So it was back to the canal for a group match, however,
this time with a difference as I was part of a team, myself, Tony and Rocky had
come together to make The Tidworth Tiddlers.
The breakfast was good, then after booking in it was a case of dishing
out bait to all who required! And then
the draw, I was nearest so did the draw, and it put myself on A5, Tony on B1
and Rocky on C7, these numbers mean nothing as they did to me at the time but….
I was 2 pegs off the swing bridge in Bishops Canning,
Tony was next to the bridge inn and Rocky was again next to the bridge in
Horton, looks like I might be drawing again! We bomb burst off to our respective
sections and I was met with the sight of John Dewberry, Chris Perry and Danny
Jones all in the car park and the section had the swing bridge in the middle. I
was looking straight away at 4th or 5th in the section as
I was basically competing against 4 end pegs and also the bend in the high
numbers is reknowned for the skimmers and hybrids that live there. Still I had
a job to do so heres how I did it:
There had been a lot of talk about how coloured the canal
was so I had set myself that I would be mostly squatt and worm fishing, this
however, was my first mistake as there was about 10-12 inches of visibility and
a lovely tinge to the canal. Seeing this I should have changed my plan but
because my heart was not truly set on today I went back to an experimenting
day.
I plumbed up a short line to fish bread on a new rig to me utilising
a 0.3g MB Marnhull SB, this float is designed for skimmer fishing with bread
and is fished with strung shot, in this case 24 no.13’s, to try and make the
most of any flow and to help work the bait. It is really designed for rock hard
northern canals, not the K&A, other than that it was no.3 elastic, a 0.10mm
mainline and 0.07mm bottom to a 20 B511 as usual.
The next line was the across squatt line, now in the past I
have tried to fish squatt at upto 14.5m but experience has now taught me that
the furthest you would want to loose feed that tiny maggot is about 11.5m, so
that is where I plumbed up my 0.3g MB Canal Diamond, 0.09 to 0.07 and a 22 B590
was set on no.2 elastic to prevent the fish from splashing in the shallower
water. Also I decided to set up a waggler for this line as I do not get to practice
it on the canal too often, I used my 10ft Commercial king Micro F1 waggler,
with a small Black magic reel loaded with 0.14mm mainline. The rig itself was a
3bb balsa canal waggler shotted with a bulk around the float and 3 no. 11’s
down the line, it was finished with a 0.07mm bottom and a size 22 Colmic B957
hook.
Finally I set up a worm rig to fish at 13m down the track of
the canal to the right, this was a 0.3g Frenzee FP500 on 0.16mm mainline to a
0.12mm hooklength and a 16 B560, this was rigged on yellow reflex elastic
through 1 section of my Z9.
So I was just about ready at the all in, even after walking
up and down the bank moaning for thirty minutes and helping John in the next
peg hide his platform,
Although he will say it’s his platform, John is actually
being supported by 3ft of roach in his 4ft margin!!!!
Anyway at the all-in I fed half a cup of loose bread at 5m,
4 balls of groundbait laced with squatt, pinkie and caster at 11.5m and then 10
worms chopped quite fine with 30 caster down the canal at 13m. I then shipped out on to the punch line and
the float settled before burying, a quick strike saw plenty of no.3 elastic
pour out of the pole tip and after a brief struggle a 5oz roach was in the net.
Next put in the float settled and dipped, a 3oz roach and again and again but
fish number 5 was about ½ an ounce. This was the start of my practice day as
had decided that I wold not allow myself just to sit on tiny fish so I cupped
in a quarter of a cup of loose bread again, and it worked with 2 more bread
roach before the tiny fish arrived again. Over the first 40 minutes I fed 5
times but had caught 15-20 good sized bread roach and a couple of small hybrids
all on my original line, but at this point the line died completely so before I
went across I decided to try the worm line. This was a good call with 2 3-4oz
roach coming to hand (well it was proper gear) and a small perch it was soon
time to move on again and I went out on the pole over the sqautt line. Immediately
I could tell that this was not right with numbers of tiny fish smashing my
pinkie on the pole, so I made a decision to start feeding pinkie, cut out the
squatt and also to try the waggler.
The waggler was a god send as I was able to explore all
around the swim and pick up odd better fish, and although John next to me had
been catching slowly but steadily all day at this point I was keeping up and
possibly even a little in front, but then disaster. A Kayak, like the 3 before paddled
down the canal except after this one had passed straight over the top of my far
bank and track line, (impressive!!) I could not get a bite and it was the same
for John to my right. I managed to coax a few fish to start feeding again by
cutting out loose feed and feeding small hard balls of groundbait and then
casting the waggler all around it, I was casting very regularly as most bites
were coming on the drop or just as the float settled.
Coming into the last hour John hit another gear catching
small fish quite quick off a new line he had just started so I decided that it
was big or bust, I fed a backup cup of bread at 5m then put 4 balls of
groundbait over at 11.5m followed by 50 worms and a quarter of a cup of caster
on the track line. Going on the bread line I managed 3 fish before having to
top up and then another 1, I tried throwing nuggets of bread at the float but
that just proved how much I need to work on that!! I went across on the wag, squatt and worm
rigs alternating but apart from a couple of see through roach that was it and
my match finished with a whimper.
John was admitting to 2KG, but I had that so he had to have
had 3? I was confident of 2KG but was kicking myself for listening to other
people and not deciding to assess the peg when I got to it. I should have just
fished an aggressive bread and worm match, but hindsight is the best angler I
know so it was over to the scales man.
This little lot was enough for 2.240Kg, it was between 70-90
fish and John had taken 157 but he only weighed 2.67Kg so he had done me by
just over a pound but I was better at the guess for his weight, Danny Jones to
my left had struggled for 710g but the best news was that the pegs that John
and I thought would smash it did not produce and even Pez was left with only
1.7Kg from one off the end. But the good
news did not stop there as both Tony and Rocky had also picked up section
seconds, with Rocky pipping Tony to 3rd overall by a only 400g. This did however have a down side:
This is Tony receiving his pound for doing me on weight, well done mucka I will have it back in a couple of weeks:-) Golden pond at the weekend so that may be a
fun bit of swash buckling, till then tight lines.
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