August Highs and Lows

A River Chew grayling - Not my biggest August fish
 but probably the best looking

August has been a real mixed bag for me. I've targeted all sorts of different species, enjoying the ups but suffering some downs along the way. Highs have included a trip to the River Wye that saw me catch plenty of chub to 4lb 14oz on light trotting gear, an afternoon on the River Chew that produced some nice dace, roach and grayling and last weeks boat trip with Devon Bass Pro Charters (See last weeks blog post for details) Lows have been losing what was almost certainly a 20lb plus carp after I'd fooled it in to taking a floater and blanking at both Kingston Seymour sea wall and Clevedon Pier. It's been nice to see dad enjoy a good month. He had a great brace of fish last week during our boat trip and has also caught barbel over 8lb, a 5lb 1oz chub and a few double figure carp. He says this run of good fortune is down to a new pair of wellies! His new lucky wellies! Toby and the new Maver Cadbury Angling Team recently fished the final round of the 2013 South West Super League. The team finished fifth. Pretty good for a first attempt at taking on some very good, well established competition. Finally, Dan hasn't been out much this month but he did catch a 2lb bass last week. So that was August and indeed summer for another year. I'm looking forward to the next couple of months, given some mild weather September and October can often be the best time of the year for us anglers. I've got a bit of carp fishing planned and a day on the River Wye booked, as well as a week in Norway to look forward to. Check back to see how I get on.

A Day at Sea With Devon Bass Pro Charters

Just part of our days catch

Something a little different for me this week, a days boat fishing out of Seaton, Devon. If you read my blogs you'll know that I enjoy my sea fishing but don't do anywhere near as much as I'd like to. When I do go it's usually from the shore and many, many years have passed since I last took to the seas on a boat. So it was with much excitement that on Tuesday I hopped aboard Outcast II, skippered by John Wallington of Devon Bass Pro Charters. Accompanying me on this trip were my dad and two friends, Dave and Baz. Target species was bass but we had been told to also expect some pollock and possibly a cod or two. After an early start we soon found ourselves quickly motoring out to one of the many shipwrecks found in Lyme Bay and it wasn't long before we all had a rod in the water, two of us fishing lures and two using livebait mackerel. Within only half an hour we had all caught, Baz had boated his first ever sea species, a bass of about 5lb, dad and Dave both managed a bass each as well and I had a decent pollock. What a great start! To cut a long story short the day got better the longer we stayed out and after eight hours of drifting over numerous wrecks we had caught just short of thirty bass and pollock between the four of us. Dad had the biggest bass at 10lb 8oz and the biggest pollock, a fish of 12lb. Dave had a near 10lb bass and both Baz and I were very happy to have caught our first of the species too. A really enjoyable day! Great fishing, fantastic weather and in the company of a very knowledgeable and friendly skipper. All of us can't wait to go again! All you need to know about Devon Bass Pro Charters can be found at www.devonbassprocharters.co.uk I can't recommend a trip out with John highly enough. A good time is almost certainly guaranteed!

South West Super League 2013 Round 5 Bristol Avon, Newbridge.

Onto the last venue for the 2103 South West Super League, the Bristol Avon. We were fishing the Newbirdge section where the league is usually staged.

The river hasn't seen much water in recent weeks and although there has been some good winning weights, we were all a bit apprehensive on what the day would have in store for us as a team.


The draw was made and I was given 128 which was at the top of my section, just down stream of the rugby club. Not a bad area but probably not a match winning bream weight to be had!!

My peg was quite high off the water and set back so I decided to fish 13m to find a good depth of water to enable me to trot the pole properly.

I setup two top 5's, both with long lines above the floats. I had a 1.5g rig for running through off the bottom and a 3g rig for dead depth.

I also setup up a feeder rod for 2/3rd's of the way across.

I had mixed up 4kg of groundbait, consisting of a bag of Sensas Noire, a bag of Sensas Gros Gardons, a bag of Sensas Match Blend and 1kg of River Leam (Terre de Riviere).

I would say for anyone looking to mixed large quantities of groundbait a whisk and cordless drill is essential, it saves so much time and effort! I split my mix over two buckets to ease the strain on my drill.

On the 'all in' I balled in 10 large balls on my mix, the last 4 having a good pinch on casters in each ball.

I settled down and began with the 3g rig and immediately realised the flow was even slower than I had anticipated, it was tripping through very slowly, after 3 or 4 runs I got my first roach, then after a few more runs another, this continued for the first hour and I ended up with 17 roach and a perch. I kept catapulting a pinch of hemp and a pinch of caster every few minutes over my pole line and a few balls of groundbait towards my feeder line.

After one and a half hours my pole line really dried up so I switched to the feeder. A few casts later and a small skimmer graced the net...was this the start of something really good..........NO! I was getting quick positive bits on the tip on double worm but they were all tiny skimmers!!! I fished this line for a couple of hours and picked up fish steadily, still nothing massive!

I repeatedly catapulted small balls of groundbait over my feeder line, heavily laced with chopped worm.

With two hours to go I opted to top up my pole line, so in went 6 large balls of my mix each packed with casters.

With 30 minutes to go I had a look over my pole line and got bites instantly, a hybrid of 1lb plus several good roach.

At he end of the 5 hours I ended up with 6lb 8oz of mainly roach and small skimmers plus a few perch, this was only good enough for 6th in my section and 3 points. My section was won by Mark Bromsgrove of Sensas Thyers, lower down in my section where there had been some very decent weights caught on the pole.

The team had produced a solid performance, mustering 3 points of the day, the main highlight was Sam Johnson, who again came up trumps with an impressive 2nd in section, the man is proving he is in top form this season!!!





Individual Results on the day:
1st.  Andy Jane (Maver Lobby’s) 101-1-0, bream, groundbait feeder and worm, peg 63
2nd. Chris Parr (Sensas Thyers) 38-14-0
3rd.  Richard Chave (Garbolino BVMG) 23-6-0
4th.  Mark Broomsgrove (Sensas Thyers) 17-2-0
5th.  Andy Ottaway (Preston Innovations Thatchers) 15-2-0
6th.  Nathan Johnson (Preston Innovations Thatchers) 14-9-0

Teams on the day:
1st.  Garbolino BVMG 57
2nd. Preston Innovations Thatchers 52.5
3rd.  Daiwa Gordon League 51.5
4th.  Sensas Thyers 48
5th.  Maver Lobbys 39

League overall:
1st.  Daiwa Gordon League 253.5
2nd. Sensas Thyers 231.5
3rd.  Preston Innovations Thatchers 228.5
4th.  Maver Lobbys 212
5th.  Maver Cadbury Angling 211

Go Fishing With Cadbury Angling is Two Years Old

It's August which means our blog is now two years old. During this time we've posted over one hundred times, amassing over thirteen thousand views from all over the world. The popularity of our blog is growing all the time and the three of us would like to use this opportunity to thank all who take the time to read it. Also, a big thank you to those of you who visit the shop, our website and our Facebook page. Your support is very much appreciated. Here's to the next twelve months.

It's our birthday! Smile and put your party hat on