Woodstock

Yes, this is starting to get a bit one-dimensional. It’s just that I am a fairly responsible citizen in my old age and don’t feel that I should break Welsh travel restrictions in the interests of going pleasure fishing (yes I know, my definition of essential travel probably doesn’t match that of the Welsh Government, but there again I’m not brawling on Ogmore Beach either). And Woodstock is so much nearer the working car park than Morgans, and the pegs I’m fishing are mainly right by the gate. The other alternative, i.e. Hendre, is a non-starter at the moment because every lager lout and druggie in Cardiff has suddenly developed a serious angling problem, so the venue is like Bournemouth Beach but with the added risks associated with morons cracking off the odd 3oz lead.

OK, excuses made. I only fancied a shortish session to clear out some groundbait and casters, so peg 39 it was, nearest available peg, and I fished a 0.4 Drennan Lake copy at 11m over groundbait, caster and dead reds. A bit of early noise off small Roach was ollowed by a pair of F1s and then a fair bit of No.6 laccie out on a decent Bream which pulled off while I was shipping back. Judging by the initial run it could well have been fouled. The swim then seemed to take some time to settle down and I was getting a lot of noise from small Roach, which hadn’t been such an issue on previous sessions. I managed to nail a few more F1s, a proper Bream and a lovely Hybrid but I was losing patience a bit with maggot baits so I scrounged some corn off Johhny Mac and that did the trick, two more proper Bream, two decent Skimmers and a few more F1s.

So comfortable double figures. A bit frustrating at times with a lot of unhitable ‘unmissable’ bites, but I love it when you lift into a slab, the elastic starts streaming out and you can see the bronze shape turn side on in front of you. River Afan tomorrow. Wish me luck, I’llneed it!!!!!

Woodstock

Thursday was also intolerably hot, but Friday was a little fresher, so I popped down for an afternoon/early evening session. Opted for peg 26 as I knew it would pick up shade as the session progressed, and decided to fish a 2AAA waggler (I refuse to say 1.5g) just about halfway across, feeding dead reds in groundbait and pinging casters over.

I kicked off with triple dead red on a size 16. It was fairly sluggish to start with and the steady breeze was causing the float to drag so I deepened off by 4″ to slow it down. A small F1 C**p was followed by an Eel, then a few more F1s, before I nailed my first Bream. The wind kept changing and at one point I even had a backtow, and the swim built slowly with a fair amount of blowing up evident when the wind dropped. I continued to pick up F1s but somehow managed to find another 7 Bream and a few Skimmers in between them, and I thought I might get a good run later on but then the F1s started boiling up over the loose fed caster and I was forced to shallow up and fish for them. To be fair they were better quality F1s than I’d had there recently and I even had my 9th Bream fishing at half-depth!!!!

So probably pushing 30Lbs with some decent slabs in the mix. Woodstock has definitely improved over the last few years. When I first restarted fishing in 2013 it was an out and out F1 water with the odd Carp or Skimmer and the very occasional big Bream. Some serious poaching put an end to that but those Skimmers have grown on well.

Lockdown – Day 93

I was going to go back to the same River Afan as last Saturday, but I became increasingly concerned at the predicted high midweek temperatures, forecast at 30 C plus. So I went to the other River Afan, which had the advantage of being a 3-8pm event.

Excellent midweek turn-out at 26, and I drew peg 6, which verall is the best peg on the stretch. If I could run it’s the sort of peg I would run to. But I can’t, so I drove. The peg is exactly the same depth at 11m as it is on a Top 5, so a nice simple set up with a 2g running through rig and a 3g edging through rig, size 20 Sensas 3405 on te former and a size 17 on the latter.

