Todber manor Saturday open

Travelled down with with Jason again today, and decided to try poppins cafe in Gillingham, especially after last week's rubbish in waitrose, it opens at 8 on a Saturday, which is just right for a 9o,clock draw, and I must say it was very nice , all the food was freshly cooked and the place was very clean and bright with friendly staff, so a 4.25 from me, and I will go back.

Onto the fishery , getting there about 15 mins before the draw, so plenty of time to accept Nigel Sanders side bet for 2 quid, a pound on silver,s and one on carp, due to the fishery forecast for gales I had intended to give the silvers a go if I drew a peg where the wind would make it all but impossible to fish the pole or waggler for carp, into the bucket and out comes peg 56, nice , wind off my back,

so I thought I may get a few carp on the 13 mtr line on banded  pellet , as I did last week on 58. So a .5g  rig was put together for that, also I made up a silver,s rig for 2+2 for caster or maggot over groundbait. At the start i cupped in some 4,s at 13mtrs, and 3 balls of groundbait on the short line, I decided to go straight out on the pellet line , hoping it was going to be the same as last week, and I was soon attached to a feisty 4lb ghostie, next put in and I was briefly foul hooked into another carp, and that was my lot on that line,
So I came back into the short line and caught straight away, on caster or maggot, I did get a 2lb  skimmer from here but it was my only one from there, I was catching small roach (2oz) virtually every put in, but it was going to be to slow, especially as I could see gary(the mighty atom) o,Shea on 52 catching roach of a slightly better stamp than me, so 90mins in I got off my box and made up a .4g drennan float with a bulk and two droppers to fish a topset to hand, as I thought these small roach wouldn't mind coming up the shelf a bit, so I plumbed up and found about a mtr of water and began feeding caster,

And I fished it for virtually the rest of the match, I did keep trying the long pellet line just to make sure I got both pounds off Nigel as I could see he was struggling to cope with the wind over on 36, tough life.
I had a nice day catching some lovely roach up to 12oz , three 1lb skimmers and a perch of about the same size, so by the end I was fairly confident of winning the silvers, as gary had also struggled with the wind and tow, I reckoned I had about 30lb of silvers and was amazingly close for me as the net went 30.10 and my 5 small carp went 13.2, for a 43.12 total.

 So into the king of the manor silver,s final it is then, the match was won by Pete boothby on 60 with 66.1 . Weigh sheets below.

Next match is scheduled to be next Sunday for the Landsend league, but if anyone can't make the last round of the Todber manor silver,s league next Saturday, get in touch, I will gladly pay your pools back to you as I know they have already been paid.
Well that's it for another year, happy New year to you all from Judith and me ,and we  hope to see you all on the bank next year.

Todber manor open

Decided to go to todber today, took Jason Radford with me , so as I didn't have to buy my own breakfast, lol.
We went into waitrose in Gillingham for breakfast as I was told they had a cafe which did breakfast, WRONG, rolls only, and I was disappointed cos the rolls were crap, so only a 2 , just glad I never paid for it.
Got to the fishery with plenty of time , and was surprised to see fishery owner John actually giving something away, well it was only chocolate.
Only 15 fishing so John put ever other peg in on ash, and 49 to 60 on hillview, into the draw tin and out comes 58, that's ok then, wind off my back aswell.

Good to see the fishery now has a gravel path to every swim, no more mud , yay.
So today I set a waggler to fish banded pellet on the deck about 3/4 towards the far bank, and one pole rig again to fish hard pellet on the deck at 13/14 mtrs.
I started on the pole with banded 6mm pellet after cupping some hard 4,s in, and feeding some out on the wag line.
I soon started getting bites and putting a few small carp in the net,

I should have stuck with it , but I couldn't resist chucking the wag out, I had a carp quickly , which made me stick with it , but that was my only bite in 20 mins, back on the pole and it was never the same , golden rule, never leave feeding fish, especially this time of year. So it was a case of scratching around till the end, I did have another spell on the wag and managed three more, and a few more odd ones on the pole , by the end I thought I was about third on the lake as Pete neate over on 53 had caught well on the pole and Pete booths on 51 had a steady match on the method, when the scales got to me Pete was winning with 70lb and Pete had 46, I had 37lb on my clicker so I wasn't confident, but I got that wrong as my net went 50lb exactly, doh.
So second on the lake and a pickup then.
Weigh sheets below.

