Today saw us on the Staffs-Worc canal at Hinksford for the first Cradley Heath club match of the year and i was hoping for a repeat performance of the last match of the year on here our fur& feather where i ended up on top with 7lb odd. We all assembled in the Green Man pub at Swindon for the draw and when i pulled out peg 2 again ( the same peg number i had drawn on the fur & feather) i was well happy, a quick word to Ollie reveled that this time they had only put 1 peg above the bridge a opposed to 5 the last time so i was on a totally different peg. I soon realized that i was on the first peg below the bridge a very good peg (flier) and one i had wanted to draw for a few years now, with shouts of jammy bugger ( or words to that effect) we made our way down the canal the only thing that worried me about this peg is that it is a good peg but everyone knows it and with it next to the bridge gets fished very often, i was just hoping that no one had fished it the day before and gave them a hammering as canal fish will not take it 2 days on the trot unlike commercial fisheries. The peg was around 20m below Hinksford bridge on what is called the caravan stretch as there is a static caravan park right behind you which can limit you on shipping back as the residents don't like you sticking carbon over there garden fence's, the peg itself has a nice looking bush opposite that looks very fishy and there is the odd resident chub that comes off the peg but it is also renowned for big roach that live down the track. Stav had a winning 10lb+ bag off this peg a couple of years ago on the big white maggot down the track on a freezing cold day when a few of us were struggling to get bites on bloodworm & joker! He had also drawn a good peg today down by the power cables so it was the roach i was going to fish for today as sitting for chub that might not feed is not my idea fun so with a plan formulating i set up 4 rigs to attack the peg.
Rig 1, punch rig at 10m just down the shelf in 2 1/2ft of water, 4 x 10 tubertini styx float, 0.08 line to 0.07 h/l, 22 b511 hook shotted with a bulk of no10 stlys & 2 o7 styl droppers, no3 vespe elastic.
Rig 2, squatt rig at 11.5m in-front of the bush in 2 ft of water, 4 x 8 float the same as above, same line as above with a 22 pr31 hook, shotted with no7 styls strung out and again the same elastic.
Rig 3, caster rig at 10m just coming out of the track at a 10 o'clock angle towards the bridge in 4ft of water, 4 x 12 Drennan caster original float, 0.08 line straight through to a 18 Preston pr322 hook, shotted with strung out 10 & 7 styls and no4 elastic.
Rig 4, chub rig, 13m to the side of the bush in a bay at 1 o'clock, i won't bore you with this rig as i never used it during the match.
For bait i had brought with me 1/2 pint red squatt, 1/2 caster, a loaf of liquidized bread, about a 1/4kg left over from the last match, a few mixed pinkies for the hook and slices of bread for the hook.
On the whistle i cupped in a pot bread on the 10m line, put around 20 casters on the angled line and put some chopped worm & caster in on the chub line, after sorting all that out i started to fire squatts in over the back of the bread line against the bush. It took around 2 minutes to get my first bite a 1oz roach on a 3mm punch and i was off and running, the next 3 put-ins all produced fish of a similar size before i netted a 3oz'er. Over the course of the first hour i managed to keep a few bites coming catching mainly small roach with odd better stamp fish here and trying to keep the line going for as long as possible, with the hour mark just gone the first boat of the day came through which slowed sport down a lot and even 5mins after it had gone through and the canal had cleared again i couldn't catch at all even after re-feeding. A switch to the squatt line was called for and just as i was shipping out with the rig a friend of mine Neil Gator (Ali for short! get it?) came over the bridge for a rattle(chat), i lay the rig in fired a dozen squatts over the top the float slid away and a nice 4oz perch was my first victim. While i was rattling to Ali for 10 mins i was getting a bite a chuck on the squatt, with roach, perch and odd gudgeon all coming to the net Ali said he had a walk down the bottom end of the stretch before coming up here and that i was catching better than anyone he had spoke to. When Ali had gone i decided to get my head down and just carry on catching what i could on the squatt trying to keep something going in the net, i was constantly moving the float up and down as the fish were coming off the bottom to get to the bait first. With 2 hours gone bites started to slow down a bit and a quick look back on the punch produced a couple of fish as i rested the squatt line but bites were now at a premium, i thought at this point i had got 4-5lb and it was looking good as long as i could keep bites coming. After resting the squatt line