Lockdown 3 Day 11

Well, that’s it then. England has inexorably slipped into Tier 3 or Tier 4 lockdowns. Sort of academic to be honest as Wales’ Alert Level 4 lockdown precludes any possibility of crossing the border anyway. So the season has sort of limped to a premature end.

Lockdown 3 Day 9

Today was supposed to be Day 1 of the Warks. Avon Champs, but repetitive band of rain put paid to that. with a Biblical contribution from Storm Bella. The alternative venue of Moorlands held no attraction to me, so I’d resigned myself to picking up on events via Trevor’s blog.

I had, in any case, and absolutely rancid cold, and was struggling big time. especially when my daughter phoned me at 1.40am and asked me to come up the house and take her mother to Hospital!! It was absolutely freezing outside and I ended up in sat in the car for a good few minutes retching so I wasn’t even certain that I could help. But I managed to get over that and ended up booking the ex into the new Grange Hospital at about 3am. I couldn’t stay past booking in anyway but it sounds as if they were fairly quick at seeing her and by 9am she was up on a ward. Suspect gastritis.

And when I got onto FB it turned out that that the wintry conditions has persisted across the country and Trevor (and others) hadn’t been able to get to Moorlands. So, to recap, I was supposed to be fishing a two day river festival which had been cancelled and replaced by a stillwater event, but even if I’d wanted to fish it I was feeling rough as a dog and couldn’t have got there anyway even before the Hospital emergency. So that’s a no then!!

Lockdown 3 Day 4

As a general rule most of the events that have fallen victim to the pandemic are ongoing open entry matches, so not being able to fish them this year doesn’t preclude entry in the future. There are a few exceptions, e.g. the Severn Float League, which I dropped out of only on the basis that I could have my place back next year, and potentially the Wye Festival, which I would have fished regardless rather than losing my place. Fortunately Dave Roberts understood the predicament and assured us that we could retain our places, and then the event was cancelled anyway because of English lockdown. The only other event on the horizon was next week’s Avon Championships, where again having secured a place I would have attended to secure it for the future as this will be a popular event. But I have just heard that it is cancelled due to river levels, so my dilemma is resolved. Bearing in mind that I would have had to break the law to leave Wales, then break the law (?) in England by not self-isolating having gone against strong guidance to not enter a Tier 3 region and then broken the law again to re-enter Wales I am far more relieved than disappointed. Could have been an expensive trip!!!!

So, looking forward from Xmas to the end of the season there are very few scheduled events anyway. Potentially a couple of substitute Opens at Belmont, Wye Feeder match, Wye Team Champs, 3 Opens at Chippenham, 2 Day Wye Festival and a few back end Opens at Evesham. The Evesham matches are closed to me at the moment (English Tier 1 and 2 only). I have no intention of embarrassing Kevin by asking him if I can fish Chippenham. I never fish the Wye Team Champs and I can live without the feeder match. So the only potential point of tension is the 2 Day Festival in February. However, I hope that is the current Wales lockdown remains in force at the time then Dave will deal with it as he did with the 3 Day festival. And, in reality, with a widespread acknowledgement that English restrictions will increase from Boxing Day and the strong probability of a full lockdown soon thereafter, it may well be that the Festival won’t take place anyway.

What an absolutely crazy year, and my heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones and/or suffered hardship over the past 12 months.

Lockdown 3 Day 1

Well, that’s about it really. Not an awful lot to say to be honest. My mate FM had this lined up from the 25th anyway and then his arse started twitching so he sprung it a week earlier. In all honesty it has probably had no impact on me, although BoJo’s bit of arse twitching has locked my son and grandchildren down so no meeting up with them before Christmas. In a rare moment of preparedness I had my hair cut Friday, and even asked for it to be shorter than normal in preparation for exactly this event. But I bet it’ll be well past its next cut by the time this one lifts, I’m working on the basis of 9 weeks at this level, taking us into March, so a 6 month Close Season this year, gears going away later and the bait fridges are going to be switched off.

There’ll probably be a few DIY updates a bit later on in the year when it warms up. Bet you can’t wait!!!

Washout

My Dad’s favourite joke went a bit like this……..’If I stand on the top of Townhill (in Swansea) and I can see the Mumbles Head clearly, then it’s going to rain. And if I cant see the Mumbles Head? Then it’s already raining…….’ And this week has been just a bit like that, with the Wye bouncing around near the top of its banks and wave after wave of Atlantic depressions giving us a good drenching. So absolutely no surprise that Tony had to call off Sunday’s Open earlier today (Friday). Good early shout which will hopefully save some but not all of the entrants sitting on a redundant Wye-load of bait (minimum 4 pints caster, 6 pints maggot, Kilo of dendras) going into Christmas. Doesn’t necessarily help the tackle dealers though, because presumably that bait is in the supply chain somewhere. I count myself very lucky that I’m in a position where I can avoid some potentially expensive outcomes.

