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.