No more fishing now till next Saturday, then it's back down to todber again for another open,
Apart from that we hope you all have a really good Christmas, all the best from Judith and me.

Double header Xmas matches

The first Xmas match of the weekend saw me and Judith heading south for the todber manor extravaganza, a stop off at cannards was a bit disappointing, so only a three on the rating for that one.
Got to the fishery in plenty of time to enjoy the free hospitality laid on by John and his crew, the mince pies were nice , but he asked me not to rate the coffee, (lol). Good to meet up with some people I haven't seen in a while, which is always good.
With nearly 80 fishing I wasn't to worried where I drew , but I did fancy a go on whitepost, only as I have never fished it before and there are some match winning pegs on the two lakes, I sent Judith into the melee which was the draw queue, and it took her a while to get out, and she reappeared no where near where she entered the queue looking a tad disshevelled.
I opened it up to see peg 20, white post bottom lake , happy with that, but I was informed by several locals I was a couple of pegs out as I was just as the lake narrows , further on there are some old weedbeds which the fish like at this time of year, the walk down to the peg was hard ,(by commercial fishery standards) , down hill through a soft mud spot which sucked the trolley down to the axle, so after a bit of huffing and puffing I got to the swim, with Judith giving me an earbashing as we would be sat in the shade all day, excuse me but I never drew it.

It looked ok to me, but our very own elf on the shelf, Gary o,Shea who was on the start of the good pegs said me and the people to my right would really struggle, but you never know.
Two rigs today, .2g for maggot in a couple of areas, one across at 13 mtrs at the bottom of the far shelf, same rig for of to the right at 16 mtrs, and a dobbing rig for across,  well to be honest it was a very quiet 5 hours , as I was informed it may be, I had my first bite after 30 minutes which was a pretty koi of about 1 1/2 lb (10.30).

Next bite as 8lb mirror at 11.45, both these fish came from the right had 16 mtr line, then I had to wait till the last 30 minutes for three more bites and three more carp in the net, ending up with 23lb, for no good, the lake was won further up as expected with "smiling" John fuidge doing well with 70lb of corn caught fish, then that naughty elf Gary o,Shea was second on the lake with 60lb. Well done to them. To my right there was only three fish caught between the for anglers, including venue professional, Nigel Sanders on the end peg, I decided to walk the other way back to avoid the mud pit, got that wrong, it was a long slippery walk up hill to the Carpark, Terry leney came and gave me pull lol.
Getting back to the results it turned out John came second on the day being beaten dynamic Jamie parkhouse on peg 90 (homeground) winning with 71lb, well done matey.
John was second, Gary third and Vince Brown was fourth off 48 hillview with just over 50lb,
As expected from John and his crew at the fishery it was a well run match with a prize for everyone, so well done to them,
Onto Sunday and it was clevedon Xmas match being held on the paddock lake at acorn fishery, breakfast and draw was in the bridge inn at yatton, nice to have it in the dry and warm, but they seemed a bit understaffed and the breakfast suffered a bit, (3), got into the draw and pulled out peg 9 on the road side,

nice short walk after yesterday's comp, only an out 10 mtrs, good peg at times but a bit narrow for my liking, only 11 mtrs wide, but you never know (again). I won't take to long writing this as I ended up with the same as yesterday, 23lb, one f1, 4 carp , a skimmer and a roach, which was enough to pick up the 50 quid section money, much to Chris Fox,s annoyance as two of my carp were fouled, and his three went 21 1/2 lb (unlucky), the match was won by Ivan Currie on peg 6 with 71lb catching on dobbed bread by the bridge , as was second and third, 66lb and 60lb, I didn't get the weigh sheets for either match, sorry about that, ivans angle blog will probably have today's sheets.
Again the match was well run with a prize for everyone , so a big well done to the committee and helpers of the clevedon club,
It's good to see two well run matches and well supported aswell,

