The week previous to this match had been really mild, so I had high expectations for this match. Me and my partner, Brian Hawks, were lying in 6th position out of 19 pairs, so we were looking for a good result in this match to get us a place higher for the final round. I drew on the West street section of the canal, peg 247, two off the end. I decided to definitely feed ground bait on my two long lines at 14m and 16m, and opted for a mix of VDE Secret and SuperMatch, with a bag of damp leam. On my short 6m line, I just fed 4 balls of leam with 150ml of joker, intended for perch, and then 8 balls of the groundbait mix at 14m, again with 150ml of joker. On the far 16m line, I fed three small balls with a bit of joker and a few casters, and planed on just dipping casters over the top throughout the day. The rigs I set up were dead simple. A 0.6 gram Sensas Auchey float for the 6m and 13m on 0.10 line, with a bulk of number 8’s and three number 10 droppers. I also set up a strung out 0.5 gram Tomas Walter float for the caster long, and a 4×12 Ultimate 1 for down the tins to start with, where I dropped a ball of leam at the off. All hooks were a size 20/22 PR26, to a 0.06 hooklength.
I started down the tins, and spent most of the first hour here, catching 30 or so dumpy perch on joker. This then slowed so I picked up my 0.6g rig, baited up with a bloodworm and shipped out to the 6m line. A roach of 2oz was first to show, followed by a few more and the odd perch. I then stuck into something little better, as a skimmer of 8oz nodded its way into the net. I was using the middy 1-5 green elastic, so it was very soft, preventing hook pulls, but still allows you to swing dumpy fish when you’re catching well. After 5 bite less minutes I hooked another skimmer, around 4oz, but still a bonus on the canal. Nobody else was catching, so I stayed on this line until about the halfway stage of he match, at which point I had around 8 small skimmers, mostly 4oz, along with perch and a few roach for around 4lb. The guy on the end peg, Pete Kitwood started to catch a few fish, along with the odd skimmer. I then bumper a skimmer and lost one which I think was foul hooked. Bites then slowed down at this point.
With two hours left I went long on the 14m line, and straight away was into the small hand sized skimmers. I found it was best to lay on 3inch, and hold the rig still over the bait with the pole between my legs. I stayed on this line until the last hour, when I had a look on the long caster line, catching another small skimmer on caster and two roach, but this was way slower than the other lines. For the last hour I caught a few fish off my two lines at 6 and 14, probably putting another pound in the net. It was interesting that I never topped up all match. On West Street there’s nowhere to have a pee as you have houses at the back and boats opposite, so I was dying to go, I was tempted to have a go down the dolly but couldn’t quite hack it!
I though that I had around 8lb at the end of the match, which would be a decent weight, but ended up weighing 9lb 09oz, enough to win the section by a good 3lb, and even better win the match overall! Brett Clark was second from the Wikewell section with 8lb, but the rest of the canal was pretty poor to be honest. My partner was around halfway in his section, which still left us in sixth position going into the last round, so we could still manage fourth if we both pulled together. All in all it was a nice days fishing and great to pick a bit of money up. I’ve enjoyed this league for the last two years now, and there are some cracking anglers in it, I certainly learn something every time I go.
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Tom
