By Tom | No Comments
Last updated: Thursday, June 19, 2008

Firstly, apologies for not updating you on my angling antics from last week, truth be told I was so busy with one thing and another I simply didn’t have time. Saying that, I could have added a blog if I’d missed a days fishing last weekend, but the lure of the bankside on a sunny Saturday morning proved just to good to resist!

So I will start with last Saturday with a trip up to Lindholme Lakes to fish in the open match. I drew peg 63, about half way along the right hand straight. I opted to fish my trusty maggot approach, which I have had some success with over recent weeks at the venue.

I stared off quite well, taking ten ide in the first fifteen minutes, for around 5lb, before a few small F1’s started muscling in on the line. It was nice fishing as the bites were fairly sensible and I was hooking the fish properly, so I was cautious of overfeeding as I didn’t want to start getting daft bites and foul hooking fish. For this reason, I fed with the kinder pot, but before long the inevitable happened and the line started petering out.

I gave them a full pot to try and draw some fish back into the peg, and then the fun began! My float was dancing all over the place, and I foul hooked and lost two F1’s before landing a couple.

This set the tone for the day really, I could always get indications by feeding but struggled to get really positive bites on any particular line. I fished two lines across, one in about two and a half feet of water, and one just past it in around a foot of water. I planned on fishing the deeper line until I started getting liners, then coming up the shelf onto the shallower line. Unfortunatley, they never really got there heads down on the shallower line however, and plugging away on the two and a half foot line would probably have seen me weigh more in at the end of the match, but it was difficult to do when I was getting so many liners!

I ended up with 49-14-0, which was best on my bank and fifth in the match overall, but unfortunately I didn’t pick anything up as there were only twenty there on the match so they only paid the top three! I was only 5lb off third place however, a couple more fish!

Canal Blues

The following day saw me head up to the Stainy along with Matt Godfrey and some of the other Triana lads for a practice match ready for the beginning of the team fishing season in a couple of weeks. The sun was beating down, and everyone was anticipating a fairly tough day, and when I drew a peg that team captain Bryan Hawkes said wasn’t very good, my confidence wasn’t exactly helped!

My day went from bad to worse when my platform trolley bust, meaning I had to walk the 25 pegs to my platform twice! Still I can’t really complain, Matt had a 60 peg walk!

To cut a very long and painful story short my day finished as it started, and I weighed 1-3-0 of small fish to finish around half way in my ten peg section. I got battered either side though, the chap to my left won the section with 6-9-0 comprising of an eel and a bream taken in the first hour, while the chap to my right plugged away with small fish to finish third in the section with just under 4lb.

I reckon I could have taken a similar weight of small fish had I fished for them, but after the chap to my right landed the two bigger fish I sat it out long on worm and caster at 17.5 metres looking for a bonus fish for the first two hours, I wouldn’t have been ruing this decision if I had caught one however, so it is swings and roundabouts I suppose, I fished a positive match which you have to when points aren’t at stake and its just an open match.

Matt had a similarly tough day after an even tougher walk, recording just over 2lb, so I couldn’t feel too sorry for myself. If that lad can’t catch em there aren’t any there.

Two Triana lads did well in the match, with Paul Crossland finishing second with 7lb, and Phil Morgan taking third with 6lb, so there were still some beer tokens coming the way of the boys in blue and all was not lost!

Midweek Knockup

Following on from last weeks micro knockup at Carterhall Fisheries on thursday night, another was duly arranged, and the turnout was slightly improved with seven turning up to fish this week!

I stuck with my trusty maggot approach, and managed to get amongst a few better carp as well as a few ide, though I had some trouble with lost fish. It was ever so weird, put a 2lb bottom on and you would hook a carp in with the silvers, yet on 0.12 you would only get the silvers. I had two rigs set up and kept alternating between the two, and it was obvious that the fish were wanting a lighter bottom.

I ended up with 25-12-0, which was good enough for the win, but I was pushed close by a young lad called Jack (I am afraid I don’t know his surname) who is a regular at the venue, and was fishing his first match at the place. He came second with 19-10-0 of predominantly silver fish, a cracking net of fish.

Back To Ranskill

Saturday saw round three of the Lakeside Summer League at Ranskill, and I set off armed with two kilo of worms and four pints of caster, and they were ‘aving it!

For company, I had Keith Higginbottom, and Carl Rowley, with Carl fishing in the place of Mark Holmes who was away on a weekend fishing trip in Thirsk. This is one of the rules of the league that I think is really good, if you can’t make a round you simply nominate someone to fish for you. It also means the ‘dropped points’ rule which can at times disadvantage the most consistent anglers.

