Staffs-Worc canal Castlecroft Sunday 2/12/12

This was the last Halesowen match of the year on our own stretch of the canal at Castlecroft nr Wolverhampton, the temperature had cooled down a lot over the last week and most of the still-waters had started to freeze over luckily this stretch rarely freezes due to a slow and steady tow on it. We all know that if the Chub feed there are one or two pegs you need to draw and if you don't draw one it can be impossible to do well with small fish, I drew peg 35 which used to be a good Chub peg where I have even broke the ice a couple of years ago on a fur & feather and still caught Chub but the Ivy bush that used to hold the fish has been cut back and the last time we put the peg in there were no Chub caught from it.
I spent most of the match fishing punch down the track catching small Roach and having a look over by what is left of the ivy bush with caster and worm now and then for a Chub but never had a bite over all day, there were a few walking around saying the couldn't get a single bite. I ended the match with 45 Roach for 3lb 13oz while the 2 lads to my left never had a bite and the next one to catch was Barry with just 4 small Roach, Martin had drew peg 17 where Shaun had 28lb of big fish off last year and annihilated the match with 16lb of Chub to 4lb Perch over 2lb and Roach to 1lb this must be one of the best big fish pegs on the whole canal. I ended up 3rd overall with Shaun having 4lb 5oz of punch fish from a peg in-front of the old club for some reason the only Chub that had fed were on peg 17 and no one else had one? Well done to Martin Yardley who not only won the match on the day but sealed the averages the mini league and to top it all he was sitting on one of the days bonus pegs so emptied that as well just in time for Christmas!!! ( I asked him in the pub after the match to pull me 6 numbers for the lotto but he declined, well done Mart).