Viaduct silver's league, final round

I needed to win my section in this last match to stand any chance of getting into the overall league placing, and then it was going to rely on people above me having a slipup,
Stopped off at cannards for breakfast, and it wasn't to bad , a 4 without a doubt. Got my times wrong nd arrived at the fishery with an hour to spare, doh, could have had an extra 30 mins in bed, but it probably wouldn't have happened as Judith was up early as she was judging the large munsterlander group at the LKA  dog show at the NEC, but the weather men got there act together and managed to predict the right forecast, fairplay she got as far as the Tewkesbury junction before she had to turn round and come home, the snow was to bad, well Lauren did as she was driving, Judith was gutted as its quite a prestigious show, and she had a good number of dogs looked in, but as it turned out only about 30 percent turned up.
Any way back to viaduct and with winds blue to be blowing at 50mph  at the start of the match, a nice draw with the wind from behind would be nice, first into the draw tin and out comes 99 on Cary, a good peg but today the mind was coming from the left, and as many of you may know there is a big willow tree on the edge of the lake behind and to the left, and by big I mean over 50 foot, I wasn't to happy to be sitting under as these willows can shed branches at any time, but the wind which was certainly approaching over 40mph was making some big branches bend over above my head, so a quick call to Steve long and he agreed that I could move two pegs to my right onto 97 and o it of harm's way, I also checked with the other people in my section and the were happy for me to do it, I think this is the first time I have ever moved swims I my angling career. But it was dodgy .

This was only possible as two people to my right both drew and decided not to fish, which I find surprising as these are some of the most consistent pegs on the lake, and the wind was going to ease during the day, thanks lads.
With it so rough. , I didn't set up to much kit as it was to rough and I was a bit late getting myself sorted .
So a feeder was put together and one pole rig a .6g wire stem for when the wind dropped (hopefully) during the day.
At the start I just managed to cup in two balls of groundbait at 13 mtrs , and only just mind, then began on the feeder, I think I fished at about 25 mtrs for the first45 minutes, then with the wind showing signs of I forced to pole out, and began to get bites straightaway from small roach and occasional small skimmers, but tags the match went on , the roach disappeared and the 4/5 the pound skimmers turned up, and I had a nice steady match, topping up with occasional balls of groundbait laced with a few casters, single maggot was the best bait and a double bulk approach worked best with most of the fish giving proper sexy lift bites.
By the end I thought I had possibly 15lb but was a little surprised to see the scales go round to 18lb exactly and the needed section win, with ten pounds being second, Nigel Easton on peg 105, and he was one of the people I need to have a slipup.
There was a tie for first place on the day with both nick(I've only just got 15lb)ewers on 77 with 24.8 and Vince (I've got about 25lb)Brown on 59 also with 24.8.

 Nick (can't lie straight in bed) ewers with his 15 lb and below Vince with his 25 lb. Lol.

 I was surprised to find my 18lb was good enough for third on the day, but as you will see from the overall part of the league below it was a close Finnish, with 5 of us on 9points but with the count back on points and weight I managed 7th , first out of the money, it was very close, I lost a big perch on match 5 on 119 which if I had landed it would have put me second in the section, meaning I would have ended up on 7 points , it can be a fine line line sometimes, but then again others above me have probably done something similar, so I doesn't matter, but perch are buggers for dropping off small hooks .

 Top 5 below are Steve Jackson, John (smiler) fuidge, Craig (trig) Edmunds, Gary (lofty) o,Shea and Nigel Easton, well done to all.

Shame about the stayaways today as empty pegs can affect leagues massively with anglers getting points (me today lol) where they may not have ordinarily done so .

Landsend league rnd 1

Firstly Saturday, Judith myself and my youngest son James went up to Saul junction on the Gloucester canal to try and catch some perch on plastics, well another epic fail really, James had two small one while Judith and me both blanked, we dropped back onto Bristol docks on the way home, where we all blanked, oh well. But Judith was doing her best penguin impression with her hand me down clothes,

Onto Sunday and it was the first round of the Landsend fishery winter league , run by cosmic Ken rayner, a thankless job but he does well, he managed to get 27 to fish so we were spread over the three lakes, 9 on each, to much room really, another couple on each lake would have been nice, but its a busy match calendar, so always was going to be difficult to fill it.
Di,s normal tasty breakfast was consumed and it was straight into the draw bucket, out comes peg 28, far bank of the speci lake, my closest neighbours were Alan oram on 25 and Dale housen on 31, so as I said earlier a little to much room really, and opposite was the now less ample form of Steve.Sewell on 36, Russ peck trundled past me on his way to corner peg 32, which I did fancy.
Back to my swim and it can be ok, its a full 16 mtrs to the far bank, so a hard day could be on the cards,

