A Few Trips Out, Matches And A Gate

[chrismdd 787]

Hi Guys,

 

Well its been a while since I posted here. As an angler who prefers a specialist approach to my fishing I found getting into fishing a few matches on a club days a bit alien. Anyway the first match was on the opening day of the river season and I came last, I was fishing a centrepin on a not ideal peg for trotting. So for the next match I purchased a Drennan Series 7 float reel to match my Drennan DRX float rod. What a difference, I won that match with over 10 lb of silvers when next place yielded 3 lb. Third match on the river and again I won this one with just over 3 lb in not ideal conditions. Last river match was last Sunday and the river was in partial flood and looked far from ideal, but alas I won this one with over 7 lb of roach and dace (most on trotting a stickfloat although I did lose a clunker of a roach on my little Silstar Matchpicker tip rod). Well with all three wins I pocketed a total of £90 pools money and I'm in joint top spot for our Memorial Cup for the rivers.

 

Fished the flooded river for a few hours on Tuesday after the storm. Would normally of not bothered with the state it was in but persevered and fished the edge of slack with the Matchpicker to get this nice little bag all on corn:

 

 

Next day with the river starting to fine down I took my six year old for a bit of chub roving and caught this one of just over 3 lbs in excellent condition on hair-rigged halibut flavoured meat:

 

 

Been again today for a bit of exploring on parts of our river that have hardly ever seen an angler. Steep banks and lots of undergrowth but managed to wet a line and get a couple of nice chub and a dace all on corn on the tip. Will definitely return there later in the year with the centrepin and trotting set-up as it looks ideal for this method.

 

On the club front we looked into getting funding via the EA to install an access gate on our better stretch of water. Initially they were going to cover the purchase cost and we would do the installation. However, with government cut-backs they went back on their word so as a club we decided to go ahead and get it done ourselves after seeking approval from the landowner and tenant farmer. This is our new gate being used for the first time on the match day last Sunday (I'm on the left!). We've still got to lay additional concrete for a clean walk through either side:

 

 

 

On another note the EA gave us apologies for the lack of help with costs and instead have promised a free stocking of additional Chub and Roach into this stretch later this year. They have also got some Perch we can have which is one species we are particularly interested in to help combat the minnows and signal crayfish in the swim.

 

With the rain causing the flow to increase in our river and putting in much needed colour we should have some good sessions ahead of us. Just need to find time to fit it in with beating that starts this Saturday and also a proper start to the ferreting season this Sunday weather permitting.

 

Tight lines

 

Chris

 

[Ossie n Arch 1,683]

Nice one. Your lad looks pleased with himself and the Roach in the net look like they've never seen a hook before.

 

 

 

Proper fishing............

[BOLSTER 808]

Good luck with your fishing mate, hopefully i'll have a few Pike posts up in the coming weeks.

[NEWKID 29,317]

Nice one Chris

Good account of a decent year by the sounds of it..

ATB

Kev

[steve66 3,898]

Nice post , hopefully im out for some chub in the next few days

Surprised to see no barbel posts this years , seem to remember afew keen lads abit back

[chrismdd 787]

Good luck with the chub Steve, they should now be in great condition and eager to feed well before the onset of winter. When I had a bit more free time and cash before the kids and mortgage arrived I used to put a lot of time into pike and barbel fishing at this time of the year. Together with a very keen barbel angling mate we would travel up towards the welsh/english border and fish the Wye on part of the Wye&Usk foundation. Great barbel fishing:

 

 

 

Tight lines

 

Chris