So tomorrow is a wash-out, which is probably quite appropriate given that the whole season has been a real struggle in terms of lost events and ever changing restrictions. My total match fishing involvement this season has been about 20 river matches or thereabouts, 8 at Evesham, 1 at Bewdley, 5 on the Bristol Avon, 1 KSD, 2 Thames and 3 on the Wye. I suppose for completeness I must also include 6 on Dolygaer and Pontsticill although these were well outside of my comfort zone and almost pure fillers because of the overall situation. We are, of course, heading into our tier 4 lockdown immediately after Christmas and I can easily see that lasting 6 weeks or more and I’ll be surprised if England doesn’t join us at some point early in the New Year, so we’ll be into the Close Season before the ongoing vaccination programme possibly allows some relaxation. I actually suspect that next season won’t be totally free of some residual impact for this pandemic but hopefully at a fairly low and reducing level.

Belmont

H&DAA Xmas Match, with 19 hardy souls braving the damp weather conditions. The river was running at 1.15m and had picked up a tinge of colour from midweek, so it was potentially a real Dace and Roach bagging affair.

The obvious target with such limited pegging was any peg in the 90s, so my day was decided early on when I drew 56. Not a bad peg as such, along with the pegs either side that is the most consistent part of what is D section in the Winter League, but it was hard to see how it might compete with the Asda Bank. Undaunted, I set up a 4g rig on 7m of Airity, a 6g flattie rig on 6m of Airity (but with the 7 and 8m sections to hand to work the peg, a 4AAA shallow waggler (see, I can display a positive outlook), a 6g Bolo rig to fish 1/3rd out and a 12x No.4 WS Stick rig to fish the same line at mid-depth.

On the ‘All in’ I dropped inside with the 7m whip and started feeding knobs of groundbait laced with chopped worm, caster and hemp just downstream of me. The response was fast but not instantaneous, a few stamp Roach were first to show, then some Dace. But all too soon I had the tell-tale hold up of a Bleak, and although I managed one or two more silvers, that was that for a normal rig on the line. So Plan B came into play, and I edged a double dendra hookbait down on the same line. This resulted in a few chunky Perch, a decent Roach and a Chublet, but it wasn’t really happening. I thought I was looking at an early switch to the Bolo but just out of interest I thought I’d try triple maggot instead. Different world now, regular bites off quality Dace, Roach and the odd Perch, either as I was edging it down past the groundbait or holding it dead still at the tail of the swim.

This approach took me up to the 2 hour mark and although I was catching I certainly wasn’t bagging so I decided to switch to the Bolo line. Again the response wasn’t as fast as I expected and initial looks with maggot baits resulted in Bleak, but after about 20 minutes or so and a change to meat I started to put a few smallish Chublets together. Quality was definitely an issue and I was just about to bin it at the half hour point when I nailed a ‘proper’ Chublet. A few more proper ones followed but then the quality faded again and missed bites became a real issue. I suspect Dace were the culprit because I nailed a few. So I switched back inside after the 90 minute mark and now found that I could catch stamp Dace but they were clearly off the deck for some reason. But the shear number of Bleak present precluded any thoughts of going for a shallow whip approach so I persevered with the 6g flattie for 30 minutes, then switched back to the Bolo for 30 minutes which produced a quick couple of proper Chublets before it once again degenerated into missed bites etc., leaving me to finish the match on the 6m Airity catching Dace (including what was definitely my PB!) and odd Roach, mainly small stamp now though.

I had a decent Dace on the whistle so I’d had a day out but was pretty sure that I’d not done any good against the prized swims on the Asda Bank. 24-8-0, with best weight on the Rugby Club side at 29Lbs (58), and a 26Lbs of Bleak above me. NB I definitely didn’t want to Bleak the Xmas match and that weight confirms that I didn’t miss a trick. Match was won with 79-4-0 off 93, mainly Dace including a good spell shallow, probably didn’t hurt that 94 wasn’t in. Then 47Lbs off 84, 39Lbs of Bleak off 81, and 47Lbs of 83 (82 wasn’t drawn!). So, as I had guessed, game over at the draw but still some amazing fishing. The top weight would have been a stretch for where I was but framing would have been possible if the river had been as clear as it had been in the week. The extra tinge of colour worked well for the good ‘silvers on the whip pegs’ but put the Chublets and Perch off. That’s fishing!! I also ended my 2 month plus run (NB only 3 matches!!!!!!) of default section pick-ups.

Belmont

Part deux. Earlier start today, I was on my chosen peg (80) at 8.20am, ready to go at 9. I was, of course, quite deliberately dead opposite of where I’d fished yesterday. So I went with similar options, 7m Airity to hand, but with a 5g rig, and the same 6g Bolo rig as the previous day. Overall the day was not quite as good as yesterday, i.e. 40Lbs not 50, and some parts were the same but other bits were quite different which made life more interesting.

