Staffs-Worcs canal Castlecroft Sunday 28/11/10

Hi folks, today's match is the fur & feather with one of my clubs Halesowen A.C which has been switched from the canal at Hinksford due to it being froze over, the clubs own stretch of canal at Castlecroft nr Wolverhampton has been known not to freeze due to a bit of flow and the fact that it is only around a mile away from some waterworks. I was hoping for a better draw than the 3 times of have fished the stretch before as i have managed to draw the same peg 7 every time without catching much off it, it was the same as the last 3 times i had been to Hinksford until 2 weeks ago drawing on the first set of reeds 3 times on the bounce and the first time i did draw off them i won the match so i was hoping for a different peg today. With 23 hardy ( saft, stupid no brains) blokes assembled at the Green Man pub in Swindon for breakie we all must want our lumps reading as the overnight temperatures went down to -8'c god it was cold, we done the draw in the pub before shooting off to the venue and at last i got a different peg 35 there were shouts of jammy git as i had drawn the chub peg that has won the last 2 club match's on the stretch and it was a boun's peg so the pressure would be on. I missed the last match on here which was won with 9lb comprising of 6 small chub off this peg but i did fish it in March when JB won off it with 27lb of chub, my only concern was how cold it had gone with my local canal first freezing on Thursday now 1 1/2 inches thick the cold snap had come fast and the weather man said we had got it for a least 2 weeks, we were lucky as most of the rest of the country was covered in snow. Stav had cried off saying it was to cold and fancied a day in warm (wimp) he had fished the last club match on here and drawn peg 36 next to the winner also it is a good walk, we got to the canal and there was some ice patches on it so i loaded the barrow up and started to walk and walk and walk!. The pegs on our stretch are well spaced out but there are also a couple of sets of overhead power cables which we have to miss out and a bridge down it the 20's but we cannot get access to it even to drop the tackle off as it is a private road, it was a long walk but at least i had a look at the stretch for the first time and i have to say that there were some very fishy looking pegs but i was more worried about my fingers dropping off as they were exposed pushing my barrow. When i eventually got to my peg you can see why the chub live there, there is an overhanging ivy bush that comes out some 3-4m from the bank and must stretch 15m wide with the peg smack in the middle of them. There was some talk after the match to re-peg the stretch so that we can put 2 pegs on the ivy so they can share the fish which i think would be a good idea as it is certainly long enough, to reach the edge of the ivy i only had to use around 8m of pole but i put the no7 on to reach 2 gaps in the ivy at 10 & 2 o'clock. The ice was a too thick to break with the pole so i lent Steve Robson's ice breaker who had drawn peg 36 to break it out right ( i had left my breaker in the shed as i was told all last winter the canal never froze!), on the other side of me was our PET Geordie Phil who i work with so at least we would have a laugh if we couldn't catch. I was starting to fear the worst as if you fished last weekend you will know what i am talking about it was bloody cold, after cooling down from the long walk and the ice breaking session the weak bit of sun that was out was blocked off by some trees on the opposite side so i had to sit in the shade all day. The next thing i was worried about was that i only had 1 top kit with heavy elastic in all my others were in a tube in the house i had taken them out to put my canal tops in so the 13hollo i had would have to be sacrificed and tightened up, i set up the following rigs to tackle the peg.
Rig 1, i made this up on the bank as the chub rigs i carry are for fishing right over with small in-line dibber floats with short line but the ivy was that far out into the canal you have got 4ft of water! I fished a 4 x 10 Preston pink float, 0.14 line straight through to a 16 b611 with my tightened 13 hollo elastic.
Rig 2, a 4 x 12 Drennan caster original 0.08 straight through to a 18 pr322 with a no4 elastic which would be fished at 4m down the track on caster.
With the long walk and ice breaking all the guys at our end missed around the first 10mins of the match before we were ready to fish, as i had drawn the flier and a bouns peg i was only going to fish caster and worm leaving the bread, squatt & pinkie in the bag ( good job as i had to give Geordie some of my slices of bread for the hook as he had left his on the kitchen table).
