River Severn Severn Stoke Sunday 16/9/12

This would be my 3rd match on a river on the bounce and another that many of us had not fished for many years Severn Stoke which is inbetween Worcester and Tewksbury, the river a slow and deep here with the main targets Barbel & Bream and the Barbel down here run big many into double figures.
Too cut a long story short I had 1 bite in five hours a single Bream of 4lb 3oz which I had on the worm I had spent most of the day on the pellet or worm fishing for the Bream and Barbel, Andy below me blanked and Stu above me had 1 bite the same as me a 1lb 9oz skimmer, the match was rubbish with clear water it was a struggle with a few blanks recorded. The match was won on the red rock upstream by Terry with 11lb on the float with Chub & Roach which was his first win in the Halesowen club so well done to him, Baz Robson was 2nd with a Bream & Barbel for 10lb and 6lb of Roach & Perch was 3rd. There were 4 of us that had a single Bream but I was beaten by 1oz for the section by Ade who had 6 small Perch with his solo Bream, I had tried a maggot feeder right over and run a stick float through but even this failed to produce a bite, one to forget this one.

River Avon Bidford & Marcliff Sunday 2/9/12

This match saw us on the warwickshire Avon at Biford & Marcliff another venue that many of us have not fished for many years, I think this year our club secratery has booked venues that used to fish 20 years ago to see if there are any fish there now! I drew upstream of the car park which is Bidford around 100yards before you get to the next fence, I set up just 2 rods a feeder rod for the pellet and a waggler rod which I planned to feed maggots over. I was going to fish the feeder just short of the far bank reeds and feed up a wagg/maggot line down the middle which was around 8ft deep, I started on the pellet feeder which after only 20mins wraped over and saw me land a nice Barbel of around 5lb a great start. With around a hour gone bite no2 gave me the same result as the first a 5lb Barbel and I was starting to think that this was going the same way as Arley a couple of weeks ago, with 1 1/2 hours gone bite 3 was Barbel no3 around 4lb and it was the same as Arley 3 bites 3 fish inside the first hour and half. With 2 hours gone I had another bite on the pellet but this one was no Barbel as it came across the river too easy and when I got it under the rod ready for netting I saw it was a Chub of aroung 3lb, then as Chub do it made a mad last minute dash for the roots under the bank and as I tried to pull it away from them the hook pulled out S**T. After that the peg went quite on the pellet so I switched to the wagg which I had fed quite heavy from the start putting around 2 pints of bronze maggots in so far, second run through the float buried as I hooked my first fish a small 4oz Chub which fell to a double maggot. I had 4 of these small Chub and a couple of Gonks before I hooked a better fish which was a 12oz Chub, I had another 3 of these better Chub and a few bits plus one small Roach before I went around 10mins without a bite so I was going to switch back to the pellet for the last hour but it was a fruitful 45mins on the wagg putting around 4-5lb in the net. I chucked the pellet back out to see if any Barbel had moved in over the feed while I had been fishing the wagg? The pellet had only been in the water for around 30 seconds before the tip pulled around with a fish on, it turned out to be another Chub of around 2lb which I gave no chance of finding the roots where I had lost his mate earlier. I sat on the pellet for the rest of the last hour but I had no more bites even having a couple of chucks with the pellet at the end of the wagg line incase a Barbel had come to upset the small fish I was catching on the wagg, the section above me had fished rubbish with only 1lb 7oz winning the section??? John Babb above me had 4lb of small Chub & bits my 3 Barbel & small Chub gave me 21lb 14oz, the two pegs below me had 1lb & 2lb then Brian on the last peg on Bidford had 3lb of bits and a 9lb Pike giving him 12lb. The best from Marcliff was Ade two pegs below the weir with 28lb of all Chub on the feeder with the caster and hemp, there were another 2 single Barbel caught around 5lb each with both anglers loosing another Barbel each. That was it the end of my winning unbeaten run with the club having to put up with second??? Seven matches on the bounce was an unbeliveable run one which I doubt I will ever beat, we had a good laugh on the car park at the pay out when I said there had been a mistake when they gave me an envelope marked 2nd "this is not mine" I said "mine should have 1st on it" then I began a pretend cry saying " the kids will have to go without tea as Dad hasn't got enough money this week"

