Simple Match Fishing Forum

Upper Thames AT winter League round 4
Venue: K and A Canal, Great Bedwyn – Crofton

Individuals:
1st Martin Hook Mosella Lobby’s 16.13.0
2nd Nigel Franks Devizes MG 14.13.0
3rd Dave Johnson Colmic Talisman 12.2.0
4th Will Bohnie Garbolino BV 11.11.0
5th Mark Kimber Colmic Talisman 11.0.0
6th Rob Randall Garbolino BV 10.14.0

Teams on the day:
1st Daiwa Gordon League 50
2nd Garbolino Blackmore Vale 46
3rd Andover 44
=4th Colmic Talisman 43
=4th Mosella Lobby’s 43
6th Devizes MG 37
7th Swindon Isis 19

League so far:
1st Andover 10
2nd Garbolino Blackmore Vale 12
=3rd Devizes MG 14
=3rd Daiwa Gordon League 14
=3rd Colmic Talisman 14
6th Mosella Lobby’s 17
7th Swindon Isis 27

Just writing my Blog now

Ok you’ve seen the results above, here’s how I fished the match:
I drew peg A6 which was on the short pound at Crofton . I quite fancied it as, in the practice match the previous week this section had fished well but was a little end peg dominated, as most of the canal had been this winter, and being on 6 in a 7 peg section meant that I wasn’t on one! Added to that there where wires across the canal between pegs 2 and 3 meant there were 4 ‘end pegs’ in a 7 peg section!! So despite thinking that I may have a good days fishing in reality, I was up against it!
But having Local Devizes angler and ex Fishomania and John Smiths winner, Kevin Rowles on peg A5 did indicate that I could be on for a few as it is well known that Kevin is rather Hot at the drawbag.
After Leveling up my Milo Box on the towpath I began setting up some rigs, which where:
· 0.2grm Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, with a string of 11’s and 3 no 12 droppers 0.06mm bottom to an 24 Image IM1 hook Fished just touching bottom at 11.5M 0.6 Latex- squatt
· 0.3 Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, bulk of no.11’s 3 no 12 droppers 0.06mm bottom to a 24 Image IM1 hook Fished just off bottom at 11.5M 0.6 Latex- squatt
· 0.4grm Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, bulk no 10’s 0.06mm bottom to a 24 Image IM1 hook - at 11.5M 0.6 Latex - squatt
· 0.4grm Dufils Nord on 0.09mm Garbo- line, bulk no 10’s 0.07mm bottom to a 22 Image IM1 hook - for bread at 5 sections
· 4x12 Garbolino DC11 on 0.14mm-0.10 to a B560 20 hook at 14.5M - chopped worm
· 12ft Normark Microlight Daiwa 1657dm 0.12-0.07mm-22 Drennan Polemaster wide gape ,3bb image Waggler For right over (18-19M)

