Thursday

The UK Government has just published the tier structure for England. As projected, it’s fairly harsh, and there are definitely a few surprises in the listings, including Warwickshire and Bristol, which are going to have some impact on a number of anglers’ aspirations to travel around over the next month and probably beyond.

The FM has already warned us that he’s likely to bring the tier 3 restrictions in across the whole of Wales, so if that is on a county basis as per earlier in the year it will basically bring a premature end to the Season which will be no huge surprise and probably provide a fitting end to what has been a severely disjointed campaign anyway.

From a Welsh perspective, the overall impact of restrictions this year has been phenomenal

• 50 days of full blown lockdown
• 7 days of effective lockdown while the Welsh Government had a bit of a debate about whether it was OK to drive to fish
• 49 days of partial lockdown, stay local

Then followed a brief respite, before

• 32 days of regional lockdown
• 16 days of total lockdown (aka ‘Firebreak)
• 23 days of partial lockdown, no cross border travel

And now, I suspect, a further regional lockdown is coming, covering 25 days to year end. In other words, I have been totally or partially restrained from fishing as I would wish for 177 days this calendar year. The only positive is that I estimate that I have spent about £2500 less than I would have on travel, accommodation, match fees and bait.

Afon Gwy

2nd blog of the week!! Wednesday saw me back up on Bigsweir, Tump Farm again, same peg as Monday. River was 1.6m on the Redbrook gauge and noticeably lower than two days previously, although in some respects I thought the peg looked better with a bit more on.

I was desperately trying to avoid a Groundhog Day experience so I set out to fish the bread feeder about 25m out into the flow. Knowing that the stretch has a reasonable head of Chub and Chublets, I was fully expecting a fairly quick response, so I was a bit disappointed when I’d had no indications after 75 minutes. My next gambit was to switch to a blackcap and feed maggot and hemp with a baby’s hand on the hook. First chuck and I had a decent rattle and winched in a 10oz Chublet. I was a bit mystified why it hadn’t jumped on the bread, but when I’d fished the maggot for another 45 minutes I was forced to conclude that there wasn’t a head of Chub on that line.

So I decided to cut my losses and started loose feeding on the stickfloat line and running a 4xNo4 lignum over the top with quite a light set-up, size 20 Sensas 3405 to 0.08. I started picking up small Dace straight off and the lighter rig definitely helped with bite detection and bite-fish ratio, and I had them nicely lined up two rods down. A brief tussle with what I assumed at the time to be a Chub cost me a hooklength, but despite this disruption and a stray Trout I’d knocked out 50 Dace at the hour mark. I then hooked a proper fish which I initially took for a Chub but soon realised that it was a decent sized Trout. After an excellent fight I netted and released a beautifully marked Trout, probably my PB, and returned to the serious business of catching Dace. Except that the Dace were obviously spooked by having a lump rampaging through the swim, and I couldn’t buy a bite for 30 minutes.

The next half hour wasn’t much better with only 8 fish to show for it, but then I got the Dace lined up again and took a further 40 odd in the next hour. Once I’d got past 100 Dace I started to blast the bait in to see if I could trigger a response from the Chub which I got with two small Chub pretty much straight off, then a third fish which managed to snag me up twice and shed the hook second time, before finishing with a final decent Chub.

So more Groundhog Day than I’d wished but still decent enough, less Chub overall than Monday but more Dace, so low rather than high double figures. But loads of bites and a few fish that pulled back, so it’s been a useful release in the ongoing lockdown situation. Hopefully next week will see more options on the back of foreign travel.

Afon Gwy

Bit of a rarity this, a blog on my angling blog site which actually contains some references to fishing. Last week was pretty much a wash-out weather wise and also as a consequence river level wise because the Lower Wye does not handle extra water very well.

But by Monday the weather had dried up and levels were dropping back, albeit very slowly. The Redbrook gauge was showing 2.09 m at start of play and dropped 2″ during the session, so it was 30″ higher than a fortnight back. Martin had said that the early pegs at Tump Farm could handle extra water and to be fair they looked OK, slacker inside with a definite crease about 1.5 rods out. (notice how I’ve just integrated 3 different measuring systems, Imperial, Metric and angler speak!!!!). The second peg looked the better of the two, so I settled my box there and set up with a 5 x No.4 shallow water stickfloat, double maggot on a size 16 B560 with loose fed hemp and maggot. Simple stuff.

