stevetheangler

The week of Monday 18th to Friday 22nd March I spent at the Haven Holiday Village in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset on my own – Liz is off to Cyprus with her brother, sis-in-law and friend to celebrate her brother’s 50th at her Dad’s for a week in April and so elected to stay at home for this week … we will both be in Burnham for a week in May and also in October J

We like the site (as you probably can deduce!). It’s close to home – about 100 miles (2.5 hours inc a coffee break) – and is a straightforward journey with the majority of it being on the M5 for us. And also has two fair sized fishing lakes on site. Also I got a caravan on a good deal – £49 for the stay but then I also took a pre-stay option up to select the actual van for my stay at a cost of £25 for a total of £74 – a good price especially as the walk for van to water was around 2 minutes with a fully laden trolley! In the diagram the water to the left is the ‘general’ pool, the one to the right is the ‘specimen’ pool although the waters are connected by a narrow channel albeit with a net covering the passage way – and according to the onsite tackle shop the stocking of both pools are fairly similar. Anyway, I fished the same swim both days that I fished about halfway along the path between them out to the right ie into the specimen pool.

At the time the site has a large amount of work being carried out in general but on the pools the vast part of the general pool is closed off whilst new bank shoring and new pathways are being laid down.

Also due to time of year the camp was quite quiet and, as I was usually first to the waters at 0630, swim selection was easy! :)

Monday, 18th, was spent actually travelling down to the site – traffic flowing well – and I had a 45 minute coffee break at the Gordano Services at Bristol before continuing on the rest of the 40 minute or so journey to the camp arriving at around 1430. My check-in time was actually 1600-1700 but you are allowed onsite up to 2 hours previous but obviously cannot access the caravan at that time. Anyway, I parked up near to the van and then wandered around down to the tackle shop to purchase a 3 day permit (£16 – day permits are £7) and then wandered up to the main entertainment area to have a coffee whilst awaiting access to the van. I walked back to the van and arrived there probably around 1515 and thought I sneak a peek through the windows to look in there and found that a ‘cleaned&ready’ seal had been placed on the door and thus the van was actually available for occupation. The next few hours were then spent unloading the car, unpacking cases and preparing tackle for Tuesday’s fishing followed by a planned car trip to a pub just opposite the entrance to the site … but this is me and things never go that easy! If I’d have walked it was a stroll up the camp and along the lengthy entrance drive into the camp but then basically just a crossing of the road … but in the car, after exiting the camp, the pub’s car park entrance was not directly from the main road but required a drive into Burnham town itself (about 1/2 mile) and then loop back on a smaller road and then traverse several other turnings (some of which were wrong and hence required turnarounds) but eventually I did get there after probably 20-30 minutes from leaving the camp… BUT then when I entered the pub doors a sign read ‘Food – Tuesdays to Sundays’!! … so I left intending to return to the camp’s onsite Burger King … arriving there several miles and 40 minutes later having had to plug the SatNav in along the way. All for departure-and-destination points I could have physically thrown a cricket ball between!

Burger King visited, it was back to the van, watch a bit of TV, make flask and sandwiches ready for the following morning’s outing and then off to bed with the alarm set for 0500….

Tuesday, 19th. was my first day on the water electing to fish, as previously said, the specimen pool about halfway along the corridor between the two pools. Leaving the van at 0600 it didn’t take long for my two minute journey from van to water to go skewiff either. The four wheeled garden truck that I use for holiday tackle transport I discovered at home had a flat rear tyre but I pumped it up at home and it seemed ok but was found to be flat again by the time of use and when I repumped it was flat within the hour so I decided to live with it as there not much else I could do at the time. And it was OK for the majority of the trip but the final part, down a grass slope off the tarmac track down to the pool caused a downfall as the deflated tyre allowed its corner of the truck to dip and hence the top heavy load to overturn it. No too bad though as close enough to my desired position to remove the top part of the load and carry it and then return and up right the truck and wheel it and remaining load onwards (although same happened on return journey but a kind fellow angler assisted the recovery of load and gave a helping hand pushing back up the slope and on the tarmac roadway.

Having reached the waterside I firstly set up the general purpose rod I use for casting out my spomb/cameras/sonars/etc with my Deeper sonar in order to ascertain the depths around and quickly found depths varied from around 2’ 6” at the edge to a flat and clean bottom of about 3’ 6” out in the open water.