for 15mins in an attempt to build the fishes confidence up and get them back on the deck by feeding less i had another look on this line, 3 fish in 3 put-ins looked to have solved the problem but the soon vanished and i was left wondering what was going on as the fish seemed to there one minute and gone the next. With the match now 2 3/4 hours old i decided to have a look on the caster line as another rest for the squatt line was called for, i decided to give it 10mins as not to waste too much time on it if bites were not forthcoming. With the 10min limit nearly over and only i big gonk to show for it the float sailed away and a better fish was hooked a nice 6oz roach was put in the net, a few minutes later the same again but this time a good perch around the same size as the roach was netted. I was enjoying this as i love catching caster fish as there is no better feeling than watching a no4 elastic stream from the end of the pole as others around you are catching small fish, bite no4 on the caster and i was connected to a much better fish which at first i thought was a chub but when i got it under control by the net it turned just before netting to reveal a silver flank, i was praying for the hook to hold and breathed a sigh of relief when it hit the net i was looking at a roach i estimated around 1 1/2lb RESULT! A better sight i had not seen in a long time ( better than a 10lb carp any day), i stayed on the caster for around another 45mins before i was now no longer getting bites at all in that time i had managed another 3 good fish 1 i estimated at just under a pound mark. There were a few kids on the bridge shouting and mucking around plus a couple of boats had gone through which i think helped to unsettle the fish, i have noticed over the years that you seem to catch caster fish better on the staffs-worc when the canal is flowing under it's natural tow which is upset by the amount of boats going up and down the locks. If you can fish the caster around 3inch over-depth and just inch the bait through slowing it down to a virtual standstill you will get more bites on this canal, i was now getting no bites at all on any of my lines and even a short 5mins on the chub line with a big worm on failed to produce a bite which was very frustrating as i knew the fish were there. I had to wait until the last 10mins of the match before anymore action as the canal had settled down from the boats and the locks opening, the canal was back on its own steady gentle flow and i managed 3 more caster fish in the 6oz bracket before the all out was sounded. I was very happy with the way i had fished the match and reckoned i had got 9-10lb but just a little frustrated as i thought that on the right day the peg would be worth a lot more. When i had packed in news came up from the bottom of the stretch that it had fished well again with 2 weights over 9lb and lots of 5lb+ weights, John Billingham was leading the pack with 9lb 10oz from a peg in narrows and Kev Clarke with 9lb 6oz from down by the sandstone rock. When i pulled my net out i was hoping there was enough to take top spot and i was well pleased when the scales read 10lb 14oz but there was still 1 guy John Babbington left to weigh in who had virtually pleasure fishing on his own above the bridge, John had a good 7lb+ so that gave me my first match win of the year. It was good to win the first club match of the year after winning the last match of the year on the same stretch, the stretch had fished well again with 4lb 12oz only good enough for 12th place, Stav had 6lb odd off his flier draw above the power cables claiming only squatt fish and not being able to find any bonus fish. It was a good match for most that always ends up with a couple of beers in the Bush pub at the end of the road (just to be sociable you understand!).
Wednesday 20 April 2011
Monday 18 April 2011
Blythe Pairs League Sunday 27/2/11
Back to Blythe this weekend for round 3 of our pairs league at Blythe waters on bridge & cherries pools i was hoping for a good draw as we were around half way in the league after the first 2 matches and needed to start climbing the table. I drew peg 21 on Bridge at the wrong end of the pool for catching carp as most of them had been caught at the deeper end before Christmas, Stav had been on this peg on the first round and had 10lb of silvers on the short line which left him in the top 5 on the pool on the day so that was to be the main plan of attack as a top 5 finish would be a good result off this peg today. I set up 3 pole rigs and a maggot feeder to throw at the island which is 25m away but very shallow and very snaggie if you cast too close.
Rig 1, 14.5m pellet line a 4x14 j-8 range float, 0.14 mainline to 0.12 h/length and a 18 808 hook,11 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, 6m pinkie & maggot line a 0.30gr inter 9 float 0.10 straight through to a 20 gamma black hook, double 5 elastic.
