I must say I wasn’t really looking forward to this match. Having not fished a canal since I was growing up in Hawkley Hall aged 14 I knew it would be a challenge and after I saw what Ray had caught earlier in the week having a practice, bit snatching seemed to be the order of the day. I drew peg 2 out of the bag which this week only contained 11 numbers - wonder if that was down to it being a canal? At least it meant a short walk, unlike Bob who I think might still be trying to walk to his peg as I write this on Monday morning it was that long a walk (what a shame). Anyway I was quite pleased with my peg - after negotiating the steepest embankment I have ever been down with gripless wellies and about 60kgs of kit on wheels. I had stick ups at 12m straight across and a moored barge to my right with reeds in front of it - I was certain I'd nick a perch or 2 from here. I decided on 3 swims, swim 1 would be down the track at 9m in 5' of water. Rig was a 0.1g Preston float, to 0.10 mainline and a 0.8 hooklink to a B611 size 20 hook - with a 4's elastic!! Never have I fished so light :-). Swim 2 would be at 12m to the stick ups fishing 2.5' deep to with the same rig but different float. A 0.1g Sensas float with a shorter body. Swim 3 would be to the barge/reeds 6m to my right fishing 2' deep with a homemade 4x10 margin float. As I would be fishing choppy here and not sure what I'd get this was to 0.12 straight through with a double 5 latex and a size 16 hook.
At the all in I cupped in a ball of liquidised bread mixed with a small amount of hemp to swims 1 and 2 (along with caster to swim 2) and a cup of chop and caster to swim 3. I was delighted to hook a small skimmer around 2oz first put in on 4mm punch. Next put in I had a tiny roach about half an ounce. I had 3 more of these before the first boat of the day went past when it dried up. Meanwhile to my left, Sluicer had a small Jack resting on top of his keepnet after it had watched his latest catch swim down the net. Raising the landing net above the pike's head soon saw it shoot off stirring half the bottom up with it. Not much later another Jack (maybe the same one) caused a commotion under my feet to the left as all the reeds moved followed by a splash and the dorsal of the fish cut through the water. An hour had gone now since the first boat and were over 90 minutes into the match and other than the first few fish for around 3oz total I hadn't had a touch. I had tried swims 2 and 3 but couldn't get a knock. I put a little more feed into swims 1 and 2 and tried 3mm punch on swim 2. This brought me an immediate roach smaller than the punch but again nothing else. I could see Noah to my right had got a few roach and Sluicer to my left was getting a fish a chuck before 2 boats crossed right in front of him killing his peg. Word had come that Bob had reached his peg and was actually catching a few decent skimmers. From this I could see that the weights were coming from ends of the pegging, Bob on 11 and Sluicer on 1. I kept plugging away searching the whole of my peg for something trying caster, worm, maggot and punch but I couldn't buy a bite. Then I started a new swim at 13m 10 o'clock from my peg and had been fishing it for 5 minutes before the swim parted like the Red Sea as another Jack shot through the swim.
From a fishing point of view, I struggled as I have in recent weeks although I must say it made a nice change to fish a more natural water (not something I want to do regularly but wouldn't object to a couple of times a year) and I must say on a sunny day like we had the venue is a nice looking place. Speaking with Sluice and Ray the stretch can throw up some decent fish on its day so I may go back for a pleasure session. At the weigh in, it had fished hard for most of the stretch with just over 4lb winning from peg 11, Sluicer 2nd on peg 1 with over 3lb and (I think) Mark 3rd with 2lb from the top end (toward 11). There were a lot of weights under 1lb but at least I wasn't last...well not on my own as Stu joined me in joint last as we shared the embarrassment. Knowing he had 4oz I was praying for 4oz or more on the scales. My confidence couldn't take another last place - especially as after being in the top 5 of the league after 5 matches I have now shipped 45 points in 4 matches which has to be some kind of record!!!
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