A good turnout of 32 anglers saw the pegging fairly tight, but I wasn’t disappointed when I drew peg 10, even though I had an angler either side. There are normally a few fish in the area, and past results show it is a very fair section.

I decided to discount entirely the snag pit of an island in front of me, which I know had a few carp in it, but I also knew I would struggle to land them, and focus instead on two chopped worm lines at seven metres and two metres, and target the venues silver fish.

I had a good first couple of hours, getting amongst the venues ide stocks, they averaged perhaps 8 oz, with the occasional 1lb – 2lb specimen putting in an appearance. I was going through some bait however, having to give them a pot full every four or five fish to keep bites coming. For this reason, I didn’t feed my margin line as heavily as I normally do, as I had to make sure I had enough bait to last the duration of the match. Them ide definitely want more feeding than the skimmers I was catching two weeks previous!

At the end of the match I thought I had around 40lb, which I reckoned would be good enough for the section win, as the anglers around me didn’t seem to be catching as quickly as I was. I was pleased when my net went 53-5-0, which gave me the section win I was after and 4th in the match overall.

Next time, I will definitely be taking more bait however, as I had to hold back on the feed towards the end of the match, and considering 59lb was second this probably cost me quite a bit of money.

The Thorne of the matter!

Last Sunday was another practice match on the Stainforth and Keadby canal in anticipation of the start of the team fishing season. With 170 odd people fishing the match, there was a lot of money at stake, and also a lot of bad pegs to draw, so I was relieved when I drew peg 276 on the Dunstons stretch, and team captain Bryan told me I was in a decent area, though perhaps not quite far enough along, with the flier pegs being in front of some flats about ten pegs to my right.

To be honest from a personal point of view I couldn’t have asked for a better draw, not too far to walk and a good area without the pressure that an out and out flier or end peg gives you!

The most noticeable thing about the canal compared to the stretch I fished the previous week was the colour, it was really murky compared to the week before, which made me think there might be a few more fish there!

I followed the advice of Bryan and Matt and gave them three balls of fishmeal at 16 metres, laced with worms and caster, and fed a sweet mix on a squatt line at between nine and ten metres.

I was fortunate as I found the same depth on both lines, so set up a lollypop float for if it started to tow a light rig to present a falling bait and two standard rigs, one on 4×14s and one on 4×16s to suit conditions, as well as a lighter strung out rig to fish over my squatt line.

I fed my squatt line first with five balls, before feeding my longer line then leaving this to settle and starting the match on my squatt line. First drop in I had a skimmer around 10 oz. a welcome start to the day! I took a couple more fish before my line died, and I decided to have a look long, an eel about six ounce was my first fish over this line, and after fifteen minutes no skimmers were forth coming so it was back down the track.

I caught small skimmers steadily off both lines all day, with the longer line getting stronger as the day wore on. They wanted the feed though and I probably fed about a bag of groundbait on each line through the course of the day. Frustratingly, I lost a big eel about 1lb at the net, it swam through the hole between the net and the frame and snapped my hooklength. Gutted!

I could see Paul Goulding three anglers down from me catching well, but no one around me was catching a deal, and I felt I had done reasonably well.

At the all out, Paul weighed 5 kilos 300 grams, which won the ten peg section and was good enough for third in the match, while my 3 kilos 750 grams put me second in the section, but unfortunately I didn’t pick up any money as they didn’t pay the sections out by default.

Still, I had had an enjoyable days fishing, and felt I did quite well considering my lack of experience on the venue.

Talking to anglers at the meeting on Tuesday night our area fished well compared to other parts of the canal which were just as hard as they were the previous week, with some sections being won with under a kilo. We came to the conclusion that two different approaches would be required depending on whether we were in town or out of town.

When it came to the 12 man team being picked I was a bit disappointed to be left out, but this is understandable considering my lack of experience at the venue. Everyone else in the team is far more experienced at fishing the canal than I am, having fished the place for several seasons, looking at things logically I didn’t deserve to make the team, and I wouldn’t have picked me if you see what I mean!

Still, I am going along to bank run on Sunday and hopefully I will be able to help the team gain a few extra points, and learn a bit for myself about how to fish the canal as well.

Before that, I have another Thursday night match at Carterhall to look forward to and a Saturday open match at Lindholme, so hopefully my drawing arm will continue to pull favourably!