Rig 3, 4x12 KC caster float 0.10 straight through to a 18 gamma black hook, double 5 elastic.
The feeder rig was a simple running rig with a small Drennan carp feeder with a 18 b611 hook to 0.14 line & 4lb maxima mainline.
Bait was 1 pint of fluro pinkies, 1 pint of red & white maggots, some micro pellets & 4mm hooker pellets, with half a tin of corn ( team tin me & Stav share).
At the start i put in a few micros & 3 grains of corn on the 14.5m line and feed a 1/4 of a pot of pinkies on the short line, i started the match on the feeder cast around 2m short of the island in hope of a rouge carp. After 30 mins on the feeder without a bite i had a look on the pellet line with 3 crayfish and 3 0z skimmer in half hour it was time to go for silvers. I started off on the deck at 6m and began to catch small roach in the 1-3oz bracket quite regular, i was using a small fruit shoot pot to feed 8-10 pinkies at a time and although the fish were small at least i was catching. Ade to my right had a carp of around 3lb in the first half hour but had got nothing to go with it, Ollie opposite on peg16 was struggling so was the guy on peg18 so it was a case of getting my head down and catch as many silvers as possible while keeping an eye out on the others to see if the carp began to feed. Around an hour after going for silvers i started to feed maggots by hand a little shorter to try and speed things up a bit, by dropping a section off and fishing at 4m it was quicker than using the pot. I had a few fish up in the water and even had a couple off 5-6 ounce roach but had to work hard to keep in touch with the fish, the shape of the pool stops you from seeing most of the other anglers but of the 4 i could see no one was catching anything of note. Ollie had 1 carp off the island half way through the match on maggot feeder that looked around 4lb which was ok as long as he didn't have any more, with around 1 1/2 hours to go Brian Smith on peg 10 had a small carp and a couple of 1 1/2lb skimmers over the next half hour. Into the last hour and Brian had another good skimmer and i was getting worried that he was going to overtake me so i had a decision to make to stick with the silvers or try to catch a carp?, with half hour to go i decided to chuck the maggot feeder back out for the last half hour towards the island as this is normally the best time of day during the winter to hook one. I had 1 roach on the feeder but no pull round from a carp so that was it silvers only but at least i had beat the 3 anglers around me, Ollie was the first to weigh-in and had 6lb odd with his 1 carp and a few bits on the pole late on 16m to a small island to his right. Peg 18 had 1lb odd and Ade on peg23 had another 6lb odd with his 1 carp + bits, my silver bag went 9lb 8oz which i was quite happy with, but as i walked around the pool it was clear that more carp had been caught at the deeper end Barry on peg 29 had 6-7 f1's for 16lb and second on the pool, corner peg 31 had 3 carp for 12lb and 3rd. Kev Clarke on peg 11 won the pool with 23lb thanks to a 10lb+ lump in the last half hour, and as Brian pulled his net out i could see that it was going to be close to my weight CRAP the scales pulled down to 9lb 12oz putting him 4th on the pool and me 5th out of the 14 fishing. I was kicking myself later as going onto the feeder for the last half hour had cost me around a pound of silvers and another point, Stav gave me a telling off later for coming off feeding fish and i tried to fend him off by saying that had the tip pulled round with a 3-4lb carp it would have put me 3rd and a hero! I knew i had dropped a clanger and a point might be costly at the end of the league. Carl had destroyed Cheeries pool with 61lb off corner peg 32, Stav had come 2nd with 34lb off peg 10 (flier) mainly on the method chucked up to the boom. We were now around 6th in the league due to my first 2 crap performances? ( sorry Stav i'm crap).
Rig 1, 14.5m pellet line a 4x14 j-8 range float, 0.14 mainline to 0.12 h/length and a 18 808 hook,11 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, 6m pinkie & maggot line a 0.30gr inter 9 float 0.10 straight through to a 20 gamma black hook, double 5 elastic.
Rig 3, 4x12 KC caster float 0.10 straight through to a 18 gamma black hook, double 5 elastic.
The feeder rig was a simple running rig with a small Drennan carp feeder with a 18 b611 hook to 0.14 line & 4lb maxima mainline.
Bait was 1 pint of fluro pinkies, 1 pint of red & white maggots, some micro pellets & 4mm hooker pellets, with half a tin of corn ( team tin me & Stav share).