Given the conditions I decided to ease myself in, 6 balls of groundbait cupped in at 11m, followed by a rich ball with caster, hemp and pinkie. Then just 3 balls thrown in at 6m. And I started off slowly picking up small fish off both lines, small Chublets initially and then some very small Roach. But after the first hour I ended up only being able to pick off single fish on a line and was having to switch continuously to keep some fish coming. A bonus Perch inside persuaded me to try some choppie with absolutely no interest, but I did foulhook a small Pommie on the long line (and dropped it at the net!). Finally with about 40 minutes to go I’d switched to the pinkie and started getting a steady run of bites inside. Small Roach and Pommies, but too little/too late in the event with my 4-4-0 falling a fair way short of a big 5Lb section weight. Overall winner had 9-7-0, and there were a few 7Lb+ backing weights. But overall it fished very hard, which was totally down to the conditions.

Woodstock

I came across a Child of God, he was walking on down the road……sorry, chanelling Joni Mitchell there for a second. Tuesday session and the weather is warming up to a potential 30 C peak tomorrow and Thursday. So I’d already decided that Wednesday was going to be S******n rather than E*****m, fish 3-8 rather than 12.30 to 5.30, plus there’s a lot more shade. But that still left me with a decision for today, as it was definitely already too warm to be inside and just sitting in the garden doesn’t work for me.

There were a few options. My original thought was Hendre but fishing wag over caster and hemp instead of sitting it out for Bream. Tempting, but unfortunately a toxic combination of businesses, schools and pubs being shut means that Hendre is like a fair and everyone who possesses anything with rings on it is out fishing and drinking tinnies and smoking weed. Nothing wrong with that but they could do the critical bits in their back gardens and leave the bank free for anglers. So the Bettws ponds were a better option. Morgan’s Pool on the tip? Bit hot and sticky TBH. OK then, Woodstock and on the pole because, so far this season, the long pole has been conspicuous by its total lack of use.

I opted for peg 38 as it met all the criteria, in that it was very close to the carpark and…….err…..that was the only criteria. I set up to fish a positive line at 11m left, groundbait/dead/reds/caster, and a negative line 11m right over micros, plus a positive line straight out at 7m. 0.4 and 0.5g Drennan Lake replicas that Steve Lane made for me, size 16 Sensas 3405s to 0.10mm, and I kicked off with triple dead reds.

The response wasn’t instant but irt did build up, first fish long left was a big Skimmer, followed by a bit of noise then a run of F1 C**p, and I went on to take another big Skimmer, two Proper Bream and a fair number of F1 C**p, mainly long left but I had some F1 C**p short, and I ended up with about 10Lbs of Bream and 10Lbs of F1 C**p on dead reds, casters, bits of worm or corn, or to put it another way I caught 10Lbs of fish. But the F1 C**p thingies did provide some entertainment in between the actual fishing.

Nets are allowed again now (hooray!) but no catch shot because I’d made the mistake of putting the F1 C**p thingies in with my fish.

Lockdown – Day 89

Back to the first River Afan today, the one that runs so local that if I piss in a drain the level goes up. 78 anglers, so it is proving a popular choice with anglers from the Principality and beyond. Using Di’s new drawing system I opted for C7, which was peg 33. F6 was peg 36, so remember that.

Now I’d done 12 Lbs off peg 32 in the opening day match last year, so I was heavily influenced by that, and set up a 4xNo.4 light stick rig, a 2.5AAA waggler and a 6xNo.4 Heavy base stickfloat rig. 0.09 hooklengths on the sticks with size 19 S3405 hooks, 0.11 on the wag with a size 20 B520. I laso set up a 6m Airity whip to hand with an 0.8g rig, and a small blockend feeder set-up. So I was ready with over an hour to go and ended up going walkabout.

I kicked off inside feeding caster and hemp while priming the wag line with caster. Absolutely no response for at least 20 minutes and I was concerned because I’d started picking up fish at that point 12 months ago, butr eventually I nailed a small Chublet. 3 more and a Bleak followed, but it clearly wasn’t happening, so I switched to the wag and picked off four better chublets plus the odd barrel. Andy T turned up just as I was dropping chublet#4 into the net, and I reckoned that I might have 4Lbs. (TBH that was an over-estimate and I probably had more like 2.5Lbs at that point). I was switching from the wag to the big stick but it did take me some time ti work out how to cast the big stick properly so that the rig was laid out straight without tangles. But the stick seemed to be getting more bites.