I kicked off with the whip rig over knobs of groundbait laced with caster and hemp. No loose feed (deliberately), because I’d already seen so much evidence of Bleak on 79/80 and 81. Slightly slower response than yesterday but then I had a couple of Perch, which were totally absent yesterday, then 3 micro Dace (ditto), then a couple of Roach followed by some Dace. But whereas on peg 55 I’d had 90 minutes of Bleak free bliss, today they were all over it after 15 minutes. So I rather reluctantly opened a tin of Sweetcorn and managed to catch a few more Roach, Dace and Perch (!!!) on it. But the inside line was not solid for anything other than Bleak. This was possibly because the colour had dropped out even more since yesterday although the river did experience a slight lift (4″) during the session.

So, after maybe an hour of basically flogging a dead horse I started firing out hemp and caster plus some cubed meat about 1/3rd across. Kicked off on triple/quadruple red maggot on a size 10 hook and nailed a couple of stamp Roach followed by a few Dace and then a Chublet. And when I started getting obvious signs of Bleak interference I switched to meat and started knocking out a Chublet most runs through. I definitely had a smaller proportion of the big swingers than yesterday but maybe that’s because I’d given them toothache. But typically 6-8oz and I could quite happily have carried on just with that. By now the fish were boiling up on the loose feed and it was obvious that it wasn’t just down to Bleak, so I ended up taking a nice run of Dace on a shallow stickfloat rig. A shallow wag would have been even better but I wasn’t carrying any waggler gear with me. Doh!! I even stopped to set up a 5m whip with a heavy flicktip and a 1g pole stick rig (aka the ‘once a season’ set-up). This caught me a few Dace and when it worked it was great but I couldn’t persuade the Dace to drop short and if I went there I was bleaked out. So I binned off the Dace and switched back to the meat for Chublets which were still sat underneath.

So, disappointing whip line, meat bolo worked again and I was close to nailing the Dace shallow which is a real adrenaline rush. And by the time I wrapped up early I was pretty much fished out, and my left hand is like a pin cushion after the last couple of days. But, at the risk of repetition, what a venue!! So many fish, so many options.

Belmont

Tuesday saw me back up in the Holy Land. And why not, because it was superb on Sunday, plus Gethin is making serious tut tut noises and shaking his head so expect some form of additional lockdown after Xmas. TBH having been quite impressed with the Welsh Government’s performance for most of the year I do think they’ve lost it since the Firebreak. Possibly that was too harsh and then followed by what felt like minimal restrictions but it is clear that sustained high infection levels now are essentially being driven by people chosing to ignore key elements of the rules. Confusion? Fatigue? Difficult to know how and where they would clamp down further assuming that the current approach of turning the Pubs into Cafes hasn’t worked.

Anyway, Rugby Club bank (sunny side), peg 55. And in the context of my day, probably worth noting that Spud had taken 1521 Bleak for 51Lbs+ on the Sunday. Unreal!! Personally I’d had enough bleaking myself on peg 63 so today was to be about silvers, so I set up a 4g rig on a 7m Airity to run through over groundbait, and a 6g Bolo on a 15′ Acolyte Plus to run down the middle. Kicked off with a ball of groundbait and run the whip rig over the top. 2nd run through I took a 6oz Roach, then proceeded to catch or miss a fish every run through for 90 minutes. Mainly Roach at first, then more and more Dace with only the occasional Roach, which is a fairly standard response. Lovely fishing!! But then around the 90 minute mark it was obvious that the Bleak were gathering and that was that. The Dace were obviously still there but there was no way of getting a bait near them.

At this point I decided to take some time out to eat my pasty and to consider my options. I hadn’t brought any worm so a switch to a choppie approach was out. But I had brought meat, so I mixed a few cubes in with my hemp and started blasting the middle with hemp, meat and maggot. 4 reds on a size 12 nailed a couple of quick Chublets and, although I hadn’t had any Bleak issues, I switched to meat on a size 10 and basically stuck with that for 3 hours catching Chublets ranging from 4oz to just short of a pound plus some seriously stamp Dace. To prove the point I even dropped back inside for a spell but the only way I could avoid the Bleak was to fish meat, which caught me a few more Dace.

Bad light stopped play at about 4.15 but I was still getting a Chublet every bung. I dragged my net around the platform and managed to lift it out so not a red letter day, just a nice steady 50Lbs or so!!! But what a river, incredible head of fish and the best float fishing river venue in England by some distance. Back up tomorrow, making hay while the sun shines and using up my bait so I can restock in preparation for Sunday.