At the start i put in a few micros & 3 grains of corn on the 14.5m line and feed a 1/4 of a pot of pinkies on the short line, i started the match on the feeder cast around 2m short of the island in hope of a rouge carp. After 30 mins on the feeder without a bite i had a look on the pellet line with 3 crayfish and 3 0z skimmer in half hour it was time to go for silvers. I started off on the deck at 6m and began to catch small roach in the 1-3oz bracket quite regular, i was using a small fruit shoot pot to feed 8-10 pinkies at a time and although the fish were small at least i was catching. Ade to my right had a carp of around 3lb in the first half hour but had got nothing to go with it, Ollie opposite on peg16 was struggling so was the guy on peg18 so it was a case of getting my head down and catch as many silvers as possible while keeping an eye out on the others to see if the carp began to feed. Around an hour after going for silvers i started to feed maggots by hand a little shorter to try and speed things up a bit, by dropping a section off and fishing at 4m it was quicker than using the pot. I had a few fish up in the water and even had a couple off 5-6 ounce roach but had to work hard to keep in touch with the fish, the shape of the pool stops you from seeing most of the other anglers but of the 4 i could see no one was catching anything of note. Ollie had 1 carp off the island half way through the match on maggot feeder that looked around 4lb which was ok as long as he didn't have any more, with around 1 1/2 hours to go Brian Smith on peg 10 had a small carp and a couple of 1 1/2lb skimmers over the next half hour. Into the last hour and Brian had another good skimmer and i was getting worried that he was going to overtake me so i had a decision to make to stick with the silvers or try to catch a carp?, with half hour to go i decided to chuck the maggot feeder back out for the last half hour towards the island as this is normally the best time of day during the winter to hook one. I had 1 roach on the feeder but no pull round from a carp so that was it silvers only but at least i had beat the 3 anglers around me, Ollie was the first to weigh-in and had 6lb odd with his 1 carp and a few bits on the pole late on 16m to a small island to his right. Peg 18 had 1lb odd and Ade on peg23 had another 6lb odd with his 1 carp + bits, my silver bag went 9lb 8oz which i was quite happy with, but as i walked around the pool it was clear that more carp had been caught at the deeper end Barry on peg 29 had 6-7 f1's for 16lb and second on the pool, corner peg 31 had 3 carp for 12lb and 3rd. Kev Clarke on peg 11 won the pool with 23lb thanks to a 10lb+ lump in the last half hour, and as Brian pulled his net out i could see that it was going to be close to my weight CRAP the scales pulled down to 9lb 12oz putting him 4th on the pool and me 5th out of the 14 fishing. I was kicking myself later as going onto the feeder for the last half hour had cost me around a pound of silvers and another point, Stav gave me a telling off later for coming off feeding fish and i tried to fend him off by saying that had the tip pulled round with a 3-4lb carp it would have put me 3rd and a hero! I knew i had dropped a clanger and a point might be costly at the end of the league. Carl had destroyed Cheeries pool with 61lb off corner peg 32, Stav had come 2nd with 34lb off peg 10 (flier) mainly on the method chucked up to the boom. We were now around 6th in the league due to my first 2 crap performances? ( sorry Stav i'm crap).
Tuesday 12 April 2011
Staffs-Worcs canal Castlecroft Sunday 20/2/11
Back on the Castlecroft stretch of the Staffs-Worc canal for the first Halesowen A.C club match of the year, i was hoping for another good draw after winning the clubs fur & feather on this stretch before Christmas. If you have read my blog before you will know that on the f & f it was the first time i had drawn passed peg 7 on here after drawing it 3 times on the trot and then drew the chub flier peg35, as peg 7 was not in again at least i would be fishing a different peg. Into the draw bag i went and came back with peg 6 SHIT, with 7 out i came back with the peg that is only 10 yards away from it. After i had done a bit of swearing a few of the lads said it is a better peg and a few punch roach had come off it during the winter, so i tried to get my head on and have a go at it with a positive frame of mind. I set up 4 rigs to tackle the peg after pluming around a bit, there is a small tree on the opposite side of the peg and decided to fish chopped worm there, squatt right over to the left of the tree, punch down the track and caster just out of the track off at an angle to the left around 10 o'clock.