The third hour was tougher until I nailed a small Chub of around 2Lbs on the wag, so I had a 5 cast interlude on the blockend right over to see what response I could get. None was the answer and I was reluctant to spend too much time on it, so I reverted to the wag/big stick approach. Hitting the 4 hour mark I’d just about used my initial 2 pints of caster across the two lines, and rather than get more caster out of the coolbag I opted to switch to maggot feed. This did seem to spark a bit of life from the swim, including a second small Chub and a few small Chublets, two of which ended up as appetisers to a Pike which was obviously resident in the peg.

Busy but interesting day’s fishing, a few frustrating tangles early on with the big stick but I eventually found a way to deliver the rig cleanly. All of my fish stuck although 6-8oz or so ended up as Pike food. And I ended up feeling that I’d done OK but needed to have nailed another Chub at least, which turned out to be exactly the case as I scaled 7-3-0 and 6th in the frame went for 9-1-0. But I took a fairly competitive section and had a lot more than at least 75% of the field, so no complaints.

Footnote. Today was the Dick Derrington Memorial Match. And I am now absolutely convinced that my peg today was the one where I got closest to qualifying for the BH weekend way back in the early 80s. I missed out because I lost 2 Chub in a snag close in. And the method on the day was big stick over caster and hemp. I found that sort of spooky…….

Hendre Lake

Well I didn’t blank!! But I didn’t get any Bream either.

The lake was pretty busy, which seems to be the norm with 25% of the workforce furloughed. I’d turned up late afternoon so choices were fairly limited. Id have loiked to try right behind the island but I suspect I’ll have to put some effort into securing that. So I ended up on a totally virgin peg to the right of peg 11 and directly facing the island.

A few chucks in I had a proper dropback and ended up briefly attached to a decent fish, probably fouled. But after that I had a few rattles and other indications on a pineapple bandum, and ended up connecting with just two, both chunky Roach. But not a sniff of a Bream. Must try harder!!

Lockdown – Day 86

Chub 4 – Mike 0. So I ended up weighing in 3-2-0 of Krill for a big Thanks for Coming. Those of you who are more masochistcally inclined may choose to read on but the normal legal disclaimers apply.

I opted to fish the other River Afan, the one that’s conveniently less than 5 miles in a slightly different direction to yesterday’s River Afan. I took the last peg on the ground which turned out to be 44, so I knew that Chub would have to figure in my plans somewhere. I set up a shallow wag and crowquill to fish across to the tree, and also set up a heavier bolo rig to fish punched meat on the same line. Then I set up an 0.8g rig on a 6m Airity whip to hand. The more eagle-eyed amongst you will have realised that I basically set up my three finishing rigs from Tuesday plus the daddy bolo rig. Less is more……

I kicked off on the whip fishing maggot over cloudy groundbait, while I was priming the waggler line. It was hard work, more Bleak than anything else plus the odd Roach and small Chublet, one solitary Perch, and then when the thunderstorms struck it became even harder, so any thought of building a weight with Krill went out of the window. Once the rain eased off I went across on the wag. A couple of early Bleak wre a bit of a worry, but then I had a short run of Chublets, so better. But that was short-lived and I hooked a better Chub but the hook straightened!! Current B520s are not a patch on the hooks I always used to use for my Chub fishing at Evesham. So I scaled up to a B711 tied to 0.12 and pushed on. I hooked a decent Chub on this rig, held it, managed to get two or three turns on and was all smiley as I thought it was job done, but the Chub had other ideas and managed to get a second spurt on and smashed me. I kept plugging away and at about 6.45 I had an exact action replay, smashed again!!! I decided then that if I didn’t get a Chub out by 7pm I was going to go on the daddy rig, and next chuck I had an exact action replay of the previous lost fish. I am actually not convinced that I didn’t leave my three hooks in one fish, it was like groundhog day!!.

