Div 1 National, New Junction Canal, 06/08/11

Div 1 National, New Junction Canal

I got to my peg nice and early, set up with no rush and wasn’t even phased when Alan Scotthorne sat in the peg to my left, I was confident in my approach as we Team Army had spent a full week up there practising and we had a good plan.

The squatt line would be fished at a sensible distance looking for 9ft, I set up 3 rigs for this line, 1: a 1.25g DS14H on 0.11. to 0.08 and a 22 B511 on no.5 Preston through 3 sections for bagging. 2: a 0.6g DS14 same mainline but a 0.07mm bottom and a 22 B511 this time with no.3 elastic through 2 sections and finally 3: a 0.3g Inter 3 float on the same line and elastic as the last rig but a 20 B511 for hemp, the shotting patterns were a bulk and 3 no.10 in 30cm for the bagging rig, a bulk and 5 X no.13 for the normal rig and then spread styls on the Hemp rig.

I also set up a 14.5m worm line that was on 0.15mm to 0.13 and a 16 Drennan Wide Gape hook, and the same line was used on an inside line worm rig for fishing in and around the weedbeds 5m out. The Bomb rod was set up again and finally a 2.5m whip for fishing under my feet for perch.

My match however, was a disaster with my balled in groundbait being the wrong plan, I lost the only 2 Roach I hooked on my first 2 drops and then it was a struggle for the rest of the day. In the end I had 4 perch from the squatt line, 1 on the tip, 1 on the short worm line and 1 on the long worm line for a grand total of 300g. Alan to my left had 1.320Kg as he found a few roach on bread at 16m in the last hour and the local guy to my right, had 1.300Kg including a skimmer on his squatt line and about 20 small perch. The Army came in around 25^th so fortunately my result had been carried but we had 3 blow outs and 7 good results, always next year on the Bristol Avon!!

Inter Corps Championship, New Junction Canal 22/07/11

This is a team event consisting of 8 teams of 6 anglers all descending on a section of the New Junction Canal near Doncaster, I was team captain for the Royal Signals and with a little help had come up with a team plan would see us utilising several areas of the swim. Evan with last minute personnel changes the team was ready to go on the day with what I thought was a reasonable chance of a decent result. I drew a couple of section end pegs and also the stretch end peg for Dave B so it was shaping up for a good day. I however, decided that I would walk to my swim from the wrong car park; this did not prove to be a problem though as the towpath was metalled the whole way. I got to my peg and found that I had Mick the Edge to my left whom had been on the venue for the previous 3 days and Shaun Stockley of Harrison Lincs County on my right.

To the plan then, line 1 was the keepnet line, at the all a pinch of mushed worm and pinkies would get fed at the bottom of the keepnet and the rig was a 0.5g Drennan pinkie with a 0.09mm bottom to a 20 Wide Gape Match, elastic was Preston 5 through 3 sections. This would be fished for 10 mins or until bites stopped completely, then the 9ft Squatt line would be attacked my rig was a 0.6g Browning Nevis shotted with a bulk of no.8 shot 50cm from the hook and 5 X No.12 shot as droppers. The hooklength was 10cm of 0.06mm line to a 24 B590, elastic was no3 Vespe through 2 sections. At the start we potted 4 balls of sieved groundbait containing squatt and hemp on this line and loose fed squatt and hemp over the top depending how much it was flowing as to what would be fed. Next was a 14.5m Worm line for bonus fish, green Vespe hollow to 0.15mm mainline, a 0.11mm bottom and a 16 wide gape match hook was set under a 2g Drennan Trio float and 10 worms were fed through a bait dropper on this line 10 mins before fishing it. Finally a tip rod was also set up with a bomb rig and a 0.15mm bottom to a size 10 hook for chucking a lob worm across the canal. I also set up a bread rig to be fished at 6m in case it was hard.

From the all in I knew I was in for a bad day with Mick to my right catching roach steadily all day on squatt and Shaun managed to snare a bonus eel on his worm line, I struggled for bites on all of my lines taking only a few perch from the inside and a couple of squatt fish in the first half of the match. I fed a bread line with a couple of hours to go and had a quick run of 6 roach and a few casts with fined down gear on the tip and a chopped worm feeder saw me snare a 6 oz perch that helped boost my weight to 2lb 3oz and 6^th in my section of 8. This was unfortunately the pattern for all our anglers apart from Jon Hatch who managed to mug a rogue Chub on his tip rod that helped him to a section win. Well done to the engineers who won on the day only beating the AGC by the narrowest of margins. We were 6^th of 8 only beating the teams who were missing an angler!!!