Rig 1, chopped worm rig, 4x10 Drennan caster float, 0.08 line straight through to a 18 Preston PR 322, shotted with a bulk and 2 droppers of no 10 stotz, no 3 elastic.
Rig 2, caster rig, 4x12 Drennan caster float, with the same line and hook as above just with strung out no'10 & no'7 styl's and no 4 elastic.
Rig 3, punch rig, 4x12 Tubertini styx float, 0.08 line to a 22 B511 hook & 0.06 hook length, with a bulk of styls & 2 droppers, no 3 elastic.
Rig 4, squatt rig, 4x10 Tubertini styx float, 0.08 line to a 22 Preston PR31 hook & 0.06 hook length with strung out styls, no 3 elastic.
For bait i had brought a loaf of liquidized bread, 1/2 caster, 1/2kg worm, 1/2 squatt, 1/4 fluro& red pinkies and a couple of slices of bread for the hook.
On the whistle i fed all of my lines and decided to have a look on the bread line first with a 3mm punch just touching the bottom in over 5ft of water, it took over 10mins to get my first bite and a 1oz roach was the culprit. Two more roach over the next 20mins and it looked like it was going to be another slow day as the cold wind started to blow down the canal in the same direction as the natural tow, a look on the worm line was called for and after 3-4 missed bites i hit one of the little roach that inhabit this stretch but at around the length of a fag end they are not worth catching. Around 3 years ago the staffs-worc canal was polluted by a water treatment plant at Compton that is only a mile or two away from our stretch and since then there seems to be a load of small tiny roach which bodes well for the future but are of little use in a match as they must go around 40+ to the pound. After 3-4 of these small roach i finally hit a better fish which turned out to be a 2oz perch followed by another one of a similar size and things were starting to look better!
Wrong again 3 perch was all i could manage from my worm line before it went dead and after re-feeding this line a few times throughout the match i never had another bite on this line all day. I had a few small roach on the squatt line but they were all a bit too small to make any weight up and the tone of the match was set just getting odd bites from each line all day with the punch line producing slightly better fish.
With around an hour of the match to go i heard a bit of a commotion coming from up the towpath towards the direction of Bob on the next peg 5, i looked up to see an empty seat-box and just turned back towards my float thinking that Bob must have gone for a walk or in the bushes for a pee. Then i heard a muffled cry for help with Bob up to his chest in the canal trying to pull himself up back onto the towpath, SHIT HE WAS IN!!! I threw the pole back as fast as i could and ran up the canal to help him out and after moving his seat box out of the way i managed to pull him out as Jeff came to lend a hand from peg 5. My god it was cold enough sitting in the wind with all the thermal gear on let alone being wet to the skin, Bob sensibly went back to his car to dry off in-front of the heater and find some dry clothes. That unfortunately was the highlight of the day as fishing was hard but all the old jokes started coming out,"How deep is the inside line Bob?" "Banned from weighing in for illegal wading" and "Too tight to buy groundbait using his feet instead to colour the water" His name is BOB after all?? The last one was all my own work!
Back to the match and the last hour after all the excitement of Bob's swimming session was as bad as the previous four hours with the wind getting colder i was dithering by the all out, when the scales read 1lb 10oz i was the top weight in the first 4 peg's Ritchie on peg 2 and Bob on peg 5 both failed to break a pound and Jeff on peg 3 had 1lb 5oz. Around the corner passed the club on peg 12 there was Phil with 2lb 3oz which turned out to enough to win the section, the match was won by Dave wood on peg 30 with 6 chub for 7lb 7oz just beating Brian Smith on flier peg 35 with 7lb 1oz the first time i have been on the canal and peg 35 hasn't won he match! 3rd & 4th were both just over the 3lb mark and they both had chub in there nets too. Looking back and if you take the chub out of the equation Phil's 2lb 3oz was the best bag of small fish on the day as the roach & perch failed to show in any numbers, it was a very cold hard day at Castlecroft.
Rig 1, chopped worm rig, 4x10 Drennan caster float, 0.08 line straight through to a 18 Preston PR 322, shotted with a bulk and 2 droppers of no 10 stotz, no 3 elastic.