First run down produced a small Dace (aka Krill), as did just about every run down for the first hour or so, although a few better fish (aka Stampers) did manage to muscle in. Then the float buried and I was hooked up to something that pulled back (aka Chub). A few runs later I caught it’s mate, but then it was back to (mainly small) Dace, and the peg felt as if it was running out of steam. By the two hour mark, although I was still picking off a few Dace, I’d decided to make it a shortish session to catch the best of any sun and daylight, so at 1.30pm I started feeding heavier to see if I could snare any more Chub before the end. And sure enough, with about 10 minutes left I caught my first (and only) small Chublet, followed by a pounder, then in turn followed by a proper one about 15 minutes later.

So the three hour session stretched out to four hours. I was still picking off the occasional Dace, usually better fish now, and another Chub, before I hooked into another Chub which mysteriously turned into a Grayling (lovely!) followed by another Chub, which seemed as good a point as any to pack up.

So Newport AA’s tenure of a big chunk of the lower Wye has proven to be a Godsend and could well feature in, hopefully, more normal future times. It is, as Paul Johnson rightly pointed out, a Mon’s River, and the shear volume and pace of it, even at ‘only’ 2m on, is intimidating. I must have a look for Barbel soon (i.e. before any frosts), because I’ll bet a decent whiskers would pull back a bit in that flow.

Wednesday

Apologies for the lack of any actual angling content in this so-called ‘angling’ blog but let’s just recap for a minute. A regional lockdown starting in September and carrying on through October was followed by a full-blown ‘firebreak’ lockdown starting on 23rd October and lifting on the 9th November. But by then England had entered its own lockdown so I am barred from any English venues until the 2nd December (at the earliest) and even if I wasn’t barred there are no matches at the moment. Which effectively has left me with pleasure fishing only on a fairly limited choice of swims on the Welsh side of the lower Wye.

Not ideal but it did actually fish better than was expected last week, so at least something to tide me over while I wait to see what happens next to bugger up what remains of this season. But then the weather decide to intervene, and a week of unsettled autumnal conditions has added about 1.5m to the level which will not have improved matters. And then on top of that there’s been drizzle yesterday and what the BBC terms ‘light rain’ today. Yesterday was a bit marginal and I actually got as far as taking my bait out of the fridge and heading off to Monmouth to investigate parking options to allow me to get on the free stretch of the Monnow. At least that was the intention. In reality, I got on the M4 at junction 28, took the exit at junction 27, circumnavigated the roundabout and came straight back home. Today I didn’t even get that far. In Bigsweir’s defence this display of total apathy is mainly about the weather, as I couldn’t see me fishing Belmont either in these weather conditions. But that’s it now for this week, hopefully dome drier cooler weather next week will see me out and about.

Sunday

I’ve just taken advantage of a temporary lull in the rain to put the last of the recycling out and to check on some bait that is being revived. And that just about sums up the weather at the moment, persistently showery to the extent that it is keeping river levels high without necessarily sending them into full flood. England of course is still out of bounds anyway and will be for at least another two and a half weeks. There is, apparently, a match up Pontsticill but attendance on that would qualify you for lifelong membership of the dangerous pursuits club. It is absolutely no surprise that Merthyr Tydfil managed to claim the most infected county spot a week or so back, any conformance to the AT guidelines on match fishing best practice is purely accidental rather than by design. There’s a match down the Newport ponds, but I’d be pools fodder on any commercial, and there’s a match on Riverside but its on my no go list for a couple of reasons. But I did follow the various FB posts, as the organiser had to limit availability to allow decent social distancing, which resulted in him getting some serious abuse from those who weren’t on the shortlist of entrants. Who would ever be a match organiser, eh?

So the gameplan seems to be about watching the weather forecast and river gauges to determine which day(s) provide the best opportunities in the coming week. We shall see……

River Wye Bigsweir

Or perhaps that should be Afon Gwy, as I resricted myself totally to the Welsh side. And today so nearly didn’t happen, which with the benefit of hindsight would have been a real shame.

Sunday’s sleepfest (30 hours out of 36!!) continued a bit into Monday and Monday night saw me having hallucinations and anxiety attacks which had me up at 2.30am drinking a glass of milk and basically trying to reset my brain. That sort of worked and Tuesday slipped by in a fog of lethargy but by Tuesday evening I was bouncing symptoms off my Daughter (the grown up Nurse one, not the teenager) to reassure myself that I wasn’t experiencing a very bespoke set of Covid-19 symptoms. I wasn’t, I just had a ‘bug’ of some sort, but when the alarm went off at 7.45am on the Wednesday it took only an instant to reset it to 8.20 and even than I could so easily have just stayed in bed. But I’d told Martin and Andy that I would meet them and I decided that I would at least do that and if nothing else help them with their gear and maybe watch for a bit. Then go back to bed……..’