Rigs today were one for on top of the island shelf in about 2 feet of water, but I didn't hold out much hope for this as it was very clear, another for hard pellet in a couple of spots down the island shelf, a meat rig to fish in front of the empty pallets each side, and a silver's rig for caster at 5 mtrs.
At the start up fed all lines with the relevant baits, except tight to the island, just to see if I could tempt and early mug fish, dobbing white maggot around, as bread is not allowed, after a fruitless 30 minutes of doing this along the far bank, that was binned never to be used again, came down the island shelf on the banded pellet rig, that was nearly as bad but I did manage a couple of small roach on the pellet, never a good sign, so 90 minutes in and very little to show for my efforts, I picked up the silver's rig, and never really put it down except for a few more tries on the pellet rig across, but again only roach bites to show for waving 16 mtrs about, also a look down towards each side empty pallets, but nothing to show for that either, I had a nice few hours fishing , catching roach from a couple of ounces to about 8oz on single caster on the deck at 5 mtrs, most enjoyable. I could also catch the same way across at the bottom of the island shelf, but it was taking to long, so I stuck with the short line, especially as no one seemed to be catching much in the way of silver's, a few better skimmers were coming out, but not enough to trouble what I was doing, probably to clear, Russ peck on peg 32 seemed to be doing the best with several carp and Steve Sewell had three and lost a few, also Mike duckett on 34 had three by the end but his were smaller than Steve's, of what I could hear the other lakes were fishing worse than our lake, on the all out I had a look in my net and thought I had at least 15lb, so it was a surprise when the scales went round to 21 lb , apart from two small hybrids a couple Rudd , it was all roach, made for a pleasant day, and a better than expected start to the league, winning the silver's and coming 4 th on the lake, by no means a disaster when I saw the weigh sheets for the other lakes, Russ peck won the lake and was top on the day with 69lb.

As I said the other lakes fished even harder as the weigh sheets below will show, but it seems as though the fish over the most of the country have switched off.

Not a good weekend

Landsend was the opener this weekend , and after di,s normal excellent breakfast it was into the draw, at first only 11 were fishing, then a blast from the past, Steve (cheesy) Collins arrived, so peg 3 went back into the draw, and yes I go and draw it , I've  drawn I that often I have carved my initials into the pallet, a draw farther up the lake with a bit if shelter from the cold westerly Gale which was funnelling down the lake would have been nice, but its not to be.

 It turned out this was not the side of the lake to be on , or this end as most fish were caught and lost from peg 11 down to 24, not brilliant weights but fully expected with the cold snap, Steve Collins won from 21, and second and third were on his right, and rod wootten on peg 5 won the livers with 9lb of invidious silver's, well f1,s to be precise , lol.
I ended up with 3 carp and a few bits for 14lb ,so that's my.lot for Saturday, weigh sheet below.

Now onto Sunday and round 5 of the viaduct silver's league, went with Chris Fox and Judith today, and Chris,s wife Caroline cooked us a splendid breakfast, bubbly.
Got to the fishery with time to spare so plenty of time for a chat, got into the draw queue early and pull out 119 again, same peg as last time, managed 2nd in the section last time with the help of a few bonus fish, so hoped for pretty much the same today, but it wasn't to be , so I'm not going to bruise my finger tips with to much righting, I ended up with 3.5 , of one perch and some small roach , it was dire, the whole section fished carp with 9lb winning it and 4lb coming second, I did lose a good perch from the right hand margin, but they just drop off sometimes for no apparent reason, didn't hang around for the results , but the weigh sheets will be on the viaduct face ache page or I'm sure Mike Nicholls will have them on his blog, but I think only 20lb won the whole match, from lodge lake, Craig Edmunds drew the same peg as last match which he won , he never won his day today but won his section with 18, narrowly winning his section, well not to narrow as 3lb was second, so he is still winning the league, and avoiding something drastic, looks set to win another series, fairplay to him.

So after last weekend success, it was down to earth with a bump, I don't thick I just hit the earth with a bump ,I think I missed it completely and fell off the planet, never mind there's always next week, Landsend winter league starts next week, can't wait, I think Ken rayner still has a couple of spaces, so contact him for details on 07768325552, or ring me in veals on 01179 260790 .

