Staffs-Wors canal Sunday 25/3/12

This was the first Cradley Heath club match of the year booked on the Staffs-Worc canal at Hinksford and after coming 2nd here a couple of weeks ago with 6lb I was looking forward to this one that was until I found out that there had been a league match on the stretch the day before which was going to make it very hard natural venues cannot take the same battering as a commercial pool, 6lb had won the match on here the day before and as we had put 3 pegs in above the bridge that hadn't been fished the day before these would be the pegs to draw peg 1 being the peg that had won the match 2 weeks ago. I drew out peg 15 from the bag and when I asked Gary the pegger-outer where this would put me he said I was in the middle of the reeds WHAT I said the reeds what are the reeds in for they are crap there was only 3lb off these pegs 2 weeks ago and they hadn't been fished the day before, he said " I know they are crap but someone has got to draw them" what a F*****g attitude I wouldn't mind if there was no room but when I got to my peg there was 50yards to my left before the next peg on the bird table peg and beyond Kev on the next peg to me to my right a least another 50 yards if not more until the next peg we couldn't even see the the next angler! There was no need at all to put these pegs in we had enough room to miss these pegs out and put them on the bend where Kev had a 8lb from a couple of years ago these were missed out, by this time I had lost the plot and didn't want to fish as I knew we were in for a crap day even before we started we had been beaten by the draw this was one of those times that I wished I had learned to drive as I would have gone straight home without fishing!
I won't bore you with the details of this one as apart from being fished the day before I think today marked the arrival of the boating season due to this being the first day of British Summer Time and the changing of the clocks we had a boat a chuck all day, one of our guy's counted 24 of them! I ended the day with 2lb 8oz of small fish either on squatt or bread punch Kev won the bottom section with 3lb 7oz thanks to 2 bonus Perch for around a 1lb. No guessing for where the 1,2,3 came from yes the 3 pegs that had not been fished the day before as I predicted, Steve Robson had won the match from peg 3 with 6lb+ 2nd & 3rd were both 5lb+ weights from pegs 1 & 2 I wish the lottery numbers were as easy to predict! Stav had 2lb 10oz from a peg above the power cables and on the way back home we both said that we had been cured of the canals
until the weather cools back down around October time when all the boats have gone back to sleep, so that's it for the canals bring on the carp pools its time to catch some fish.