So, Bigsweir car park and no sign of Andy’s van or of Andy for that matter. I was just heading back to the car park when Martin arrived, he’d had some issues getting bait. He started pointing out a few possible swims, the first being just below the bridge. The next possibility was above the bridge, where we found Andy, who’d used the car instead of the van. We looked at a couple of possible further up and Martin also pointed out a couple of noted swims on the opposite bank. But none of us fancied tackling the vicious looking border guards or the razor wire. Next step on what was becoming a day of exploration was to get back in the cars and drive up about a half mile to Tump Farm (Tymp?? I’ll have to check), because that offered the possibility of parking very close to the river.

Parking was secured for the princely sum of £1 per vehicle and it was only a very short carry of stripped down gear to access the first peg in the field. Decent looking glide with heavier flow outside, Martin thought I might want to chuck a speci wag or feeder out into the flow a bit, but I totally disregarded his advice as I fancied a bit of stickfloat fishing first.

While Martin was helping me sort the peg out by chopping out a few branches and digging a small step I related him the story of my only other visit to that stretch of Bigsweir. It would have been in 1973, and Brynmill AC in Swansea used to enter a team in the South Wales Winter League held on Bigsweir, the Usk and probably Cardiff East Dock. The club were not overly blessed with anglers so they used to co-opt me and other juniors to make up the sides, even though most of us had never fished a river and had absolutely no suitable tackle. So that is how I ended up on a low and clear River Wye and sat on the top peg in the section on the bank opposite, which meant I was sat on the end of a salmon groyne. I had only one top and bottom float in my possession, sort of vaguely like a stick float but all cane I believe at it’s shotting capacity was minimal. And I would have had a pint of maggots. Which probably goes a long way towards explaining why I ended up with 4 Dace (for 1-4-0 i think) off a peg that was worth 40Lbs……..But my enduring memory of the day was watching an angler, who may have been associated with one of the league sides but wasn’t fishing in the match, being sat opposite me and catching a Dace every bung while I was setting up and all through my match. I was fascinated because there were instances where his rig had tangled and the float was upside down and he was still hauling in fish. A mere 47 years ago…….

Anyway, back to the present. I had a 6 x No.4 lignum stick set up (I’ve got more that one river float now) so I kicked off with that at about 2 rods out. It took me a while to suss out a nasty snag slightly downstream but once I got that the swim fished well albeit with no bites. But I kept plugging away and at one point when I dropped the rig in short I brought it back with two sucked maggots so at least I knew there was something feeding. A couple of runs through later and I found myself backwinding into a 12oz or so Chublet, followed by a better one and then a run of Chublets before the first of a smattering of decent Dace. By the time Andy turned up having struggled by the bridge I was having a bagging hour with Chublets ranging from 4 oz to !.5 Lbs and decent Dace up in my feed and I was caning them. Not surprisingly it quietened down after that and the Chub in particular dropped right down where Andy started catching them off the peg below, plus I had to take some time out because my back was in bits and I needed to set up my canal stool. But I was still picking off the odd fish into the fourth hour. The light had been terrible all day and didn’t get any better as dusk approached, so I was happy enough to be off the bank by 4.00 pm. 20 Lbs??, plenty of bites, quite a few fish that pulled back, excellent day’s fishing and a session that would probably never have happened if it weren’t for the current situation.

Now, for reference purposes, the nearest gauge is Redbrook and that was at 1.38m And Bigsweir is about 24 hours behing Belmont in terms of peaks.

On a more sombre note, my Daughter (the Nurse, not the teenager) contacted me during the day to tell me that Singleton Hospital, which is one of the biggest in Wales, was ‘chaotic’ A term she never used at any point in the first wave of the pandemic. So take every sensible opportunity in this post Firebreak period (Welsh readers) and keep everything crossed (English readers) because its going to get very bumpy indeed.

Post Firebreak Day 1

Well, bugger……….the seeds of today’s disappointment were sown on Saturday. Two mistakes really. The first was opening the second bottle of wine, the second was finishing it. So not surprising that I woke at 10.30 on the Sunday with a mouth like a Badger’s sett and feeling somewhat below par. In fact I basically slept most of Sunday which then proved problematical at bedtime, because although I am reknowned for my ability to sleep anywhere and at any time, it does help if I’ve actually been awake for a while. I eventually managed to get off to sleep in the early hours and actually managed to stay asleep until 8am, but I still felt like shit warmed up.