Todber manor pairs series, final match

Last round of this popular well run series, so after a nice breakfast with Ken (cosmic pb) rayner we trundled down to the fishery, we were third in the league going into this match but only a point behind the leaders , the two marks, poppleton and wynne, and behind Alan oram and Andy Lloyd on weight, so all to play for.
Into the draw and I wanted to miss the 30,s in the section, only just managed it pulling out 41, not moaning as I had an island fairly close , 30 mtrs so options for a waggler, left my lead rod at home.
For company I had the ivy house sick note Andy Lloyd on 40 and John Gray on form peg 43. So wag sorted and two pole rigs , both to fish at 13 mtrs , one for banded pellet and the other to fish maggot over the same line, where I would be feeding 4mm hard pellet, and all the time feeding some hard 6,s in the deep water away from the island.

At the start I began on the pole at 13 mtrs on banded 6mm pellets over potted 4,s, it took a while to hook a fish, which came off , as did the next one, John to my right caught straight away on the long pole and Andy to my left began on the wag over towards the island, and soon had a couple in the net, then I had a couple but I was still behind the anglers either side, by the end of the first hour, so I tried the wag as Andy was getting plenty of indications, I had a couple of fish quite quickly on banded 8mm pellet over the sixes, but I felt it was all wrong fishing in the deep water especially as Andy seemed to be catching in about 3 foot of water, so I stopped 're plumbed to find about 3foot, and was surprised to find the island shelf came off a long way, so I was probably about 20 foot off the island to find 3 to 3 1/2 foot of water, and that was where I spent the remainder of the match, getting plenty of indications and catching share as far as the section was going, as the match progressed it was clear that John Gray was going to win the section, and it was likely to be between me and Alex Murray for second in the section, who was also catching on the wag . As expected John won the section and was top weight on the day with 84lb ,I was second with 63lb and Alex third with 59, so second in the section was a good result , I packed my gear away and drove round to home ground lake where Ken was on the lake flyer, peg 90 to find he had come second in the section aswell, and with Andy Lloyd slipping to 6 th in his section so we over took that pairing, and when Mark wynne surprisingly came last but one in his section me and Ken came out on top, well happy with that , so well done Ken, good to see you tried a bit harder than last year LOL
So
Ken rayner , Tony rixon 24 points
Alan oram , Andy Lloyd 27 points
Mark wynne , Mark poppleton 29 points
Tom mangnal, Bob gullick 33.5 points
Steve Tucker , Gary o,Shea 35 points
So a good weekend for me , ending up 575 quid better off,
Today's weigh sheets below

Well done Mark for running the series, I know how hard and frustrating doing these things can be , hopefully he will do it again next year, ably assisted by cosmic Ken rayner.

Avalon silver's league final round

Went into this match 1lb3oz behind Mark leader who was winning, so I just had to beat him by a pound and a quarter to win the series, although Joe (Bush) McMahon was behind by over ten pounds you can never  discount him especially as it had been a lot cooler  and the fish may be balled up somewhere ,
Only 12 fishing which is a shame, especially as there is a 200 quid golden peg up for grabs, why commit to a series if you don't intend to see it out, at least one angler had the decency to get his pools to me as he just didn't want to fish, thanks Dave its a shame more don't think like you.
Had the draw and had the last peg in the hat, 37 that would do nicely, but no for some reason peg 15 had disappeared out of the draw bag, but I know I put it in there, so REDRAW, and as disc 15 was now missing I put 14 in the bag as the 15 disc, last to draw again , and yes you may well have guessed, peg 14 disc the last one in there, so same peg as last week again, grueller 15 MINT.
Followed gabe skarba up the bank, who suffered a trolley malfunction on about peg 5, don't you dare take a picture he said, possibly the wrong person to say that to lol.

After I had shuffled past trying not to laugh, I got to my peg , I had travelling partner Jason Radford on peg 16 then jack(the crooner) Jones to my right on peg 13.

I would like to say it was better than last week, but it wasn't , I hardly had a bite on the inside, whereas last week there were a lot of small roach and small skimmers, today I fed two pellet lines at 6 and 13 mtrs and a caster and groundbait off at an angle to my left at 13 mtrs, to be honest the groundbait line was a virtual waste of time with me only having 3 small skimmers over it all day, most of my fish came on maggot over micros on both pellet lines, I had 1 3lb bream and a nice hybrid of about 2lb, (hooked fair and square in the anal fin) and several smaller skimmers, but it was really hard with hardly any bites at all, I could see Mark leader over on 36 who was also really struggling, (luckily), but I could hear Joe McMahon on 30 dropping some fish in, even though I couldn't see him, at the end I new I had beaten Mark, but I needed it to be by at least a pound and a quarter, which I did as Mark had 6.9 to my 9.10, so guaranteed 2nd, but it all depended on Joe, who won on the day with 21.12 , so it was going to be tight, and it was as his six match total was 107.13 to my 107.7 then Mark with 105.9, so very tight in the end, day weigh sheet below.

