A rather warm Sunday

This weekend was going to see me fish a match on the River Kenn in Clevedon, but only 4 names were taken, and 1 of these could not make it. So with this the case, Adie Baker gave me a call on Friday saying it was called off, which given the expected temperatures and sunshine (yes, it still is rather summer like so make the most of it!!). But then people don't fish many matches on canals, drains and rivers anymore unless it is a winter/summer league.

I had work on Saturday, which was dead, we saw maybe 6 customers.......!! And with no plans for Sunday I was at a loose end what to do. I could have maybe tried to find a match, and the PSV guys said I could have tagged on their match up at Walters Lakes, but the warm sunshine and distance, plus my kids wanted to do something meant that any fishing would be opportunistic.

So come Sunday morning we decided to take a trip upto Cadbury garden centre and then maybe grab some food to have a picnic by the River Kenn, then work things from there.
So after a bit of brekkie, I loaded my seatbox, some maggots and 1/2kg of frozen groundbait, a landing net and handle, along with my S7 silverfish rod into the car. The 4 of us set off to the garden centre.

I popped into the angling centre, it'd be rude not to, and bought some more maggots (they had no casters). I didn't spend another penny!! Which is odd for me.
None the less, we had a look at the pets and fish, a browse around the out-houses saw me wanting/needing a new garden lodge thingy, ideal for a  new fishing shed!!. But I got told £3000, or even £7k was not an option. Blast.

So we tooted over to Clevedon, where we stopped in the Kenn Road car-park and took a walk along  both sides of the road in the warm sun. There wasn't really any fish topping, in fact I doubted I would catch due to the weather, but it was nice to get the shorts on and have a walk with the family.
We then drove round to Strode Road where I had a quick look and decided that we'd have a fish for an hour while having lunch. We popped to Tesco's grabbed some fruit, sausage rolls and more drinks etc.

At the river I set the rod up, ideally I wanted to fish the waggler towards the far bank, but realised I forgot my catapults, so I restricted myself to about 10m out, where I had decent depth of maybe 8ft or more. This was as far as I could throw my maggots.
It looked fishy, loads of fry, and I mean loads, the water was full of baby fish. So I expected a few fish on my loaded 3BB waggler set-up. I was using 2.5lb maxima to 0.08 hooklength and a size 20 B511. An hour later, all my food was devoured, the kids had wandered around the hedges/trees and explored as much as they could, and we were nearly out of liquid refreshment.
I had not even had a touch or see a fish top, so we packed up and left. But I did enjoy it and will fish there again.

So we were stuck about what to do, the temp in the shade showed 32 degrees and felt it too despite a breeze, we settled on heading back to Apex Park in Burnham/Highbridge. Heading back down the M5 we listened to Andy Murray in the Wimbledon final and he was doing ok. The temperature did drop to 30.5 degrees by the time we had pulled into the car park at Apex.

A quick walk around saw plenty of small fish topping and a few anglers looked like they were catching the odd fish, there were a couple carp anglers whom looked like they had a few carp from the island swims (low 20's pegs?). I stood in the pegs by the bench and decide that'd do for me, but later in the day.
So we sent the kids to play in the park for fifteen minutes while I watched the water, there were odd carp out towards the island and the delkims from the carper's bit alarms shrieked occasionally.

We soon set off back to Bridgwater and arriving home we watched some of the tennis until Murray was 4-1 or something down in the 3rd set. So we loaded the car with kids and took the pole instead of the waggler rod and headed back to Apex, I also took some micros, 4mm pellet and 8mm meat. Along with the maggot, groundbait and a few 6mm expanders, bait was sorted.

Pointing at the few mooching carp by the island.

 

The kids were soon in the park playing, I was soon fishing. I had 1 line at 13m in front, for skimmers/bream and a margin swim to my right at 6m for mostly carp.
I fed the long line with some wet micros and loose groundbait, I fed the margin with 2 cups of mixed 4mm pellet and meat.
1st put in on the pole bought a silver bream, followed by a few more, all on the drop, but all welcome. For the next hour I had a few more smaller fish, maggots and expanders both bringing the same result.
A look down the edge didn't bring a bite, but temps were still high and to be honest I was not expecting anything of size.
Back out to the long line saw me bring a skimmer of maybe a pound to the next, but no more followed, just more smaller silvers. But I was enjoying it.

Me in my swim.

 

By now Andy Murray had won Wimbledon, a fantastic achievement. But the larger fish in my swim were absent, if not feeding. I did try the margin again and I had a bite, this saw a good bit of number 20 lacy come out, but it turned out to be an eel of a pound or 2.
I gave it 20 minutes more, in that time I had some more silvers out long.
I packed up at around 8:15 with a good few pounds of fish, and a pleasant evening in the sun with the wife and kids was had.

 

Just 1 of the plenty I caught.

 



So I had a nice weekend really, whether it would have been nice fishing a match in the sun and heat is debateable. The Kenn is a venue I will fish again for sure as it makes a change from carp, carp and odd flying skimmer.

 

Next up for me is the 3rd Clevedon Saturday Series Match at Plantation's Match/Horseshoe lake on this Saturday. I don't stand a chance unless I win the next 2 matches.....and a few guys not turning up...lol

 

 

Take Care and Tight Lines.
Lee