Rig 2, caster rig, 4x12 Drennan caster float, with the same line and hook as above just with strung out no'10 & no'7 styl's and no 4 elastic.
Rig 3, punch rig, 4x12 Tubertini styx float, 0.08 line to a 22 B511 hook & 0.06 hook length, with a bulk of styls & 2 droppers, no 3 elastic.
Rig 4, squatt rig, 4x10 Tubertini styx float, 0.08 line to a 22 Preston PR31 hook & 0.06 hook length with strung out styls, no 3 elastic.
For bait i had brought a loaf of liquidized bread, 1/2 caster, 1/2kg worm, 1/2 squatt, 1/4 fluro& red pinkies and a couple of slices of bread for the hook.
On the whistle i fed all of my lines and decided to have a look on the bread line first with a 3mm punch just touching the bottom in over 5ft of water, it took over 10mins to get my first bite and a 1oz roach was the culprit. Two more roach over the next 20mins and it looked like it was going to be another slow day as the cold wind started to blow down the canal in the same direction as the natural tow, a look on the worm line was called for and after 3-4 missed bites i hit one of the little roach that inhabit this stretch but at around the length of a fag end they are not worth catching. Around 3 years ago the staffs-worc canal was polluted by a water treatment plant at Compton that is only a mile or two away from our stretch and since then there seems to be a load of small tiny roach which bodes well for the future but are of little use in a match as they must go around 40+ to the pound. After 3-4 of these small roach i finally hit a better fish which turned out to be a 2oz perch followed by another one of a similar size and things were starting to look better!
Wrong again 3 perch was all i could manage from my worm line before it went dead and after re-feeding this line a few times throughout the match i never had another bite on this line all day. I had a few small roach on the squatt line but they were all a bit too small to make any weight up and the tone of the match was set just getting odd bites from each line all day with the punch line producing slightly better fish.
With around an hour of the match to go i heard a bit of a commotion coming from up the towpath towards the direction of Bob on the next peg 5, i looked up to see an empty seat-box and just turned back towards my float thinking that Bob must have gone for a walk or in the bushes for a pee. Then i heard a muffled cry for help with Bob up to his chest in the canal trying to pull himself up back onto the towpath, SHIT HE WAS IN!!! I threw the pole back as fast as i could and ran up the canal to help him out and after moving his seat box out of the way i managed to pull him out as Jeff came to lend a hand from peg 5. My god it was cold enough sitting in the wind with all the thermal gear on let alone being wet to the skin, Bob sensibly went back to his car to dry off in-front of the heater and find some dry clothes. That unfortunately was the highlight of the day as fishing was hard but all the old jokes started coming out,"How deep is the inside line Bob?" "Banned from weighing in for illegal wading" and "Too tight to buy groundbait using his feet instead to colour the water" His name is BOB after all?? The last one was all my own work!
Back to the match and the last hour after all the excitement of Bob's swimming session was as bad as the previous four hours with the wind getting colder i was dithering by the all out, when the scales read 1lb 10oz i was the top weight in the first 4 peg's Ritchie on peg 2 and Bob on peg 5 both failed to break a pound and Jeff on peg 3 had 1lb 5oz. Around the corner passed the club on peg 12 there was Phil with 2lb 3oz which turned out to enough to win the section, the match was won by Dave wood on peg 30 with 6 chub for 7lb 7oz just beating Brian Smith on flier peg 35 with 7lb 1oz the first time i have been on the canal and peg 35 hasn't won he match! 3rd & 4th were both just over the 3lb mark and they both had chub in there nets too. Looking back and if you take the chub out of the equation Phil's 2lb 3oz was the best bag of small fish on the day as the roach & perch failed to show in any numbers, it was a very cold hard day at Castlecroft.
PLAYING CATCH UP
I know that i am still writing about matches a couple of months ago but please bear with me as over the bad winter we were on short time at work and really couldn't afford to go fishing. Plus i think i lost a bit of my mojo over this time worrying more about paying bills than fishing but as i am writing this we are now back on full time and looking forward to our forth coming matches. I will be playing catch-up for a while with my blog which i must thank some of the guy's that come into the shop for and give me good feedback asking why no blog when i was down a bit and thinking of throwing the towel in, many thanks to them. CHEERS.
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