But that last event was enough. Rather than use the daddy bolo rig I opted to set up a daddy waggler rig with a slim speci to fish punched meat on a size 10 B512 to 0,14. I did actually have a bite on this, a small Chublet! I persisted for half an hour but I couldn’t convince myself that it was working so I dropped back to the normal wag but with a size 18 B560 to 0.14 hooklength. You will not be surprised to learn that I had no bites on this heavier gear.

I would have liked to have landed a proper Chub. Two would have been even nicer although I suspect even that would have been insufficient as Ivan C took the top section with 1 Lbs, which suggests that the winning weight ws higher, I did hear some talk of Bream, which are always an early season possibility from the bottom meadow. So I’d have probably needed all four fish, which just wasn’t going to happen. Those S*******n Chub are notoriously feral, and live in the snaggiest swims anyway. Must try harder!!

Post Script – even acknowleding the feral nature of those Chub and their close proximity to the snag, I would still have expected to bully at least one of them into submission. So the next day I took a critical look at my working spool of 0.12mm Yuki hooklength line. And guess what? It was knackered, snapping easily when I tried a few pull tests. As were the few hooklengths that I tried the same test on. Bad spool or had it deteriorated in my tackle box?? Either way, one for the bin. A brand new spool of the same from storage seemed to perform OK, but TBH I’ve opted to use Preston Reflo Accu Power instead, for now at least, until I get a chance to rebuild confidence in the Yuki. So, on a positive note, I discovered my schoolboy error in a way that didn’t cost me anything other than my pride, and I am no longer paranoid about what happened. On a negative note, I am now having to re-tie everything Chub orientated that is tied up on 0.12. I wish I’d realised earlier in lockdown when I was looking for things to do!

Post Script On checking it was only a very limited number of tied hooklengths that were syuspect and needed to be scrapped, and these were the ones that I had tied quite recently, Si something had happemed to that spool of line between tying a number of hooklengths somewhere around the turn of the year then doing the same in May. And thinking back, my first session back after lockdown had seen me smashed up twice at Morgans, tying up feeder hooklengths using the same spool. It had crossed my mind at the time that there might be an issue, but I’d dismissed it as nonsensical. Probably a useful lesson overall, because that is something that I will be mindful of in the future.

Lockdown Day 85

June 16th, opening day and, as has always been the case, getting off to sleep the previous evening was a challenge. But up at 5.45am, cooked myself a ‘proper’ brekkie then off to fish a match. Due to Covid-19 regulations in force in Wales I was a bit restricted for choice so opted for an 80 peg Open on the River Afan* which rather conveniently runs exactly 4.9 miles from my back door.

A rather nice lady called Diane drew me peg 53, so she can certainly draw for me again. A reasonable draw, just below the plygu ty gwyn, but the area does suffer from extremely tight pegging given the depth and the flow, and is always double spaced when numbers fishing allow it. Not the case today with a sell-out. The other slight issue was that Gary Cross had drawn 54 and I’d already told him how to fish it! Doh!

I set up to fish a waggler across anywhere from 3′ deep on the shelf to 6′ deep down the slope, a big stick to fish at the bottom of the slope in 11′ of water, a light stick to fish inside in 7′ of water and a 6m whip with an 0.8g rig to fish the same line. Kicked off with two pouchfulls of hemp over, followed by some caster, and two handfuls of hemp inside with loose fed maggot. 30 minutes inside and I had one half-hearted bite, so I binned that off and went over with double red maggot. As expected I got a faily quick response up on the shelf, Chublet about 4oz. I then managed to prick what felt like a better fish down the slope, before taking 4 more Chublets in a rush, but then had to work for another Chublet and a barrel.

The next 4 hours essentially involved a lot of chopping and changing of depths on the waggler and switching from a big stick to a crowquill, because the big stick was undergunned at that depth. This got me another Chublet, 4 chunky Hybrids and a solitary Roach, which altogether came to 4-8-0 and a cheeky section win, as Gary Cross managed to mishandle a Chublet and lost a crafty proper Chub which dived under his platform. And boy is his surname appropriate!! It was like going on an angling trip with Turrettes AC, even I can’t string together such a continuous stream of profanities and vitriol.