Belmont Open

Finally, after an enforced break of about 9 weeks I was once more able to visit the Holy Land of Belmont. A series of decent sized opens have replaced the now cancelled ABC Winter League and about 42 of us showed up for thye first one. River was about 1.4m and dropping, cold and still carrying colour, but definitely very fishable.

I went into the bag of dreams and pulled out peg 52. Good start, because it had been decided that 48/52 and 53 should be redraws. In the case of 52 and 53 that was because the banks are shocking So I was happy enough to redraw but second time around gave me 63. Banks is pretty shocking there as well. With 25 platforms to go at it takes some skill to avoid any of them. Anyway, 63. Potentially good on a lower, clearer river for a flattie approach for Perch. But absolutely solid with very small silvers which would make a conventional silvers approach a challenge. Also potentially good for Bleak, which were obviously in attendance. Not as good as 64 or 65, and I would have much preferred somewhere in the 90s and a nice day on the Dace and Roach, but, as they say….’if God gives you lemons, you’d better make lemonade…….

So bleaking it was. I did set up a 12xNo4 WS Stick and a 6g Cralusso flattie but never touched them after that. I also set up Bleak whips at 2m, 2.5m, 3m and 3.5m and had spares handy at 2m and 2.5m. Kicked off at 3.5m, and I’d got to about the 15 minute mark without interest and was just about to pick up the stick when they showed up. First hour wasn’t amazing but I was catching and soon dropped down to 3m and then 2.5m. 135 fish. I was expecting to really start motoring in the second hour bur surprisingly they were still being a little unco-operative, so 135 again. Third hour was better at 170 fish and I’d got to 500 fish total by 1.20pm and decided to gamble a bit by dropping to 2m. The initial 20 minutes that short were excellent but I couldn’t hold them there so I had to switch back which was a little disruptive and left me with 150 fish that hour. And the last hour was even more challenging because they were now getting quite ratty and I was having ever longer spells where they dropped back, so 110 fish. But towards the end, although the fish count was dropping the mix was increasingly moving towards small Chublets rather than Bleak.

So I reckon 700 fish but I definitely started losing count more often once I’d passed 400. So maybe a few more. But they went 31-3-0 so 22/pound !!! Those 2oz Chublets certainly help bump the weight up. Not surprisingly, Rory Jones also bleaked it on 64 (well, he did have 50Lbs there a month back) but fell a bit short, only 47Lbs. Too many small fish apparantly, he must have done 1100 fish. And Spud did 51Lbs off peg 55, which isn’t even a good Bleak peg. And then we were all bashed up by Hadrian who coolly knocked out 125Lbs of Dace off peg 94.5

So……..47Lbs to frame, 18Lbs lowest section weight, 125Lbs winner. All is normal at Belmont. From a personal perspective, my best ever Bleak match catch (numbers and weight), and thanks to Rory’s heroics off peg 64 (joint 4th) I even picked up a nice default section. Very happy with the whips and whip set-ups (although Rory did mention using a 1.5m whip). Like most things in match fishing, once you are happy that you have the fundamentals in place, then you only improve through match experience. So, having broken the 20Lbs barrier last year and the 30Lbs this year, I am confident that I could amass 40Lbs+ of Belmont Bleak. Could I then take it up a notch and join the ’50 Club’?? Hmmm…….

Afon Gwy

Yep, Bigsweir. And yep, Tump Farm, another £1 well spent. Just to mix it up a bit I actually fished a peg slightly below my choice from two well back but well above the one I fished twice last week.

The gauge at Redbrook was reading 1.26m so now running low and fairly clear, and there’d been a decent frost overnight. My first gambit was a 5BB straight waggler about 3 rods out, where I had a good 5′ of depth. I persevered with that for about 30 minutes. It was working OK and I could drag line to slow the float down, but it didn’t ‘feel’ right, too pacy for thye conditions. And, not surprisingly, I didn’t have a bite. Option 2 was a 3 x No.4 shallow stick at 2 rods. No instant response as I’d had on the previous two outings, but then I picked off a few Minnows (aka blank savers!!) before I nailed a very small but very welcome small Dace. So I kept plugging away at it and had taken about 20 Minnows and a second small Dace when I hooked and landed a very pretty 1 Lb + Grayling, lovely fight and I could see how it was using it’s sail to gain purchase. Then a few more Minnows plus a solitary Bleak.

That got me to 2pm and the rather weak Sun had just dipped behind the hills so the temperatures were about to plunge again, and I took that as my cue to wrap up early. I guess there was some possibility that the Chub might have rocked up late but there wasn’t enough of any interest happening to keep me there to find out. My Hero (Martin Challenger) had said some time back that Bigsweir could be very hit or miss following proper frosts, and today proved the point. It may be that the fish have dropped back into deeper and steadier water, but after the 3/4 pegs in the first field there is a huge gap where there is no access to the water because of the very steep banks. So the next pegs must be some considerable way downstream,