Thursday 9th February Bristol Avon

Well I should be fishing in the surf on the beach in Cape Verde today, however after two days somewhere in the Midlands hanging around waiting for the green light for the flight the holiday has been cancelled. Sand Storms from Africa has caused the problems. Oh Bugger.

Wasting little time I decided to fish the Bristol Avon. I phoned my mate Steve Coles to arrange an afternoons fishing. He was up for fishing the upper stretches for chub. We were going to try different methods. Mine was the float and maggot approach that I’ve been using on the H.Avon and the Stour. He was going to use bread on the hook and liquidised bread in a feeder.

We arrived at 1.00pm and walked to the stretch we were going to fish. On the way we met Paddy and another angler who were both blanking on the ledger. Now these guys fish the stretch on almost a daily basis and know it well.

I first started to fish a long glide of smooth water but drew a blank after 30 mins or so. I then moved upstream leaving Steve to try another swim.

During the morning I had visited Keynsham Angling Centre and talked to Nick and Mark who run the business. They were intrigued on how I continued to get great results on the river in the cold conditions. My answer was to say that maggots and float fishing in cold low river conditions was the way to go. They challenged me to show some results from todays visit. They said that few people fished during the winter due to poor results. So my challenge was to show that you could achieve a great result in 3 hours of fishing in cold conditions.

So here goes.

I eventually stopped off in swim I’ve not fished before. Over hanging bushes and some great chub hiding places. I baited with maggots for about 20 mins.

Have a look at the video.

I then moved after catching these 3 fish from a shallow swim to one where I knew 5lb plus fish were. However there are a few snags in the swim so I increased my hooklink to 4lbs and size 18 hook which probably didn’t help me in presentation. However I still caught another 3 chub from this swim plus 6 lovely dace .

Chub of about 2lbs

Steve had lost one chub and that was it for his day. Steve is a good angler for sure but it goes to show that in cold water conditions the chub wanted a moving small bait.

The nights are opening out and the sun set time was about 5.20pm today.

So that was it a short 3 hr session 6 chub and 6 dace is great sport in winter.

All I would say is get out there and get yourself some action. Talk to Nick and Mark at Keynsham Angling Centre or contact me!