stevetheangler

Monday October 14th to the 21st Liz and myself went on our usual autumn break to the Haven Holiday Village at Burnham-on-Sea. We set off from home at 1100 and had a pleasant trip down with an almost clear run from our starting point on the M5 at junction 2 (Oldbury) all the way down to junction 22 (Highbridge) with just a couple of 50mph roadwork restrictions in place but even through those the traffic was running at 50mph. We made our usual 45 minute stop at the Gordano for coffee and facility use enroute and arrived onsite at Haven at around 1345. We had been given an arrival slot of 1500-1600 and as we were early we headed to the bar for snacks and drink and sent our phone number through to reception who respond to let you know when your van is ready … anyway, at 1500 we drove down to the van and found the door’s seal and security sticker was already in place and so we gained occupancy – the text advising the all-clear actually arrived around 1630 LOL!

Our van was in the same group as the ‘Saver’ van that we’d had back in May I think it was but this time we’d booked a larger ‘Bronze’ standard van in the hope we’d have more space in the bedroom – caravan bedrooms usually are spaced that to get in bed requires a leap onto or sideways shuffle twixt bed and wall – but although the living area was more spacious and easier to move around the bedroom was actually no larger, mainly due to the extra space having been used up by the provision of another bedroom – ie instead of the 2 bedrooms of the Saver we had we 3 bedrooms – 2, both with twin beds and our double bed room. The twin bedded bedrooms actually become our tackle repository LOL!

Unpacking of the car followed our access of the van, and whilst Liz started sorting out the bedding, food storage and so on, I started sorting my fishing truck, baits and food box and flask ready for an early session the following morning. In the end, after checking the week’s weather, with the Tuesday being good weatherwise we decided that I’d have a full day fishing – usually I fish ‘early’ to 1100 then return for breakfast and we go touristy for the afternoon on the first day – and Liz booked a swimming session. We also decided with the upcoming Saturday looking promising that that would be our joint outing to the banks. The rest of the week was spent wandering the town, visiting Bath (never again!! It seemed everywhere in Bath required a 80’ climb – the saying ‘what goes up must come down’ certainly didn’t seem to apply there!), ‘Breakfast at Wetherspoons’ (couldn’t find Tiffany’s LOL) and so on.

As it was the vast majority of the week’s weather was quite pleasant – rain on only one day as I recall with some nightime precipitation which didn’t affect us greatly.

Right now to the boring bit!! I dunno the last few postings I’ve made all seem very much the same with very little content and possibly could have all been just the same post with words of same meaning replacements? Oh well, can only report what there is to report… and so now to the fishing..

Day 1  – Tuesday 18th

Arrived on the pool of choice (2 pools available) in peg of choice … basically because I was first on the waters at 0700 – nothing new there then! Tackled up my two leger rods – usual set up with 8lb mono, 6” hook lengths of 8lb braid to size 6 hooks and frame feeders on sliding links. One rod was baited with half raw but slated prawn, the other with 2 dendro worms. Indication was via bobbin and alarms. The frame feeders were loaded with the usual groundbait and particle mix I usually use. And all day long (well, to 1430 when I packed in) I had a few nudges and single alarm beeps and one proper take with a slow rise of the bobbin and a slow bleeping of the alarm – I struck but felt absolutely nothing at all … but my line had snapped above my leger stop (Enterprise Adjusta Stop) abot 24” above the hook … as I say, I felt nothing no resistance nor ‘tension to relaxation’ of the line…

Day 2 – Saturday 22nd

Off to the pool with Liz leaving the van at around 0800 for the 5 minute walk to the same swim as I fished on the Tuesday. My tactics, tackle and baits remained as the Tuesday as well. Liz fished frame feeder with maggot baits on a size 12 (I think) hook… again a few nudge and knocks to both of us … and then Liz had a bream of about 1.0-1.5lb … and then another of about the same size … and I had another unmissable ’slow rise, slow beep’ take … struck felt nothing … wound in and and my braid hooklength was missing the hook and about 3” of its length! And the break was clean – no loose/spread out braid fibres nor curly bits, almost like a clean cut with a razor blade. And so the day ended at around 1530 with Liz beating me 2-0 AGAIN! LOL!

One (cruelly I suppose) satisfying thing I suppose was that when others did turn up to fish later on the days, and there were a few, it seemed no-one else was catching either.

Anyway, we enjoyed the week … and once home I was looking at Haven’s website to basically see what their prices were for 2025 … and ended up booking a mid-March week. LOL! And lucky I did … firstly prices in March were in the £220-270 for 7 nights range… and in April those prices increased by £200! Also, Liz spotted that for the week of interest a ‘Bronze’ standard caravan was actually £25-30 cheaper to book than the ‘Saver’ standard. So I decided to book there and then when I noticed there were only 2 Bronze caravans still available . the following morning there were none as it seems the remaining van went overnight too! Probably book again for late September/October later in the year but as Liz is planning to do a Malta trip with her brother, dad and friend probably around that time then we need to determine dates so there’s no clash.

AND at the mo hoping to get out next week (Monday 4/11 hopefully) to have a first pike outing of the season … not sure whether that will be deadbaiting or lure/wobbling or a mix of both on either canal or pool but with recent rains it seems that banks are pretty poor, on the pools at least with regards to access and parking …

Anyway, best wishes to all!!!