Staffs-Worc canal Kinver Sunday 26/2/12

This Sunday saw us on the first Halesowen club match of the year on the Staffs-Worc canal at Kinver, its been a few years since I last fished this stretch but there are lots of Roach here with a few Perch and odd bonus Chub to go at. We drew on the car park opposite the Vine pub on Kinver bridge where 21 of us gathered I pulled out peg 7 which meant nothing to me so off we all went walking down the towpath, when I got to my peg I was just below some cottages on the opposite side on the edge of some steel pilings. Form my memory there used to be a big overhanging bush on the far bank which has since been cut back by the boaters this was confirmed by Steve Robson who stopped for a rattle on the way to his peg, he said that he had fished the peg last year on a match and had 6lb+ of Roach all on the bread punch down the track and fancied the peg before the draw. I had lots of room as the pegs to my left were all empty for around 50yards as they have no features just the steel piling to look at and to my right there were 3 moored up bargres giving me another 30yards empty that way, I was liking the look of the peg more and more with all this room it must be worth a few extra fish. My plan of attack was to fish 2 punch lines one in the deepest part of the peg down the track with the other just up the far shelf a caster line just coming out of the track at a 10 o'clock angle and a chopped worm line at 13m tight over towards the cut down bush, for bait I had brought a loaf of liquidised bread, 1/2 pint of casters, 1/2 a pint of red squatts (to feed over the bread lines if they failed to produce but I thought that it still was a little to early for them), a few worms and a hand full of red & fluro pinkies for the hook.
On the whistle I put a full pot of bread in at 6m down the track, a few casters at 11m on the 10 o'clock line and a few chopped worms at the edge of the tins near the bush, I  didn't feed anything on my 10m up the shelf line at the start until I had gauged weather or not they wanted the bread if not I would start feeding squatt there. I started the match on a 3mm piece of bread on the 6m line and started to catch small Roach from the off, they were on the small side in the 1/2oz to 2oz bracket but I was happy to be catching so I got my head down and by the end of the first hour had 24 of them. I carried on catching for the second hour but my catch rate had slowed down a lot even after re-feeding so in an attempt to carry on catching I put in a pot of liquidized on the 10m line, after only half a dozen fish on the new line it was clear that there were more fish down the track in the deep water and by the end of the second hour I had put another 17 Roach in the net so I had 41 in the net. I re-feed both of my punch lines and left them alone for 10mins to settle while I had a quick look on my caster line where I had been feeding half a dozen caster every now and then for the first 2 hours, I had been on the caster for around 5mins when I had my first bite which was a 1oz Gudgeon I rebated and shipped out but as the float was settling the lock upstream had been opened signalling the first boat of the day. The canal began to settle down again when the barge appeared  around the corner from my left but as he got nearer he started to slow tight down and veer over towards the far bank where he was looking to pull over, not a problem I thought! the barge was full of coal some loose but most of it in blue plastic bags they moored up and began to offload a few bags for the cottages. The bow of the barge was virtually over the top of my caster line so I shipped back and picked up the bread rig for the 6m line but the canal was still moving, to my horror while the barge was offloading they had left the engine on tick-over which means the propeller was still turning making my peg resemble the river Severn with around 6ft of flood water on and about the same colour. After around 5mins I couldn't put up with it any longer as I could feel my blood beginning to boil my peg looked like a chocolate washing machine, I got up off my box and walked off down the canal towards Steve with a cup of coffee and a fag trying to calm down until the coal man done one. I stood behind Steve for 5mins before the barge finally went on its way in which time he had a 4oz Perch on the caster but because of the 3 moored up boats in-between us the coal boat had only affected 1 peg mine, I went back to my peg and sat there for another 5mins waiting for the colour and shit off the bottom to settle for I re-fed the peg again. To cut a long story short I caught next to nothing for the next 2 hours I tried everything to get catching again with every bait I had got from all over the canal but they all failed, I had 6 small Roach from the 6m line in the last 10mins as the fish had finally come back but it was too late and I ended the day with 54 fish that barge had totally wiped my peg out for 2 hours which had knackered any chance of me framing. When the scales came my fish went 3lb 2oz which I was disappointed with as I knew that the peg was worth 5lb+ there had been another couple of 3lb+ weights weighed in topped by Steve with a big 4lb+, on pegs 1-6 to my left around the corner Martin on peg 6 had got 81 fish for 5lb 4oz which put him in the lead, there was another 4lb+ weight before Phil on peg 3 had 5lb 4oz 8drams to give him the match win, there was another couple of 3lb+ weights on the first 2 pegs. I was a bit pissed off to say the least because I knew that my peg was worth at least a frame weight if not a match win, this is one of the main reasons I stopped fishing the canals for a couple of years as there are too many exterior factors that can ruin your days pleasure like boats, joggers, bikers, ramblers and dog shit which you don't get on your local commercial fishery.