The plan was to visit the Monnow and fish the free stretch running down to the Wye. So left off the A40, past the garage, right over the river then turn left past the car park and pick up the road that runs along the top of the flood bank. Hang on, what’s this sign?? Blue circle with a representation of a bicycle and some pedestrians……..i.e. no cars allowed. Which rather impacted on my plan to drive along and park behind my peg. I guess I could have parked up in the car park and pushed a barrow down, but that probably would have made the free fishing a little less ‘free’. It was enough of a set back on top of my tender disposition so I took a cheeky spin back over the Monnow, which did look very nice, and then over the main river so that I drove back down the Wye valley taking a short illegal detour into England for about 3 miles.

Firebreak Day 16

Midnight sees the end of the Welsh Government’s short sharp shock of lockdown restrictions, so we now enter a further 23 days of partial restrictions due us being prohibited from entering England during their lockdown. By the time this wraps up, we will have missed out on 39 days of absolutely prime Belmont fishing, as it is obvious that the Bleak are starting to shoal up allowing access to what is, at the moment, predominantly a Roach and Dace venue. And, of course, BoJo has promised faithfully that the lockdown will lift on 2 December, which on his track record is almost a guarantee that it won’t.

So from tomorrow the gameplan will be to try to secure some river fishing on the limited Welsh stretches on the Wye and Monnow It could be good, it could be very good, but it will not be Belmont. But definitely better than the past 16 days. I entered into the lockdown with a fairly minimalist set of objectives against which I have almost certainly under-delivered so basically it has been an even bigger waste of time than the lockdown earlier in the year.

The questions now over the next few weeks are whether BoJo will be able to deliver on his promise and if so whether Tony Birt wants to try to re-establish the ABC WL on the basis of 4 rounds, possibly 5 if he has a reserve date. Not much leeway but last year we only managed two rounds pre-Xmas and then the last two rounds and an additional round in January. If not, then I guess the four dates will become Opens anyway.

Firebreak Day 12

Well, some interesting developments over the past few days. My mate Mark surprised me a little by confirming that the Firebreak in Wales will finish on Monday 9th and by stating that in its aftermath we will be allowed to travel freely to fish and can hold competitions. In the meantime, it would seem that England are heading in the opposite direction, stay local to fish, no competitions, i.e. pretty much the situation Wales faced from late April through until early July.

So any joy at the relaxation in Wales is tempered by the absence of any matches on the Wye/Severn/Avons etc. And pleasure fishing those venues, which would still be an attractive option, is not possible because of the ban from travelling from Wales into England. So good in parts only. A few options have sprung to mind as the lower Wye forms the border between Wales and England so the RH bank and a few major tributaries are in Wales. I just can’t cast past midriver. And what happens if I hook a Barbel and it runs towards the far bank????

So only another 4 days to endure, which is just as well because I don’t think I could stomach much more tackle prep. But the rigs are looking good even if I suspect they may not get much use now, as I’m not convinced that either the pending Welsh relaxation or the pre-determined end point for the English lockdown are actually viable in the absence of some other major development around testing and/or a vaccine. But we shall see.

Firebreak Day 9

Quite prophetic that my closing remarks last Wednesday related to the developing situation over the border in England. I now suspect that Boris must be one of my faithful readers (I know of at least another 3), because all of a sudden he realised that he was sleepwalking into a catastrophe and declared a full-on lockdown in England starting next Thursday. Details of that will, no doubt, become clearer tomorrow, along with my mate Mark’s thoughts on how Wales will look in a week’s time. I suspect that the cumulative effect of these statements will add up to ‘tough shit Mike….’

So today’s most exciting event has revolved around putting the bin and the recycling box/bag out for tomorrow. I am still mid-flow on overhauling my Wye rigs. Progress since last Wednesday is somewhere between minimal and non-existent, as I am suffering a serious enthusiasm deficit. I now have a choice tomorrow between progressing this work or touching up some paintwork in the Hall and Kitchen. Better bring the paint in then…….

The Wye Festival has now joined the ever-increasing list of events that have been cancelled, although my attendance on it was scuppered by the Welsh Firebreak anyway. And my hopes of some good news on the team front were dashed when Nomads struggled to 8 points today in the CH league held on the K&A Canal and Bathampton A were able to claw back their 2nd place in the Division to consign my boys back to the B Division. Such a shame after they had set themselves up so well in the penultimate round. Their cause wasn’t helped by losing an angler to a breakdown (van, not mental) between the draw and the match. Disappointment on the team front was offset a little by having the individual winner for the second round in a row, in this case Mike Withey with a staggering 33-12-0 of Bream and Skimmers. What a day’s fishing for a canal! Mike has shared with me exactly what groundbait he used. Frankly, I don’t think it made any difference, he could have fed cat litter and they’d still have been blowing up. Sometimes you’re just on them.