Staffs-Worcs canal Hinksford Sunday 13/3/11

Today saw us on the Staffs-Worc canal at Hinksford for the first Cradley Heath club match of the year and i was hoping for a repeat performance of the last match of the year on here our fur& feather where i ended up on top with 7lb odd. We all assembled in the Green Man pub at Swindon for the draw and when i pulled out peg 2 again ( the same peg number i had drawn on the fur & feather) i was well happy, a quick word to Ollie reveled that this time they had only put 1 peg above the bridge a opposed to 5 the last time so i was on a totally different peg. I soon realized that i was on the first peg below the bridge a very good peg (flier) and one i had wanted to draw for a few years now, with shouts of jammy bugger ( or words to that effect) we made our way down the canal the only thing that worried me about this peg is that it is a good peg but everyone knows it and with it next to the bridge gets fished very often, i was just hoping that no one had fished it the day before and gave them a hammering as canal fish will not take it 2 days on the trot unlike commercial fisheries. The peg was around 20m below Hinksford bridge on what is called the caravan stretch as there is a static caravan park right behind you which can limit you on shipping back as the residents don't like you sticking carbon over there garden fence's, the peg itself has a nice looking bush opposite that looks very fishy and there is the odd resident chub that comes off the peg but it is also renowned for big roach that live down the track. Stav had a winning 10lb+ bag off this peg a couple of years ago on the big white maggot down the track on a freezing cold day when a few of us were struggling to get bites on bloodworm & joker! He had also drawn a good peg today down by the power cables so it was the roach i was going to fish for today as sitting for chub that might not feed is not my idea fun so with a plan formulating i set up 4 rigs to attack the peg.
Rig 1, punch rig at 10m just down the shelf in 2 1/2ft of water, 4 x 10 tubertini styx float, 0.08 line to 0.07 h/l, 22 b511 hook shotted with a bulk of no10 stlys & 2 o7 styl droppers, no3 vespe elastic.
Rig 2, squatt rig at 11.5m in-front of the bush in 2 ft of water, 4 x 8 float the same as above, same line as above with a 22 pr31 hook, shotted with no7 styls strung out and again the same elastic.
Rig 3, caster rig at 10m just coming out of the track at a 10 o'clock angle towards the bridge in 4ft of water, 4 x 12 Drennan caster original float, 0.08 line straight through to a 18 Preston pr322 hook, shotted with strung out 10 & 7 styls and no4 elastic.
Rig 4, chub rig, 13m to the side of the bush in a bay at 1 o'clock, i won't bore you with this rig as i never used it during the match.
For bait i had brought with me 1/2 pint red squatt, 1/2 caster, a loaf of liquidized bread, about a 1/4kg left over from the last match, a few mixed pinkies for the hook and slices of bread for the hook.
On the whistle i cupped in a pot bread on the 10m line, put around 20 casters on the angled line and put some chopped worm & caster in on the chub line, after sorting all that out i started to fire squatts in over the back of the bread line against the bush. It took around 2 minutes to get my first bite a 1oz roach on a 3mm punch and i was off and running, the next 3 put-ins all produced fish of a similar size before i netted a 3oz'er. Over the course of the first hour i managed to keep a few bites coming catching mainly small roach with odd better stamp fish here and trying to keep the line going for as long as possible, with the hour mark just gone the first boat of the day came through which slowed sport down a lot and even 5mins after it had gone through and the canal had cleared again i couldn't catch at all even after re-feeding. A switch to the squatt line was called for and just as i was shipping out with the rig a friend of mine Neil Gator (Ali for short! get it?) came over the bridge for a rattle(chat), i lay the rig in fired a dozen squatts over the top the float slid away and a nice 4oz perch was my first victim. While i was rattling to Ali for 10 mins i was getting a bite a chuck on the squatt, with roach, perch and odd gudgeon all coming to the net Ali said he had a walk down the bottom end of the stretch before coming up here and that i was catching better than anyone he had spoke to. When Ali had gone i decided to get my head down and just carry on catching what i could on the squatt trying to keep something going in the net, i was constantly moving the float up and down as the fish were coming off the bottom to get to the bait first. With 2 hours gone bites started to slow down a bit and a quick look back on the punch produced a couple of fish as i rested the squatt line but bites were now at a premium, i thought at this point i had got 4-5lb and it was looking good as long as i could keep bites coming. After resting the squatt line for 15mins in an attempt to build the fishes confidence up and get them back on the deck by feeding less i had another look on this line, 3 fish in 3 put-ins looked to have solved the problem but the soon vanished and i was left wondering what was going on as the fish seemed to there one minute and gone the next. With the match now 2 3/4 hours old i decided to have a look on the caster line as another rest for the squatt line was called for, i decided to give it 10mins as not to waste too much time on it if bites were not forthcoming. With the 10min limit nearly over and only i big gonk to show for it the float sailed away and a better fish was hooked a nice 6oz roach was put in the net, a few minutes later the same again but this time a good perch around the same size as the roach was netted. I was enjoying this as i love catching caster fish as there is no better feeling than watching a no4 elastic stream from the end of the pole as others around you are catching small fish, bite no4 on the caster and i was connected to a much better fish which at first i thought was a chub but when i got it under control by the net it turned just before netting to reveal a silver flank, i was praying for the hook to hold and breathed a sigh of relief when it hit the net i was looking at a roach i estimated around 1 1/2lb RESULT! A better sight i had not seen in a long time ( better than a 10lb carp any day), i stayed on the caster for around another 45mins before i was now no longer getting bites at all in that time i had managed another 3 good fish 1 i estimated at just under a pound mark. There were a few kids on the bridge shouting and mucking around plus a couple of boats had gone through which i think helped to unsettle the fish, i have noticed over the years that you seem to catch caster fish better on the staffs-worc when the canal is flowing under it's natural tow which is upset by the amount of boats going up and down the locks. If you can fish the caster around 3inch over-depth and just inch the bait through slowing it down to a virtual standstill you will get more bites on this canal, i was now getting no bites at all on any of my lines and even a short 5mins on the chub line with a big worm on failed to produce a bite which was very frustrating as i knew the fish were there. I had to wait until the last 10mins of the match before anymore action as the canal had settled down from the boats and the locks opening, the canal was back on its own steady gentle flow and i managed 3 more caster fish in the 6oz bracket before the all out was sounded. I was very happy with the way i had fished the match and reckoned i had got 9-10lb but just a little frustrated as i thought that on the right day the peg would be worth a lot more. When i had packed in news came up from the bottom of the stretch that it had fished well again with 2 weights over 9lb and lots of 5lb+ weights, John Billingham was leading the pack with 9lb 10oz from a peg in narrows and Kev Clarke with 9lb 6oz from down by the sandstone rock. When i pulled my net out i was hoping there was enough to take top spot and i was well pleased when the scales read 10lb 14oz but there was still 1 guy John Babbington left to weigh in who had virtually pleasure fishing on his own above the bridge, John had a good 7lb+ so that gave me my first match win of the year. It was good to win the first club match of the year after winning the last match of the year on the same stretch, the stretch had fished well again with 4lb 12oz only good enough for 12th place, Stav had 6lb odd off his flier draw above the power cables claiming only squatt fish and not being able to find any bonus fish. It was a good match for most that always ends up with a couple of beers in the Bush pub at the end of the road (just to be sociable you understand!).