And at the start I cupped a kiwi fruit sized ball of liquidized bread on the 5 section line and then 3 big cups of VDE Supermatch/special at 11.5M a big cup of chopped worm and caster at 14.5M and catapulted a few casters right over. Fully expecting a right old bag up. But suddenly nothing happened, and before long everyone was looking along the section. Enquiring if anyone had a bite? How could a section that had fished so well last week be seemingly devoid of all things fishy? 25 minutes of inactivity on the punch and squatt line had me reaching for the chopped worm rig and after a bit of jigging at 14.5M eventually had my first bite and a very welcome 2oz perch was netted. This was followed about an hour later by a slightly smaller one, Kev on the next peg was still fishless but Dave Johnson on the end peg 7 had 3 of 4 little perch + a 1lb skimmer on the pole and in the next ½ an hour netted a slightly bigger one, looking down the section I could see the guys on pegs 1, 2 and 3 all swinging in small roach, it was going to be one of those days? Luckily I had read this months match fishing Magazine, so my next plan was the waggler, the caster was unproductive,but a change to a smaller 24 hook and 0.07mm bottom resulted in a few bites at last and 3 roach for about an ounce plus 2 Gudgeon, I was going nowhere fast, this persuaded Kev to follow suit and at 1.15pm he had his 1st fish! I started to feed a few pinkies over and added a few perch to the net including a 12oz’er and one about 8oz, right bonuses on the day, Kev then got into the big perch action and netted 2 good ones of his own which put him slightly in the lead, but I then changed to a small redworm on the hook and netted 2 more, with 40 minutes to go I fed a big cup full at 14.5m for the pole thinking to give it one more go before the end. 30mins left I dropped onto the pole line and within 5 mins had a 10oz’er a small one followed and I was just contemplating one more pot full, but the lobbies were spared( for another week) and the float jagged under and battle commenced, and after a few nervous minutes a 2lb’er lay in the landing net. Kev threw in the towel. Mind you when all this was going on. Dave on the end peg had become fed up of not catching in front of his and chucked a groundbait feeder down towards the lock and caught 2x 3lb+ Bream a skimmer and a 1lb perch of his own!!
At the weigh in The guys on 1,2 and 3 were all admitting to 150+ roach and perch and Dave was owning up to Double figures so my gallant fish catching was to no avail. The section weights were as follows:
A1 Barry Giles Andover 9.13.0
A2 Paul Waddington DGL 6.14.0
(always double what Paul admits too and add 2lb!!)
A3 Mark Saunders Lobby’s 6.13.0
A4 Pete Gilbert Isis 0.9.0
A5 Kev Rowles Devizes 2.4.0
A6 Me 5.0.0 (15 fish)
A7 Dave Johnson Colmic 12.2.0
So I was bashed up by the ‘end pegs’
Thankfully the team were 2nd and are now 2nd in the league Hopefully I’ll draw on some fish on the 5th round next week, Because Rob Randall and Will Bohnie can’t be on 200+ fish pegs every week can they??
Watch this space

Hey Rich, that was a bit of a bad draw for you and Kev, unbelievable! Guess that means you'll be on a few next time.

I dont fancy that section on sunday then mate, (unless i get an end peg !!

Stu,I've just set up the team feeder rod, just in case one of us draws A7! see you tomorrow, I'm off now to watch Match of the Day

Blog 1st this week as I haven’t had the results emailed through yet and I was too lazy to write it down when Nigel read it out, So here’s how I fished My match:
We put the names down on the team sheet in the same order as last week and bugger me if Rob went and drew the same letter out of the bag first so we were all off to the same sections!! However this week he drew 5 so we on the next peg to last week, which incidentally Devizes came 6th off of!
I was on A5 which was the peg Kevin Rowles had 2lb 4oz from the previous week. and with the same 4 end pegs to compete with I wasn’t really looking forward to it, however a lot can change in a week, as the canal looked a little more coloured and there was quite a breeze whereas last week it was as flat as a which’s tit
After Leveling up my Milo Box on the towpath I began setting up some rigs, which where almost the same as last week , only the chopped worm rig changed, and the plan was to concentrate a little more on that as there were a few perch caught the previous week, I also fished the squatta little closer at 10M as I had trouble feeding it further last week + it was windier :
· 0.2grm Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, with a string of 11’s and 3 no 12 droppers 0.06mm bottom to an 24 Image IM1 hook Fished just touching bottom at 10M 0.6 Latex- squatt
· 0.3 Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, bulk of no.11’s 3 no 12 droppers 0.06mm bottom to a 24 Image IM1 hook Fished just off bottom at 10M 0.6 Latex- squatt
· 0.4grm Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, bulk no 10’s 0.06mm bottom to a 24 Image IM1 hook - at 10M 0.6 Latex - squatt
· 0.4grm Dufils Nord on 0.09mm Garbo- line, bulk no 10’s 0.07mm bottom to a 22 Image IM1 hook - for bread at 5 sections
· 0.3grm Garbolino DC15 on 0.12mm-0.10 to a B560 18 hook at 14.5M - chopped worm- Black no.8 Elastic through 3 sections
· 12ft Normark Microlight Daiwa 1657dm 0.12-0.07mm-24 Drennan Polemaster wide gape ,3bb image Waggler For right over (18-19M)

