During the winter fishing Willow lake I met Gary Newman a few times. We got chatting about this and that, and he ended up asking if he could do a feature on the Bristol Avon for the Anglers Mail as he has not fished much on the river before. Well he had once with Martin Bowler and blanked.

We set a date for July and this week we fished and caught chub and barbel. I’m not saying too much on here until the article comes out.

My Christchurch AC ticket came through in the post as I have just renewed, so I will be heading off in the H.Avon direction soon looking for a 7lb plus chub this year. I’ve had several from the Stour but not from the Avon. I know a couple of swims that produce such fish.

Just saw a photo of 10lbs 14oz barbel that came out from the same swim I fished last week on the Bristol Avon. Still there are a couple of others there that might just top this weight.

Will try again next week to get one of those.

Well here we are and I can’t resist another joke.   I got really emotional at the petrol station this morning, I don’t know why but I just started filling up……my wife Lynn says this is a rubbish joke. I had been looking forward to the fishing at Bradley’s this year, with Tench to over […]

First a joke? I had a Trivia competition shot to pieces I was first until the last question which I got wrong. The question was “Where do women have the curliest hair”?? The answer I should have given was “ Fiji ” I arrived at the same swim I fished on Wednesday. I didn’t get […]

Armed with some hemp and pellets I headed off to fish an area of the Bristol Avon where I knew a few larger barbel remained. The Bristol Avon barbel numbers have been decimated by otters. Some will say it’s a gap in year class, other will cite the floods of 2007 and 2009. But when you look […]

John and I had decided to walk the Bristol Avon to see where we could find the large roach that inhabit the river. Summer time gives a great opportunity to try and find these beautiful fish. The sun was shinning and it was 28c so very good spotting conditions. We started at the very top […]

About two weeks or so ago I put a site on my blog about the Avon roach project. Which explains what work is being done to improve the roach population of the Hampshire Avon. Huge Miles has made this now into a 15 minute story. Well done Hugh a magnificent effort again.

I bailiff a small lake that is a mixed fishery close to where I live, well it’s 6 minutes in the car. The lake has some good carp to over 20lbs in there and many other doubles. With the rain pouring down ( I wish they hadn’t mentioned the drought) I headed to the lake to […]

I’ve resisted taking the rods out when looking at the Bristol Avon for barbel so far, that is until today. Normally I take a bucket of hemp and place it in different swims and just observe what turns up. Today I was visiting a stretch I intend to fish this year as there are still […]

I said that I would show the change of rig that might have just made a difference on my last session on Horseshoe. I have changed main line too. My mate Alan Thomas keeps telling me about the Korda Kontour fluoracarbon main line. I decided to get some. On small reel spools and the amount […]

Previous years saw me fishing the river on the 16th, but last year I missed out on some huge tench that came out, fish of over 11lbs, it wasn’t going to happen this year. The previous day had seen me catch some beautiful tench and two over 9lbs as well. The night had been cold and […]