Staffs-Worcs canal Hinksford Sunday 31/10/10

This was just a practice session for me & Stav as we both have match's coming up soon on this stretch from Hinksford bridge to the navigation pub, both the two clubs we are in Cradley Heath & Halesowen have there fur & feather match's on here Stav also has a match on here next Saturday with another club he is in. This stretch of canal has been fishing well over the last few weeks as a few guys we know have been running a league on here and they have been catching over 10lb+ on some of the pegs, most of the weights consist of roach,perch & gudgeon with the odd chub, tench & dace putting in an appearance now and then. Most of the usual canal methods work here with squatt, caster & hemp catching plenty of fish but maggot & punch can catch fish at different times of the year, there tends to be not too many match's on here during the warmer months as the boat traffic on here can be a nightmare so booking a club match on here between Easter & late September/early October is a no no. I won't go through all the rigs as this wasn't a proper match although there was the usual £1 side bet between us plus the normal bragging & mickey taking later, for bait i had brought 1/2 a pint each of red squatt, caster & hemp plus a few pinkies for the hook i had also got my usual mix of supercup & supermatch g/bait. We decided to go a bit further down the stretch as the first 2 pegs by the bridge are absolute fliers and have won plenty of match's in the past and we felt that they would fish themselves, the next few pegs are good but you are sitting right on the towpath and as we are only practicing we decided to go a bit further down where you are sitting on your own bit of grass verge with the towpath a few meters behind you so we could get away from the bikers & joggers.
I put 2 balls of g/bait just down the shelf in around 2 1/2ft of water at 11.5 m which is a good depth as Stav was only on the next peg but only had half that depth on the same line, i fed a hemp line at 13m off at an angle of 10 o'clock with the same depth as my squatt rig then feed a caster line down the track at 6-8m on the same angle as the hemp line. I was into small roach & gudgeon straight from the off on the squatt line loose feeding 20-30 squatt over the top every put-in, after around 8-10 fish Stav was still to get off the mark so i told him to get his £1 warmed up ready to go into my pocket! I was happy catching squatt fish for the first hour most of them were in the 1-3oz bracket with a few really small roach holding the float up before the styl's had time to settle, on the hour mark i switched to the hemp line which i had been priming from the start with 6-8 grains of seed and had a 4oz roach first drop in followed by 4 fish of similar size over the next 20mins. I was missing a few bites on the seed despite coming off the deck to see if they were up in the water but it didn't work there were a few fish there but they had not settled yet so i went back to the squatt line, before i came off the squatt line i had put another ball of g/bait in and when i started catching again most of the fish were of a slightly better stamp proper dumpy roach. What i started to notice was that the more loose squatt i fed over the top the more pairs of eyes i was catching, what i decided to do was feed a ball of g/bait ( golf-ball size) with a few squatts in to get some bait on the deck. I stopped loose feeding then i would catch mainly dumpy roach for around 10mins before putting another ball in and leaving it to settle for a few mins while having a look on the hemp line, every time i done this it worked then i started to catch regular fish on the hemp including a surprise 8-10oz perch i also had a couple of roach in the 6-8oz bracket. Stav was catching on the squatt but couldn't match the size of the fish i was catching getting plagued by eyes & gonks, after around 3 hours Stav had a look on the caster line but missed a bite and then had a gonk on it so i decided to have a look on the shell too. First drop i had a 6oz perch then a roach around the same size next drop Stav said he wasn't playing anymore as everything i tried had turned to gold including his golden nugget, for the rest of the session i switch between the caster & hemp line giving up on the squatt as i was having too much fun on the other two even managing a 10-12oz chub on the hemp just before we called it a day after the normal 5 match hours.
I can honestly say that this was the first time i had enjoyed a day on the canal for a long time as i don't fish them as much as i used to a few years ago due to bad draws and too many things outside of your control that can ruin your day, by that i mean boats, joggers, dog walkers ( or dog shite) that you don't get on the pools i have had good days on the canal ruined by boats crossing in your peg or the one that thinks he's got to drive Stirling Moss up the canal straight over the line your catching on. I had got sick of the bad draws as i have drawn the same peg on this stretch the last 3 times on the bounce which i have never seen a bag of fish come off i think 3lb is the best i have had off it, on Halesowen's own stretch at Castlecroft nr Wolverhampton i have only fished it 3 times since we took it over and drawn the same peg there 3 times! with around the same result as Hinksford which i know hasn't even won a section since we took it over ( so why do they peg it???). It was a good day as we only had 5-6 boats all day and asi ship down the canal as opposed to across the towpath the joggers & bikers didn't bother me, without any scales to weigh the fish we guessed my fish at easy double figures probably 11-12lb and i reckoned Satv's at 4-5lb although he said more like 6lb i think he was just trying to save face as i had give him a right good battering off the next peg. ( sorry m8).
I hope our match's on here are as good as today but it will all depend on if the weather holds out or not as if we have a few frosts & the boats stop the canal losses its colour & becomes harder as winter proper sets in.