A silver's weekend

I got to say that having worked most Saturday's for nearly 40 years , I am really enjoying fishing these Saturday matches and series, or just having the chance to spend a Saturday with Judith, and she is enjoying it aswell.
Any first off it was round 5 of the Avalon silver's league, I went into this match with a 12lb+ buffer over Mark leader, so a good draw was required to keep it that way, I stopped off with Jason at Landsend fishery for breakfast, and as usual di didn't disappoint, and we still got to Avalon with plenty of time, 13 of us attending today, so it was 7 on the left hand bank with a rear wind and the other 6 opposite with the wind and rain in there faces, into the draw bag and out comes peg 15, well actually it was the last one in the bag, quite happy with that as Rob watts did ok off it last round, when I was on 16 and really struggled, today that was Martin McMahon,s peg for the day, on my right was Jack Jones who would hopefully be keeping the carp away from me.

Last match there were a lot of fish caught on soft pellet, so this week I had some , so I set up to fish two pellet lines at 7 and 13 mtrs, a rig for caster and groundbait at 13 mtrs on a different angle and and a caster rig for on my topkit to hand, all I want to say really is that I had a difficult day , with all the long lines not doing particularly well, I did get a couple of better skimmers on maggot, but the longer pellet lines only gave me a few small skimmers and roach, to add insult to injury Martin on peg 16 was doing ok, catching odd big skimmers on mainly soft pellet, my best line was the topkit swim, where I had a decent perch, a good hybrid and a couple of 1lb skimmers along with a lot of small roach, I ended up with an ounce short of 13 lb, and I was top weight on our bank apart from Martin who did well off the peg no one wanted with 22.3 for second on the day behind Mark leader who had 26 lb and was no3 ahead of me by just shy oysters 2lb, so all to play for next Saturday, its only yours to lose mark lol.

Onto Sunday and it was round 4 of the viaduct fishery silver's league, I needed a good result today to keep me in contention, a good draw on Cary would be nice, but no I go and draw 119 on Campbell, perch down the edge can be good here , not to much out in front as the skimmers havnt really ventured this far up the lake recently, so possibly tench perch and maybe a rogue skimmer, and always the plippy roach would oblige, opposite Alvin Jones on 123 wouldn't be making to many mistakes.

I set up a rig for the right hand margin, for perch ,and a couple of rigs for caster,  on the topset and 2 and the other for 11 mtrs. I didn't want to go any further as the wind was near Gale force in our faces on this bank, I started on the short rig after feeding all lines, and was surprised when my first bite resulted in a 1lb skimmer, soon followed by a 2oz skimmer, so a good start, but that was my lot on that short line, out on the long line the dreaded plippy roach were in attendance, it was a hard day with most of my section really struggling, I did manage another decent skimmer on the long line along with a tench of about 1 1/2 lb, I also had two perch down the edge, one about 5oz  and the other probably closer to 3lb than 2, and I lost another big one down there aswell , but perch do have a nasty habit of getting off, but it never cost me as Alvin won the section with 18lb, but I managed second with 10.12 , so a decent result, keeping me in third place in the league, Craig trigger Edmunds won again off peg 59 with 28lb, and surprise surprise he is also winning the league, well done matey, weigh sheets below.

Avalon final round next Saturday then todber pairs series final match on Sunday, can't wait.

One for Judith rixon,s days out

I have been asked to write a bit about about fishing from the female prospective. I am not really into match fishing, or at least not to serious about catching the most, (unless it means doing better than Tony), I just enjoy being outdoors and with my husband.
I have done quite a bit of fishing over the years, with my first love being boat fishing, now closely followed by barbel fishing .
Tony and I used to go boat fishing quite a lot before the kids arrived. Then I had to find a hobby I could do and take the little monsters with me if necessary.
So when I got my third munsterlander the breeder asked me if I would show him and try and qualify for crufts, which we did and I won best puppy dog with him, I was bitten and enjoyed showing for many years, with varying amounts of success, but always managing to qualify for crufts.

