AAF Gp2 Match 5, Kennet and Avon Canal, 2/3/16

I was ably assisting Craig again on this match so I picked him up at half five with a coffee in hand and we started what would turn out to be an epic day.  It didn’t start too well with the bait supplier sending the bait to the wrong address so we would be waiting around for a courier until 0900, but chatting to Craig it just meant the match would start later.

We walked through the half light pegging the canal with a focus on making the pegging as fair as possible so tighter in the good areas and more spread out where it has been traditionally worst and we felt as though we had done all we could, the rest would be down to the anglers and the weather. 
I had managed a cheeky practice last Saturday on  what turned out to be A2, here is the video: 

It seemed as though the weather was trying to be as bad as it could for the day, and it looked like Armageddon as we looked out of the pub windows waiting on the draw.  It was almost just as well that we delayed the draw to miss the worst of the weather and it also  turned out that three of the guys could not turn up after a bit of a mishap on the way to the draw.  Anyway, the bait arrived and the draw commenced, along with the usual fun and games of the draw I ended up on B13, so one off the end of the section but the middle ish of 7 pegs as we had pegged C section either side of the swing bridge.

  It took me quite a while to get to my peg as Craig and I sorted the pub and then I had to drop him off in A section, before doubling back to park at the caravan park, I may have also got a little geographically challenged for a couple of minutes but my mind was elsewhere.  As I was unloading the van the weather was doing its best to make me stay in the van with sleet and hurricane force winds, but undeterred I carried on and got to my peg with 40 minutes until the all-in.  This gave me enough time to set up a short rig and a far bank rig, as well as sorting bait, but at least I was ready for the all important golden hour.

I called the all-in and fed the short line with a small pot of licky bread before cupping 3 soft balls of groundbait across onto the 3 foot line, I shipped out with a 5mm punch and then waited, and waited, and waited.  In fact I was getting very worried until after 20 minutes the float dipped and roach number 1 was soon swung to hand, this was followed by about another 20 roach and 2 decent hybrids in the first hour before the bread line petered out completely on me.

I shipped across and thankfully small roach were there in numbers, the wind made loose feeding squatt impossible so I started to feed 4-8 pinkies every couple of fish, this seemed to have the desired effect as the stamp of the fish started to get better and some of them were around the ounce in weight.

I had been joined by this point by Luke from the peg to my right, he had managed a fish but decided to keep me company as it was a cold a boring day, at least I was getting a few.

After a couple of hours I decided to plumb and feed a worm line down the track to my right, that didn’t give me an indication all day even though I went on it a few times.  The groundbait line was consistent with tiny fish for the rest of the match and I managed to get a couple more fish from on the bread line throughout the day.  Before I knew it, I had to call the all-out and for most I think it was a relief I had really enjoyed my days fishing but then the day started to turn a bit worst.  I packed up all my kit and managed to run most of my kit to my van before the scales even came into sight, then we had to hot swap them as they started to play up, eventually I was weighed in and had managed 2.520Kg and this was enough for only 4^th in the section, to be fair I was happy with that as the area I was in seemed to be full of tiny fish and most of the weights to my left had a  few decent hybrids or skimmers in them.

I finally got back to the car park only to have to wait to get out of there to go and get Craig, result was that we were the last two back in the pub for the results, Craig did his bits, I fed him, counted the pegs and discovered that two of the pegs that had not been drawn were still next to the canal, I was not impressed.

The results showed that some good weights came from A section and once again Daz dished out a lesson. B section saw Ivan take the points from fancied peg 10 it was close for 2-4^th though and finally Lee took the honours from C section with a standout weight from his area. Overall it was Daz with 5.5kg, then Rocky also from A section with 3.890kg and Ivan in third with 3.780Kg.

The results were concluded and everyone went home leaving Craig and I to tidy up, and find the missing pegs!  Then once back to Craigs office we smashed out the results so that was one less job to worry about in the morning.  At least the next match sees us on a commercial with permanent pegs.

What would I do different?

Although I enjoyed my day I dropped a couple of school boys whilst chatting to Luke, the biggest was not trying the Raison line as it only needed a few roach or a hybrid for me to go up to 2^nd in section, I don’t think I could have won the section from there as the bigger fish did the off early leaving me to scratch for small roach.

Tackle used:

Bread short:

Elastic: Double 4 slip

Line: 0.12mm to 0.08mm

Hook: 20 PR311

Float: 0.6g DS14H

Worm Track:

Elastic: Yellow Vespe through 1 section

Line: 0.17mm to 0.12mm Cenex

Hook: 12 B560

Float: 4X12 Dibber

Groundbait Across:

Elastic: Double No. 2 slip

Line: 0.12mm to 0.08mm

Hook: 22 PR311

Float: 0.2 AS3