Busy, Busy, Busy!!!

The Drennan Super League was an absolute disaster for the Triana North team and me! I wrote about the practice match last month, where all the team did well, and the following week I finished 5th in my 14 peg section in the NFA regional national on there, with the team finishing 7th out of 14 teams. I think that the bit of luck we had came a weekend too soon, as we finished second to last in the first round on the Stainforth and Keedby canal at Thorne!

I was feeling pretty confident after the draw, where I drew peg 180 at Wikewell Bridge. It’s a medioka peg in a reasonable area. After sitting down at the peg and contemplating what to do, I decided that a long line at 16m was going to be my best option in the clear water, with a small bomb setup and a squatt line for backups. i set up various rigs for the long line, varying from 0.3g strung out patterns to a 0.75g Tomas Walter float for nailing a bait still if the canal started towing. All the rigs were on 0.10 and 0.12 lines, with B560 hooks in 16-20. I also set all the rigs 6 inch over depth, as I was targeting the better skimmers and proper fish on this line. I chopped up some worms, and added this and some casters to a fishmeal groundbait, of which I fed three large balls of 16m. My squatt line was at 9m, where I fed a roach groundbait and loosefed squatts, and my bomb was set up to fish past my pole line, with a long tail, using a light 10 foot spro picker rod.

At the start I went straight over my long line, catching two small skimmers straight away. I then had a horrible hour, where I had two boats do a three point turn in my peg!!! I waited for the swim to settle, and cupped in again, virtually starting my match again. It took some time for the fish to settle down, but for the rest of the match I caught small skimmers between 2oz and 8 oz in small patches. I couldn’t catch more than 5 together, and I think that the clear water caused to shoal to spook easily every time I hooked a few.

I had been loose feeding casters regularly, and decided to try the bomb, casting past my feed. First plop with double maggot saw a small but lovely chublet of 6oz shake the tip round, followed by a dumpy perch and a small eel around 10oz. The tip wouldn’t budge after that!!!

With an hour to go, the canal started towing, so the heavier rig came into play. I ended up laying on at least a foot, and inching the bait through using a gentleman’s rest. This brought me a few better fish in the last hour, including a tiny eel, another small chub, and believe it or not, a flatfish!!! I couldn’t believe it either!!! Apparently they can live in fresh water, and talking afterwards I found out that there had been one caught the week before too! I’m fishing crab and lugworm next time on a beach-casting set-up at high tide for some tope and sea bass!

In the end I weighed in 3kilo 450grams (7lb 8oz), which saw me 7th in the 16 peg section. Ossets’ Andy Geldart fished awesome on the next peg to catch 5kilo odd, and there was another 5 kilo weight from the top end of the section. I made the mistake of loosing my confidence when the boats turned around, when realistically the fish didn’t mind. I panicked at the time, and thought that they would have messed the peg, I should have kept cool and fished properly…..lesson learned!

We had some really bad team results from some bad sections. The whole team was on a downer afterwards, but we can only get better, the team are definitely going to try and pull it back on the Horbury canal next round!

The Angling Times Winter League final is only a week away as I am writing, and I’ve had a few practices down there on the River Nene at Peterborough. Fishing on the Middle-holme Embankment saw me have a good day, catching 7lb odd of skimmers on the long pole and bloodworm. The river is like all the natural venues at the moment, blooming gin clear!!!

The weed is terrible in some pegs, growing right up from the bottom all the way out in the river. I also fished a practice match on there, which didn’t go so well! I drew out of town on the dreaded north bank, where the fishing has been really rock hard. I decided to fish positive balling it in, as it’s a big deep river, but it didn’t really kick start the peg. I caught two perch and 4 roach in the first hour, and with an hour to go and nobody catching anything, I re-balled it, getting some dodgy looks on the way, but it brought me another 3 fish! I ended up with 15oz for 4th in the section, which would be reasonable points on the day. Only 1lb 7 won the section, so at least we know it’s going to be hard up there. When you have the likes of Steve Saunders and Will Raison catching 9oz and six tiny perch, you know there aren’t many fish there!

The final is next week, and im back down wednesday for another practice. With the World Champs also a week away, i’m really busy getting the gear sorted and preparing, its all good stuff though!!!