Despite it being crap last week I still thought I’d feed positively as the fish may have moved down? At the start I cupped a kiwi fruit sized ball of liquidized bread on the 5 section line and then 3 big cups of VDE Supermatch/special at 10M , a big cup of chopped worm and caster at 14.5M and catapulted a few casters right over.
I started on the 4mm punch and thankfully it went under first put in, and although I was getting a fish most put ins it wasn’t all that quick so I shallowed off 4 inches and put on a 3mm punch and the fish came quicker after 45mins I had 20 fish, as many as any of the anglers around me so I had a little look on the chopped worm swim and had 2 small perch in 3 put ins, so I fed again and got back on the bread before trying the squatt, which seemed a lot quicker, after another 45mins it was back to the chopped worm where I had another small perch straight away, and had to wait a few minutes for the next bite, but this one pulled a bit more no. 8 out and soon a 1 ½ lb perch was in the net, I was going to feed again but I thought I’d have one more chuck before I got back to the squatt roach, and within a couple of minutes the Perch’s identical brother was also in the keepnet. So a few more worms were slaughtered and it was back to the roach, which were now all at the top of the keepnet looking rather nervous! 50 roach by halfway and it was back out to see if I could frighten the roach a bit more, 1st chuck the float goes under and Big Brother is on the way to the keepnet, this one around 2lb ! No more bites, a bit more worm slaughtering and back to the roach, 40mins to go I drop back in on the worm line and get 1 bite this time a 1lb’er and a final flurry on the roach to bring the tally up to 95 before a biteless last 5 mins on the worm, Match over
The section weights were as follows:
A1 Brian Pollard DGL 6.4.0
A2 Adrian McTiffen Devizes 5.8.0
A3 Nigel Baker Lobby’s 4.2.0
A4 Nic McCartney Andover 4.6.0
A5 Me 11.10.0
A6 Blank, Isis Angler did not turn up ( did I not mention that earlier?)
A7 Alan Brown Colmic 11.10.0
So I drew for first in the section,
Alan had a Bream, 3 big skimmers ,2 big perch and 5 Roach for his 11.10.0 and amazingly we were joint 5th, but only the top 4 are paid out in the 70 pegger !!

The team were 1st with 57 points, and of the 10 x double figure weights caught today we had 5 of them, and are now =1st in the league with Andover with one round to go on the K and A Canal at Devizes in a fortnight’s time.
I’ll stick up the results when I get them

I have Picture ofmy catch from Last week, and this match along with Dave Johnson's bream weight, but try as I might I can't seem to get them to loads on? any tips?

The canal fished well today, with 10 double figure weights recorded, there were a lot of big perch caught throughout and most of the frame weights had fish up to 2 ½ lb in their nets.
Individuals:
1st Phil Stone Daiwa Gordon League 15.10.0 peg J1
2nd Kev Abigale Garbolino Blackmore Vale 14.1.0 pegF5
3rd Stu Dabbs Andover 12.12.0 peg K4
4th Will Bohnie Garbolino Blackmore Vale 12.6.0 peg H5
5th Rich Chave Garbolino Blackmore Vale 11.10.0 peg A5
=5th Alan Brown Colmic Tailisman 11.10.0 peg A7


Teams on the Day:
1st Garbolino Blackmore Vale 57
2nd Daiwa Gordon League 50
3rd Andover 42
4th Mosella Lobby’s 39
5th Devizes 38
6th Colmic Talisman 37
7th Swindon Isis 11

League After 5 Matches:
1st Andover 13 (2 match wins)
2nd Garbolino Blackmore Vale 13 (1 match win)
3rd Daiwa Gordon League 16
4th Devizes MG 19
5th Colmic Tailisman 20
6th Mosella Lobby’s 21
7th Swindon Isis 34