So, not amazing but better than 75% of the field. When it was good (briefly) it was very good, those Chublets are brilliant for weight building. But long periods where I struggled despite a conviction that there were fish there.

*Editors Note. ‘Afan’ in Welsh means ‘River’. As did ‘Avon’ in early form of English.

Lockdown Day 83

Or to put a more positive spin on it, D-Day minus 2!!! A day or two back I got a rather impersonal letter from the CMO for Wales, advising me that I can now actually dare to stick my head outside the door now, but nothing much more than that until 16th August. And I can’t shop, go to work or go to school. Told you it was impersonal! Of course, if you’ve been following this blog you will be aware that I’ve been a busy bee, and whilst life hasn’t exactly been a social whirl I haven’t actually been shielding either. Now I fully undertand what the authorities were trying to achieve through the shielding advice, but what a shame they didn’t manage to make the same process work for the poor bastards in Care Homes. This rather cold missive did make me reflect on how utterly soul-destroying the process must have been, and still is, for those who have chosen to comply with it. 80 plus days without any physical human contact, with the prospect of at least another two months of minimal contact to come. Surely they can come up with a better process than this?

Anyway, digression over. It is, as I have already said, D-Day minus 2. The feeder gear was sorted way back, pole and whip rigs have been revisited and reworked over the past couple of weeks, and my reels were respooled last week and are now re-attached to their respective rods. Bait was delivered Friday and has been cleaned up and refridgerated, fresh casters running off today. The good news is that all of this has been done with a mounting sense of anticipation, excitement almost, because rivers is what I do and anything else just feels as if I’m marking time. Covid-19 will obviously have a huge impacton the next few months and perhaps longer. It has already forced the cancellation of some events and the logistical and health issues involved have persuaded me to back away from others, so the Summer campaign will be a fairly stripped down affair. But we all need to come to terms with what might be a ‘new normal’ for some time yet.

Lockdown – Day 79

I did have some intention of having a few hours late on at Hendre, just to prove that I am an obstinate bastard. Or perhaps just to test a theory that the Bream are hogging the island for some reason, something Richey Candy mentioned he’d seen a few years back and seemed to be borne out by Dave Healey having to chuck 110 turns to the island yesterday to get bites. But I decided I’d better keep an eye on the weather because it had turned quite oppressive, and sure enough late afternoon saw a heavy thundery shower, so I was probably right to hold back.

In the event I busied myself with setting up my light/medium feeder rods and then spooling up and setting up most of my float rods in preparation for the impending river season, so all quite exciting really, definitely a time of year that I look forward to with keen anticipation. Quite how it looks and what I’ll be doing for the first few months though is still a bit up in the air. I’ve already been tipped off that two of the early RF qualifiers have been cancelled or postponed, which doesn’t directly impact me but does make me wonder if there may be more of the same yet to come. My first qualifier is on the Weaver, but I’d need to stay over on the 3rd of July and as I read it hospitality in England may be re-opening the next day!!! 170 miles each way, a good 3 hours plus trek. I think I’ll have to cancel that one, which is a shame because I would have liked to go and have a looksee.

I’ve dropped out of this year’s Severn Float League. The ongoing lockdown poses an obvious issue and is the stated reason for deferring my entry until next year. There are other issues where I feel as if the league has drifted too far from its original concept both in terms of timings and in terms of whether competitors are actually participating in the true spirit of it being a float-only event.

So I’ve signed up for a couple of July rounds of the Superleague in the hope that travel lockdown and other events will move on and allow for a safe and more-normal match fishing experience, and force myself to accept that this Summer may not end up being anything like what I had hoped for, but that is a minor niggle really given the impact the pandemic has already had on so many families, and the future impact to come from the economic fall-out. Although this may inevitably come across as a political viewpoint, it isn’t. I am just deeply saddened that the United Kingdom has ended up with such a high death toll and also be facing the worst economic downturn, it feels as if we got it badly wrong on more than one occasion.