The sonar replaced by a spomb and feed consisting of cereal groundbait, seeds and grains and maggot was cast out into the area I intended to place my baits.

Usual tackle setting up and laying out of unhooking mats followed …

Two rods on pods and alarms – 1.75lb TC Avon type rods with 8lb main line and 6” of 8lb braid hooklengths – frame feeders on sliding links were loaded with the same mix as fed via the spomb. One rod, with a size 10 hook, was baited with 2 worms for the whole session. The other rod utilised a size 6 hook baited with bread coated in Primula ‘Cheese with Ham’ or ‘Cheese with Prawn’.

0700 first casts were made … and throughout the session interest in the worm baits was apparent albeit mainly just quick jerks … the bread baits were very quiet with only the occasional nudge being seen.

1010 – first fish of the session/day/week came to the net … a 1lb 8oz bream…

… and at 1040 another was landed at 1lb 10oz…

However, despite further indications no other fish were landed and at around 1500 I called it a day and returned to the van to sort out tackle and baits, shower, and rest.

Wednesday, 20th, was a day in the van with the TV having felt the need to take one of my pills. I should have thought about that possibility when purchasing my permit really and paid on each day from the bailiff on the bank – but it was only a £2 difference anyway….

Thursday, 21st, I was back out again at 0600, same swim, same rods, same methods – but I did manage to prevent the trolley overturning enroute! Again, same sort of day – bit Grounddog Day actually as I had 2 bream, slightly bigger at an estimated 2lb and 2lb 8oz. No photo… 1500 back to van, again safely up the grass slope BUT managed to catch the hedgerow around the passage from the road into the field of the van causing it to tip over … BUT THERE WAS WORSE TO COME!!!…

Got the tackle to the car and decided that anything that could be loaded into it ready for the next morning’s trip home should be ie anything other than bait/food that needed to be fridged. So I opened up the boot from the remote key and started to load up… but at some stage I had to enter the driver’s door … clicked key remote … no response … similarly none of the other doors would open … and no indicator flashes to show key activity. Opened the key fob up to access the physical key blade for the door lock … opened door ok. Tried to start the engine … not even a dashboard light showing and zero engine response at all. And I needed to leave the site by 1000 the following morning! PANIC!! Luckily, I have Emergency Assist membership so I rang them and quickly got through and after going through the details I was told I’d need to make an arrangement with a garage for the car to be taken to in case it could not be started at the roadside … and as I’m 100 miles from home I have NO idea of any garages in the vicinity so EA provide a list for me as possible contacts … and I managed to find one that could do the honours. So back to EA, explaining my original problem, etc again and that I’d contacted a garage who would accept the car if need be … and, literally, within 20 minutes, I’d a low loader arrive on site … chap put his power pack on the battery … allowed a couple of minutes … and tried starter … bruum, bruum, … it started! Sigh of relief!! So chatted to rescue man for a bit with engine running and he left me and I set off to give the car a run to give the battery a good charge up… I did a 30 mile loop … got back, retried starting … AOK … so then continued sorting boot loading, back to van to load bags. At bedtime, pointed key at car, lights flashed and all seemed ok … off to bed…

Friday, 22nd, 0500 got up, checked car opened up on remote … all good… loaded all my stuff into car , locked van and prepared to start out into Burnham and Wetherspoon’s for breakfast… pressed car’s ‘START’ button .. ‘eerkk…eeerk.. berrr.. BRUUM’ ie car struggled to start! But at least it HAD started although breakfast plan had to be ditched and to just head straight home… which I did. I stopped off at Michael Woods Services on the M5 for a quick cuppa from my flask whilst sitting in the car with engine running … and then next stop was my driveway!

FOLLOWING ON … I tried the car on Saturday morning and it started OK … Liz usually drives in to work so rather than chance the car sitting on the car park all day and not re-starting I drove Liz in and brought the car back and then when she finished with car re-starting OK I drove back and collected her but we did stop at McDonalds for a bite to eat and car restarted again ok. Saturday night I booked a new battery fitting with Halfords to be done on the Monday … went well and actually the battery was showing a ‘green’ meaning charged so I’ve kept it as a spare/jump start. I’ve also purchased a Lithium Battery jump starter just in case – actually small enough to fit in a glove box!! So now I have new battery (fitted), a spare battery in the garage and a jump starting power pack which will remain in the car! So should be OK for battery problems into the year 3000!! LOL!