I put half a pot of chopped worm on my left-hand swim and around 20 casters on my right swim then just throwing 3-4 casters at 4m, Steve & Pet both started on the bread with an instant reaction both having a roach first put-in. After around 5mins i had my first bite a 2oz perch then i had 3 more fish in quick succession 1 roach and the rest perch, Pet had carried on catching on the bread but Steve had 2 roach then bumped the third which stopped him from getting anymore bites. The bites started to slow up on the worm so i had a look on the caster line while i put a bit more worm in on the other line, with no bites on the caster i was back on the worm line which produced 2 more perch over the next 30mins this set the tone for most of the day with the worm line catching most of my fish and only 1 4 oz roach on the caster. I was missing a few bites on the worm and bumping the odd perch off due to the tight elastic by there was no sign of the chub that live on the peg maybe the -8 had put them down too far? Boy was it cold as the trees on the far bank were stopping the week sunshine coming through it was freezing everything all my bait worm & casters were freezing in my bait boxes, Steve to my right had been in the sun all day talking the mick by saying that he wished hadn't forgot his sun tan lotion but at least he wasn't catching with no more fish after those 2 first roach. Pet had managed around a dozen roach on the punch before he started to struggle for bites, we had heard that there loads of guys that were dry with the best being Stu with around a 1lb of roach on the punch and a few better perch he was admitting to 2lb after 3 hours. I thought that i had around 1 1/2lb in the net at this point and i was struggling to get a bite from any of my 3 lines even my light fed caster down the track rig failed to produce a bite, with around an hour to go i had a bite on the worm which pulled a few inches of tight elastic out it was a nice 12oz bonus perch lying in the bottom of my frozen solid landing net. On the next put-in i had another bite hoping for another big perch i lifted into the fish but it was to late by the time i realized it wasn't a perch and shipped the pole back the unforeseen beast had gone through the trees on the far side, i applied as much pressure as i could but all i could see was the tree branches moving then nothing it had gone solid all i could do was pull for a break. Shit! I quickly made up another rig and pulled another 1ft of elastic out to try and stop another one if i got the chance, i couldn't get a bite on the worm so i switch to the caster line which buried straight away and i managed to get this one away from the sanctuary of the ivy bush soon i was looking at a 1 1/2lb chub in the net which made me feel a lot better. 5mins later and i was in again but i parted company with this one as i threw the pole back at break neck speed maybe i had tightened the elastic too much? That was the end of the action for me as i didn't get another bite the last half hour but maybe you could understand why, it was now very cold as the sun had gone down behind the hedge row you could feel the temperature dropping like a stone as dusk approached. JB came down the canal with the scales saying it had fished hard for a lot of people with a lot of dry nets Kev on peg 39 had gone dry, Steve next to me had 15oz with 1 small 8oz chub & 3 bits, my net went 3lb 15oz which JB said it should be enough to take home the coin, Pet to my left had caught early on the punch then adding a few more on the pinkie later to weigh 2lb 4oz. The best weight above the bridge was Stu with 2lb 12oz but that was only the bottom end so i would have to wait until i got back to the car park to see if i had done enough, when i got back to the car park John Bab who i had traveled with said he had the best weight from the middle of the stretch with 3lb 2oz so i had won the match, the top end of the match length by the boats had not fished at all with just odd fish and lots of dry nets. John had caught on worm and then on squatt over the top with 1 bouns perch and a few roach, i can not remember being so cold as you could have cut my little fingers off after pushing the barrow back to the car park in the now semi darkness. I was well pleased to have won the match as that's now 2 wins on both my clubs fur & feathers both on the bouns pegs, i am just glad that the 2 chub i lost have not cost me winning the match today or i would have been well happy with myself for leaving my heavy carp kits in the house. At least i will get some brownie points with" her in doors " as that's 2 turkeys and a leg of pork for the Christmas dinner table mega points! All i need now is a couple of 24 packs of stella and i will be well set for the festive period. I must mention our Pet on his virgin punch fishing session after he had drove everyone mad all week asking questions about how to fish the punch even getting one of the customers in the shop to do him a bag of liquidized bread, he's been nagging me to mention him so well done for coming 4th Pet don't forget my 10% of the winnings for lending my hook bread?