River Severn Arley Sunday 19/8/12

This weekend saw me on the river Severn at Arley for my first river session of the season with the Cradley lads, some of the lads had already fished the river a couple of times this season with the usual mixed reports of 3-4 guys catching and the rest struggling. I was looking forward to having a go on the river as I do each year as it is something different I know the weights are not what they used to be on the Severn or most rivers for that matter but I think it does you good to have a change now and then, don't get me wrong I love catching big weights of Carp from the pools but now and then its good to dust the cobwebs off the rods and do something different. After fishing the river for many years this match was booked on a stretch I had never fished before the Harbour water on the right bank of the river below the footbridge, this stretch used to be run by the pub of the same name until a couple of years ago when they gave it up and the B.A.A took it over. The river was carrying around 1ft of extra water with a nice tinge of colour so we were all looking forward to catching a few fish as I didn't know the water the draw didn't matter to me I was just going to go to my peg and fish it, when I drew peg 5 I was told I was just off the fliers 6&7 either side of the fence but I was going to give it a good go. My peg was just below a ford which looked to be moving a bit fast with the extra water on the apparent fliers below were a little steadier and with Baz Robson around 15yards below me it looked a out and out feeder job, I set up just two feeder rods as with Baz so close and the extra water the float would have been infront of him before it had settled. I set a pellet feeder and a caster & hemp job on the other both set ups were the same apart from the hooks one with a lasso for the pellet and the other a standard hook for the caster, both had 8lb maxima reel line to a 0.22 silstar hooklength the pellet hook was a Drennan size 14 Super Specalist Barbel the caster hook was a 14 standard Super Specalist. I started the match on the pellet cast to the middle of the river which I had to use 2oz of lead to hold with a mix of 3&4mm halibut pellets in the feeder with a 8mm on the hook, I cast out 6-7 times in the first 10mins to put a bit of a bed down then sat back and waited. It was after around 50mins into the match before I had my first bite a nice dropback before the tip pulled forward and I was hooked into my first Barbel of the season, it gave a good account of itself before I netted it and at around 4lb it was a nice start. It was around15mins later when I had bite no2 which turned out to be another Barbel of around the same size, it looked like being a good day with 2 barbel in the sack and Baz below not hooking one yet. Barbel no3 was hooked and landed after 1 1/2 hours which was maybe closer to 5lb it was looking good as the word along the bank was that no one else was catching yet, another hour went by without a bite so I switched to the caster to see if it would spur another barbel or Chub into feeding but after around 45mins and only 2 small 2oz Dace to show I went back to the pellet. There were a couple of the lads walking around saying that no one was catching it was fishing very hard, after that early run of fish I failed to get another bite for the rest of the match despite castig around, rolling the feeder & trying different size hook pellets my match was over in the first 1 1/2 hours! My 3 Barbel & 2 Dace gave me 13lb 4oz, Baz below me had 4lb odd of bits but no Barbel and Mick on the other flier failed to weigh. Steve Robson had 1 Barbel for 5lb odd and JB had one small Barbel below Steve. There had been only 5 Barbel caught in the whole match luckily I had 3 of them which gave me my 7th Cradley Heath Club match win on the bounce, I don't know what I am doing latley but I which I could bottle it!!!! The match had been realy hard for most and over a pint outside the Harbour Inn there was talk of not booking the middle Severn again as it seems to get harder each year.

Hawford Bridge Sunday 12/8/12

This was a Halesowen club match at Hawford Bridge on the new lake called Reddings pool this would be a new one for me and 95% of the lads, this pool was dug out around 3 years ago but had been closed by the owners Trev & Sue when the fishing was below par and had only recently been reopened when they were sure the fish were in tip top condition. I had asked around a bit and found out that most of the fish were small from a few ounces to around 4lb there were a few bigger fish taken from the other pools by not many, the key to winning seemed to be trying to sort out the bigger fish which I was told responded to corn over pellet as pellet on the hook gets attacked by the smaller fish.
I caught fish from the off at 13m feeding 4mm pellets with a hard banded 6mm on the hook small Carp at first with a few better fish thrown in while feeding quite heavy with pellet & corn at 6m, I had a lot of the better stamp of fish on the corn when I switched to the 6m line. Later on the fish came up shallow on the 6m line where in one spell I had a run of 9 Carp in 9 puts all the better fish 2-4lb without having time to feed before the elastic was being pulled from my pole. I had a fantastic day catching fish of all sizes all day until the last half hour when the peg went quite on me but as far as I could see around the pool I had done well, I ended the day with 121lb which was enough to give me the match win and continue my unbelievable run of form. There were 4 weights between 70-78lb and most of the lads in the club agreed that they would book it again as there were plenty of fish caught with a lot weighing in 40-70lb, thanks to Trev & Sue for a great day with a few fish thrown in.