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"