Sunday 19 January 2014

December 1994 / January 1995

Trust me to pick a Sunday when the sun is out to put up five curtain poles in the house. Going back to the diary I read I fished a Sensas Xmas match on the Bristol Avon on December 17. I drew one above the boys hole at the Crane and a rubbish day catching only 2 dace. 8lb of roach on the stick float won this match from just above the little wall, and 7lb came from the bay. The next day it was off to the centre of Bristol to fish the Docks Xmas match and I drew on the bank opposite Welshback. I fished the feeder all day and took 3 skimmers, 2 roach, 1 perch and a dace for 4lb 2oz which gave me £15 section money. I wrote that I missed a lot of bites!

On Christmas Eve I spent a couple of hours pleasure fishing the Avon at Conham. The river was clear but quite pacey and I decided to fish a small blockend feeder on a wand (light quiver tip) with a 24 to 0.075 pro micron. Despite the very cold weather I had plenty of bites and 25 roach / dace was a nice reward. A few days later On Wednesday 28th December I fished another match at the Docks. I had a similar match to the previous visit, 3 skimmers and bits for 4lb 14oz but no dosh this time.The following day I pleasure fished on the Feeder Canal, and fishing waggler and maggot to the far bank had 4lb of small dace and roach. I was obviously on a fishing mission during this Xmas hol break as I went fishing again the next day (!) this time I was pleasure fishing the K&A canal in Bath on a stretch known as the Mathouse I went along with Dave Haines and we fished different methods, Dave bread and myself casters. I didn't fish that far out, 6m in fact, but still managed 5lb+ of gudgeon, roach, Small skimmers and dace. Dave took 6lb on the bread.

The following day was New Years Eve and another match, this time back up to Moorlands Farm on their winter league. I drew Meadow pool once again this time I was on peg 59 which could be a real good peg. The weather was cold and windy and there was a bit of light snow at times, and I decided this would be an out and out maggot feeder job. A 20 hook to 0.12 Pro Micron was the terminal tackle used and maggots in the feeder with a few pinkies were all I used. Bites were few and far between for most of the match but I had a couple of good spells most likely when the shoal was in my peg, and I finished with 10 carp and 1 skimmer for 19lb 12oz. That weight was worth 2nd in the section and 5th overall and the team came 3rd on the day. I'm not 100% sure but this may have been the match when an old boy on the corner peg 60 decided to cast a feeder into my peg, I had some words with him but he said he was casting in front of him. He caught my line, took a good carp out of my peg and he also hooked two people's rigs who were fishing from the other side!!! However, other than me nobody had a go at him which I just couldn't understand, perhaps he was in the Brummie OAP mafia or something?

1995 started and my first match was the ATWL on the river at Newbridge, peg 53 was my home for the day. The river was still quite dirty but it was dropping, but as it turned out the river must have been full of road salt as there were a lot of blanks, including me! I had one bite on the feeder and missed it, just the odd chub was caught in my section. The team did well though and came 2nd on the day and were now 2nd overall just 1 point behind the leaders. After this match the weather was atrocious (much like recently) and the rivers were out of their banks and the next ATWL round was cancelled. Thankfully Moorlands was still fishable for their w/l and once again I was on Meadow lake, peg 40 though was in a bad area. First cast of the match on the maggot feeder I hooked a carp but lost it, my next bite was 3 1/2 hours later! Just one decent roach on the tip and one tiny one for 12 1/2oz was my lot, but so bad was this end of the lake that I got 21 points from 27! The team won the day to boot!

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