AAF Gp 2 Match 3, K & A, Bishops Cannings

So we were back on the Kennet and Avon canal at All Cannings and until I saw the water I was looking forward to it, even with temperatures on the dashboard dropping to -5^oC on the drive up. I did the draw for the team and managed to get all 3 pegs within 4 of the end, not bad I thought for a team draw however my peg was the 5^th longest walk of the day (Thank god for Barrows).

C10 was my destination for the day and on arriving I discovered it was exactly the same peg that I had fished in our last match there in October, then I finished with a second in section beaten by the end peg, today I had to see if I could go one better. I plumbed up a punch rig, consisting of a 0.6g DS14 float on 0.11 mainline and a 0.08mm hooklength to a 20 B511, at  my 3+2 line straight out in front in about 4 ½ ft of water. I also set up 2 more punch rigs for the far bank consisting of 4X10 and 4X12 KC Karpa F1 floats with the line and hook the same as the track rig and these were set at 24” and 36” respectively. I did not plumb these up as I wanted to rest that area of the swim for as long as possible due to the fact that it was snug pegging in my area, in fact the quote of the day came from the guy whom had pegged the stretch with ‘ The pegging is a bit tight around here.’ (Like I hadn’t noticed).

The all in was called and out went a tangerine sized ball of liquidised bread onto my track line. No sooner as I had fed it that I thought it might be too much, as I had alluded to the water was like Evian in that I could see the bottom in about 3 feet of water. That coupled with the severe frost the night before I suddenly thought I had made a big mistake and I was right, after 30 minutes I had my only bite from what should have been my main catching line so drastic action was called for. I plumbed my track rig an extra section up to my right and then fed a 50p sized ball of licky on that line, within 10 minutes another 3 Roach had joined their friend in the keepnet. This didn’t last long and after around an hour and a half I found myself finding several 3 ft deep spots along the far bank and by feeding, fishing and then starting a new line I managed to sneak a few more fish into the net over the next few hours. The all out could not come quick enough with people packing up all around me well before time, I had the honour of weighing in and started from the last peg on the stretch. He had 880g, and then there was a procession of two or three perch bags then my 660g, another line of lower weights until I had a 40yd walk between two pegs caused by a boat and the guy in the next peg had taken 980g.

So third in section was a good team result and I was happy with that until I found out the other two had not fared so well, we came in 6^th out of 11 teams oh well.

Lessons learnt: Don’t forget a worm line; both the guys who beat me did so with perch ,use a suitable colour float tip, yellow tip against greeny yellow reeds = invisible float.