For all those who are holding there breath for the final installment, we fished the final round today through up to 3" of ice, and we crappity smack up by coming 4th which meant we tied with DGL for 2nd in the league behind new League Champions (Browning) Andover but missed out on match wins 2 to 1 to DGL. I'll do a write up on my match asap and post the full results when Nigel sends them to me. Well done (Browning) Andover and Daiwa Gordon League, good luck in the semi's , I'm looking forward to next years league already.
(Anyone know of any god matches after xmas as we don't have a semi to practice for, Boo Hoo)

Tough luck Chavey on the count back  :( - always a good read your match reports are 

Perhaps its time for a trip up the motorway to join forces with Bill on one of his punch orientated matches   

I think I'll need some practice first Tk as I never had a bite on the punch today!

I never had a bite on the punch today!

Sounds like a sure sign that it was 'rock 'ard' Chavey 

another year we won't meet up chavey at least you were in with a shout at the end

After a week of snow and ice, and after breaking a few mm of ice on the north Wessex league the week before. The final Upper Thames winter league match went ahead, but only after Kev Rowles was sent up the canal on the Friday to have a few trial throws with his ice breaker, and he declared it breakable!
There were a few mumbles and grumbles at the draw which incidentally put me on peg J2 which was next to the Pub at Horton and was 3 pegs away from where I was pegged in the NW league the week before, so I knew what I was up against. The trouble was last week the peg, despite being and end did not produce, in fact Rich Stephens who was pegged on there had wandered along to me after a couple of hours and said he couldn’t get a roach, which must have been very frustrating, as the next 3 pegs all had a bit of roach action! And when I saw him after the draw and told him I was on it he said, well lets just see if it was the peg or me?
After about an hour of ice breaking ½ inch thick ice, I had cut and removed a nice peg 6M wide by about 9M wide, I had my big ice breaker with me and I could have cut all the way over as it wasn’t that thick, the trouble is I needed Fatima Whitbread there to chuck it out for me!!

On setting up the same rigs as the previous week, I soon realised why Rich hadn’t done too well of the peg, it was 15-18 inches shallower than the pegs to its right all the way across, so instead of having 5ft in the middle the deepest water I could find was 3 ½ ft and it shelved up very quickly to just over 2ft, not the best in the very cold gin clear water, any way these are the rigs I set up:

· 0.2grm Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, with a string of 11’s and 3 no 12 droppers 0.06mm bottom to an 24 Image IM1 hook Fished just off bottom at 9M 0.6 Latex- Punch or pinkie (was also tried at 5M)
· 0.3 Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, bulk of no.11’s 3 no 12 droppers 0.06mm bottom to a 24 Image IM1 hook Fished just off bottom at 9M 0.6 Latex- Punch(was also tried at 5M)
· 0.4grm Garbolino DS9 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, bulk no 10’s 0.06mm bottom to a 24 Image IM1 hook - at 5M 0.7 Latex – punch (was also used with single pinkie over the chopped worm line)
· 4x10 Garbolino DS16 on 0.09mm Garbo- line, spread no. 12’s 0.06mm bottom to a 26 Image IM1 hook - for squatt/pinkie at 9M
· 0.3grm Garbolino DC15 on 0.12mm-0.10 to a B560 20 hook at 7M to the left - chopped worm- Black no.8 Elastic through 3 section)

