and a few 4mm Dynamite Source pellets for the feeder, for the hook I had got 6,8 & 10mm halibuts and 8mm Source pellets, 4 pints of white maggots & 2 pints of hemp.

I started the match on the pellet feeder cast to the edge of the crease where the water is slightly faster and after 4-5 quick casts in the first 10mins to get some feed in I settled down prepared for a long wait, I had also started to feed the waggler line with maggots slightly upstream of me and some hemp just in-front of me. After around 30mins the tip pulled forward and dropped back as a good fish had dislodged the feeder and I was connected to the first fish of the day, the fish tore of downstream and I knew straight away that it was a Barbel and after a good 4-5min battle I netted a nice fish of 5-6lb a great start. I was happy to have caught a fish early on as it settles you down I was just hoping it was not a solo fish, around 4-5 casts later and the rod top pulled forward again as fish no2 had picked up my 8mm halibut pellet. While I was playing the fish I was aware of someone standing on the top of the bank watching me and after I netted it he said well done and I turned around to see Dave Foxall who runs the float only Tuesday matches on this stretch, the fish was a good 6-7lb and after unhooking it and putting it in the keepnet Dave said that Oliie below me had just had a 4lb Chub on the wagg so it looked like the fish were going to have a go. After a quick chat with Dave he said he was off to see how the rest were getting on and I recast the feeder to the same spot and after only 30 seconds the rod pulled around again as fish no3 was hooked, I couldn't believe how quick the bite had come after the cast and it looked like there was a few fish down there having a go. This fish got stuck in some weed out in the middle but with a little pressure he came through it this one was a little smaller around 4lb, another 20mins later Gary Mason who had drawn below Cromwell's hole by the car park came up for a walk saying that he had not had a bite and apart from Ollie no one was catching. Ollie had another good chub but for the rest it was hard going so I was sitting pretty on 3 barbel and Gary said he was going for a walk upstream to see if his mate Shaun Waite was catching who was a few pegs above, with around 2 hours gone now another bite saw me connected to Barbel no4 just a Gary came back saying that Shaun & Martin above me were both blank! This fish was giving me the run around getting stuck in some more weed a bit further down the peg than the last fish I had to slack off on the fish which is good tactic too fool the Barbel into thinking he is free and swims out of the weed on it's own (sometimes!), if you keep on pulling most of the time you are making it worse by pulling the fish deeper into the weed. After a good 6-7 battle I slipped the net under a good fish which I estimated at around 8lb Gary said I was making him feel sick and was going back to his peg to have another go, I was enjoying this 2 hours into the match I was 4-0 up on the Barbel and I was thinking that if the fish kept on coming like this a good weight was on the cards. The next hour produced another 2 Barbel so with 2 hours to go I had 6 Barbel but hadn't had a bite for the last half hour of that last hour, another 30mins later without any more signs it was time to rest the swim and have a look on the waggler. I run the waggler through the peg for around 15mins for 2 Dace and 1 Roach around 2-3 ounce apiece at this point I felt that if was to hook any Barbel or Chub on this I would have had one by now as I had fed this line for 3 1/2 hours before trying it, I felt that I rested the pellet line long enough so I went back out on that for another 1/2 hour but as the match was coming to a close I got the feeling that the Barbel had done a disappearing act on me. With half an hour left before the all out I decided to have a last throw of the dice on a maggot feeder thrown down the bottom of the peg in the area that I felt where most of my loose fed maggots down the middle were landing just in-case there was a Barbel/Chub hanging around there, I had 3 fish from line in the last knockings of the match but sadly they were only Gudgeon and the all out sounded. I was happy with my 6 Barbel haul and I was hoping that they would be enough to get me a Turkey for the Christmas table and get me into the misses good books ( mega bonus brownie points!), the word on the bank was that the rest of the stretch had fished as hard as it had done a few weeks ago on the Cradley match here but I never count my chickens before they've hatched. Gary came and weighed my fish in giving me 39lb 13oz which I was more than happy with, Ollie below me had 3 Chub on the waggler for 11lb odd and big Ritchie in the car park had 1 Barbel & 1 Chub for 10lb odd. The top section at Hexton's farm had fished very hard with Steve Robson the best weight with 6lb odd of Dace and the middle section above the Island won by Andy Paggget with 2 Barbel for 8lb odd, I had won the match with plenty to spare so I was well pleased with my day's fishing and the added bonus of it being the fur & feather to boot.