Well it could rain and rain as much as it liked in the week and on Saturday, and I didn't care personally as I was fishing the canal lol. However, I was concerned for my team mates on the ATWL up on the Avon around Chippenham / Melksham, and boy did we get some short sharp torrential rain on Saturday morning! Got some bad news from Mark Harper that our bloodworm and joker order was messed up and we weren't going to have any, oh dear.
I was preparing for the last round of the Commercial House League on Saturday, some lighter elastics needed in the top sets, remake rigs, and tie a few hook lengths, oh and not forgetting the liquidizing of bread and selecting some nice slices for hook bait. Time well spent I hoped, could I get that elusive end peg draw the next day which was sure to be worth extra fish? Well we would see, but I had to endure Boris tell us we are going back into lockdown for a month (at least I guess) and so this match would be the last one for a while then..
Sunday morning the very short drive to Cadbury Heath Social Club, a bit of grub, and chat with the team and onto the draw. A section was at Claverton going down to Bath, E section was the end section going out of the town. F section was up at Limpley and I fancied that. We managed to get a little bit of spare bloodworm and joker on the morning, I had an apple sized ball and about 30 bloodworm, so not much but might be handy. Draw done and I was on A2, booger, one off the end peg, and so close yet so far I expected. We didn't spend any time discussing our draw today and just got on with it. I parked up in the field at Claverton and then set off on the nice walk to my peg, about 10 mins of trolley pushing. As I got to my peg I saw Andy Britt on A1, one of the best canal anglers in this area on the end peg and I was already looking at a next peg bashing lol. This part of the canal has not been fished for quite a while, and so nobody knew how it would fish but I hoped quite well. After a little bit of bankside foliage gardening I got to the canal edge, the water was a bit dirty but not surprising after the rain.
The peg had a nice depth at top set plus two, and I set this as my bread line, two rigs for this, a positive 4x16 with 16 N40 to 0.10 and 4X14 with 18 N10 to 0.08. A 4x12 for fishing a squatt line at 11.5m, a 4x12 with 0.08 to 22 N10 for across, and a caster rig and a chopped worm rig. There was no cover across in front. but if I went 14m left and 14.5m right I could get to some brambles.
The match started at 10:15 and I fed my bread at top set plus two and nothing else, I wanted to get a feel for how many fish were in the peg / feeding. The bread was not hectic for the first 5 minutes, as I was on the positive rig hoping for an early skimmer, nothing happened but I missed two bites and felt the lighter rig was needed. Onto that and this improved matters, with a little more slow fall for the hook bait the roach took the bread punch positively with bites coming as the float cocked on the last dropper. The roach I caught were a nice size for the canal, 1oz with a few 3oz fish. I was enjoying myself, but was soon behind Andy on the end peg who landed a roach of 12oz and another of 10oz. Still blinkers on for me as I could not worry about him really, and for 45 minutes I caught roach and then from a bite a chuck it just stopped, not a bite! Very strange, no sign of slowing, just from catching well to stopped, but other than Andy it turned out it was the same for the lads above me, Steve Skelton, Andy Cranston and Ivan Currie.. some caught for a little longer but when it died it died.
I put dome gbait and squatts at 11.5m and fed squatt over the top, put a small ball of joker and casters across at 11pm, and worm and casters well off to my right across. I tried to revive the bread, but it was a lost cause, onto the squatt line with a pinkie on the hook where I had two roach in two drops, size wise like the bread fish, but the bites ended on pinkie, a couple more smaller fish on squatt and same again bites ended. Dropped in over over the worm and caster with a caster, missed a bite then nothing, on with a worm, nothing, tried red maggot and had a couple of small perch, then nothing. Pattern forming here, so no surprise when I went over my joker / caster line and caught 3 fish and that was that! After this was really rock hard, and Andy on the end peg was struggling now to get a bite, he even went for walk to see how the section was fishing, and it seemed he was winning it with Ivan Currie maybe in second as he had a few small skimmers early.
I chopped and changed for a couple of hours without much going in the net, in my mind I needed to catch a lot more fish as Ivan and Andy were both in my division, so with no small fish showing I tried to catch a lump on the worm or caster, but I only had 3 or 4 perch that were 2oz at best. I fed the rest of the little joker I had across again, and hoped I might get a few late fish, trying bloodworm over this resulted in a few five to the ounce perch, waste of time, so back on bigger baits. Nothing was happening, then about 15 mins to go after trying all the lines I had a roach over the joker line on maggot, and then another, then nothing, put a pinkie on and had 2 or 3 more. Match over.
We weighed he section from peg 1 where Shane Caswell had 1lb 8oz, then Cam Mallin had 2lb 3oz, Ivan Currie did well with 4lb 2oz, and then Andy Cranston had 4lb 8oz of roach, Steve Skelton put 2lb 8oz on the weigh sheet, then my turm, and 4lb 11oz. Andy was last and no surprise he took the section out with 7lb 12oz, nicely done. I ended up second so had to be be happy with that, and very happy to beat Andy Cranston who is a great angler.
We then walked back up the canal and helped each other up the steep slope over the bridge, everyone was helping each other. It is then a up hill walk to the car park, and Andy Cranston decided to run with his trolley, so I did too. As we approached the cattle grid Andy started to slow and I powered on and over took him and was first past the line, lol, well my gym time seems to be working it seems.
Back at the club and team had done pretty well it seemed, team sheet below. Shaun and Paul wining their sections.
Winner on the day today with an amazing 32lb 12oz was Mike Withey. Mike was the other end peg at Claverton, and I heard he caught bream and skimmers next to a barge on his own bank, amazing!
2nd Jerry Pocock 13lb 11oz, lots of hybrids
3rd Darren (out of retirement) Gillman 11lb 14oz (end peg at Limpley)
4th Ben Mathews 11lb 8oz
5th Mark Harper 9lb 10oz
On the team front Thatchers won the day with 14 points, and that meant we won the league.
A div, 1st Thatchers 87, 2nd Bathampton A 67, 3rd Sensas Nomads 65
B div 1st M&N electrical 73, Midland Spinner 72, Bathampton B 70
Individual Champion Paul Isaacs (Thatchcers)
Knockout winner Kev Boltz
Well done everyone who fished, and thank you to league organisers Mike and Nicola Goodhind, Andy Britt and Vince Lunn. The league went well and despite the covid restrictions we managed well. It looks like this is the last match I will fish now for a while until this lockdown is over again. I hope everyone can stay safe and still wet a line if you fancy it.
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