Unfortunately last year I hurt myself and am no longer able to show, as everybody seems to think I should have a hobby I asked Tony if I could start fishing again, and he was only to happy to oblige, mainly going with him to matches and watching, but also when able having a go after the match, also we began doing a bit of drop shotting and lrf fishing which is great fun, which is very affordable and great fun for young and old.

Also there is no groundbait or dirt involved  so nothing to get under my nails lol.

Then we started doing a bit of boat fishing mainly in the self drives off beer beach ,great fun being out on the sea with Tony, plus I normally manage to out fish him, which he says he doesn't mind but I now better, I can't believe how competitive I have become, I don't even mind putting my own bait on even if it is trying to savage your fingers when you do(ragworm), and you can eat what you catch.
For a change Tony took me to Huntstrete to try and catch some carp, Tony showed me how to use the bander etc for the pellets , all was ok but I still need a bit of practice with my knots, fairplay to Tony he seems to have endless patience, I had several nice carp between 5 and 14lb

 ,
 catching more than Tony again. We've done this a few times during the summer and the time just seems to fly.
Not long after this I saw Shaun kitteridge had been to the river wye and had some barbel, we had tried to catch some a few years ago but only managed to get a few chub. So Tony had a word with Shaun and jon in the shop (veals) and they suggested a place called aramstone fishery which is run by a river keeper called Stan, so a day was sorted and we soon found ourselves on the bank in a swim reserved for us by Stan, after a few more lessons from Tony in the use of bait drills and chrochet hook, (bait needle) it took me about 45 minutes to get a bite which resulted in a nice 5lb barbel, my first and I was made up and wouldn't care if I never had another  bite, but I did and had another one shortly after, Tony was now sulking , but it all came good in the end as we had 4 each, but mine was the biggest being 7,10, which was 1oz bigger than Tony,s best .
I needed another fix of this so we found ourselves driving over to the Wye again on 10th of November for another crack at the river, after a 4.9 brekkie in the premier inn just north of Gloucester, (that score as they did buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup).
 As there were no other anglers there on the day we had the whole stretch to ourselves, so after getting stuck in the mud up by the old bridge, Tony managed to push us out, we decided on a swim just below where we fished last time, as Stan said the area had been producing a few in recent days, and as the temperature had dropped significantly since our last trip, we heeded his advice, I was a bit more confident about getting sorted and tackling up so we were soon ready and fishing, with large cage feeders with a halibut groundbait with 6mm pellets mixed in and double hair rigged 8,s on the hair.

It was always going to be a struggle due the to cold wind and lower water temperature,s, but it doesn't help when I look around at the wildlife , namely swans and kingfishers both of which came really close today,
I missed a bite which Tony reckoned on being a chub as it was just a bit of a rattle, then Tony connected with a fish that turned out to be a nice chub of over 3lb.

Soon after that I had another bite which thus time I connected with and also had a nice chub of about 3lb.

About 1,30 Tony said we ought to have a move so we upsticks and went about 300 mtrs further down, again its a bit hard with no bites , so at about 3.45 tony says we will give it another 15 minutes then pack up, a few minutes later and my rod goes over and I'm attached to a nice little barbel of about 5 lb, so at least I had one.

 Back out again for "one last  cast ", and the tip soon goes over again, this time it all goes solid mid river in a snag, Tony told me to put the rod in the rest and give it some slack line as this sometimes works with the fish pulling the tackle free from the snag, and luckily it did and I soon had a nice chub in the net, it was a nice fish which Tony weighed, and it went a level 4lb which is 1/2 oz bigger than tonys best, then I get a lesson with scales and ask for a reweigh, never ask for a second go as it now went 3.15, 1/2 oz smaller than Tony,s  best , lesson learnt. I'm sure Tony did a little dance to celebrate.

But at least I did better than him again with 2 chub and a barbel to his single chub, without a doubt we will be back on this lovely river , probably towards the end of the season, unless we get a nice mild spell in the weather.
I have been asked if I am ever going to fish a match, but I'm not sure I couldn't sit still for that long ,there are a few women in the area who match fish, but I'm still learning to be honest so we  will have to wait and see,
I'm surprised more wives and girlfriends don't have a go, they May be pleasantly surprised.
And of course none of these days would be at all possible without the help of our daughter who helps out with the dogs, so lots of love to Lauren rixon x .