At the start I cupped a Walnut sized ball of liquidized bread on both the 5 section line and the same with a few casters at 9M , as well as 1/4 cup of very finely chopped worm and a few pinkies at 7M.
I started on the 4mm punch, as last week it went under first put in, however nothing happened so I shallowed off 2 inches and put on a 3mm punch, still nothing happened so the rigs got lighter and the punch smaller but after ½ an hour of trying both punch lines I had a little look on the chopped worm swim and had a small 1oz perch first chuck, followed 10mins later by his twin brother. After an hour and a half I had 5 but I couldn’t catch any more that 2 without putting in some more worm mush, and this was how the match panned out, in the end I had 19 perch mostly on small segments of redworm with about 3 or 4 on single fluro pinkie on the same line, in the last hour I had 2 roach on the light rig over on single pinkie, so I fished a full 5 hours without a bite on the punch! It must be that they don’t want to be in the shallower water?
At the weigh in I had the most fish in the section but everyone else had some nice bread roach and even the odd 4oz Skimmer! And this was how the section went:
J1 Mark Howes Colmic 0.12.0
J7 Jamie Cox Lobby’s 1.5.8
J6 Blank, Isis Angler did not turn up
J5 Sam Pagett Devizes 1.5.0
J4 Mark Treasure DGL 1.5.8
J3 Dave George Andover 1.1.8
J2 Me 1.5.8
So I Amazingly drew for first in the section, for the second league match running but this time with 2 others!

Back at the results there were a few long faces and tales of ice breaking woe, and a realisation that we may have slipped up enough to allow Daiwa Gordon League to get ahead of us, and that’s exactly what happened, we came 4th on the day and drew with DGL overall, but lost out on match wins. Andover on the other hand stormed to an outright league win by finishing second on the day, a super result for them.

Here’s the final match and overall league results:

Individuals:
1st Nigel Crewe Daiwa Gordon League 7.1.0
2nd Keith Daniels Colmic Talisman 6.1.0
3rd Dave Clapton Devizes 5.12.0
4th Nigel Franks Devizes 5.2.8
5th Eamonn Byrne Isis 5.2.0
6th Ian Wood Daiwa Gordon League 5.0.0

Individuals overall
1st Stu Dabbs Andover 35
2nd Kevin Rowles Devizes 34
=3rd Rob Kepner Devizes 33
=3rd Mike Berntsen Garbolino BV 33
=5th Rob Randall Garbolino BV 32
=5th Phil Stone Daiwa GL 32

Final Match:
1st DGL 55
2nd Andover 50
3rd Devizes 45
4th GBV 40
5th CT 38
6th Lobbys 28
7th Isis 19

Final points:
1st Andover 15
2nd Daiwa Gordon League 17 ( 2 match wins)
3rd Garbolino Blackmore Vale 17( 1 match win)
4th Devizes 22
5th Colmic Talisman 25
6th Mossella Lobbys 27
7th Swindon Isis 41

So thats the league done for the year and overall I have enjoyed it, but it was a shame we didn’t qualify for the semi, but its good luck to the 2 teams who have. We will have to try a bit harder next year. With no semi to practice for I thinking of running a few opens at Pewsey on the K & A after Xmas if anyone’s interested?

hi rich would defo be intrested in pewsey matches worth running again as they use to be so good and very well run.
it wastight in the end mate for 2nd place as soon as i looked at kev rowells cardboard sheet with the pegging on peg 4 stood out and we drew it , i knew we would be hard to beat off that peg , i had a cracking day on the wires to your left 7lb 1oz all on punch if it was not for pike spooking them i was on for 10-12lb would love to fish it again on an unfrozen canal. how cum the roach didnt feed wher you were rich cause i drew one to your left last sunday and had 5lb but didnt have any ice to break then your right about your peg its at least 8 inches shallower.would never of thought you would have come 4th on day but aint fishing mad see you soon

Excellent series of blogs Rich, really enjoyed them, chin up mate.

I'm glad you liked the blogs guy's. It was really hard to write the last one, especially after the result, but you can't win them all. And again good luck to two qualifying teams
Nige re the Pewsey matches, I have spoken to Gary who will run them with me and we are thinking of 9th ,23rd of Jan.13th 27th Feb and the 6th of March,(Although I haven't actually booked the water yet) And provided it warms up a bit so we can get on there.
But it can freeze as much as it likes this week as I'm on the Bristol Avon at Barton Farm on Sunday so I can at least leave my ice breaker at home this week!!!

Is it a big match Rich ?

cheers rich look forward to them mate if your lads need bloodworm and joker let me know as i can bring it to the matches as long as you order a week before cheers