| The draw put us on peg 8. Not the best draw of the day. I was on D section just across the road from the Social Club. Gary Plant was on A section, Clive Nixon B, John Swain C and our 'guest' Darren Cooper was on E
When I got to my peg, it was on the 'wides' on a bend between the two bridges. This was an area I had practised on last year so I knew it held fish. Trouble was, it was thick with ice from bank to bank. Now I was one of those who had not got an ice breaker. I had a rope, which I always carry but nothing to put on the end of it. Problem was soon solved when I found half a house brick and I began to create myself a peg. Now I could write an entire feature on ice breaking, but I won't!
Have you ever watched the other anglers setting up for the match? To my left was Rick Needham fishing for Preston and to my right was a lad I don't know fishing for Team Strike. On one side, Rick had everything under control and all seemed to go normally. But on the other side, well... Anything that could go wrong went wrong. Like me the lad had to find a brick, which he did. The brick came off the end of his rope, then he let go of the rope which went across the ice. The cursing was clear for all to hear but, we've all done it. This time it was nice for it to be someone else and to be honest it made me feel as though he was already beaten!
Fifteen minutes into the match and I had only just finished clearing my peg. The pile of ice I had at the side of me was enormous. I thought it better to have somewhere to fish rather than start the match on time with only a couple of jagged holes to fish in. That was my theory anyway.
Two 0.2g rigs were set up. (It wasn't deep) One was rigged up with shot on and the other with an olivette. I had a 0.3g rig on 'standby' incase I needed more weight. There was no point in setting up an array of rigs. With the width of peg I had created, I was able to feed six different areas. I thought I would need them.
It was hard, very hard. I didn't see a fish caught during the first hour but I knew that someone somewhere would be baggin'. They always do. Rick and the other fella both caught and I suddenly began to fear for my well being if I blanked. After an hour and a half I had my first indication but when the float buried the bait came back unmarked. In it went again and much to my dismay the same happened. I hate that. Logic tells me that if a fish is pulling my rig one way and I am pulling the other, the fish comes in but it doesn't always work like that does it? At least something had moved into the peg. Soon afterwards I had two small roach in the net. I was a much happier bunny now. In the end, it was a case of fishing over all the areas of feed in turn to try and winkle out a few fish. On the day, the water between the two bridges was a poor area in the section and as word had it, those to the right of the bridge were all catching. Certainly more than us!
Rick managed to catch the odd fish now and again, (I thought about twenty/twenty five) I ended up with twelve and the chap to my right only had two. Needless to say they were all small. The weights were something like 1.5.8 0.12.8 and 0.3.0 in our three peg contest.
When the scales did come round, the rumours were confirmed as those to the right of the bridge had all caught with the best weight being in excess of 4lb off the end peg. Never mind eh? Whatever the fishing's like, it certainly beats work. There was nothing to learn from the match. The fishing had been very poor although I didn't hear of a dry net.
During the previous two days, the canal had frozen, thawed out and then frozen over again and that is what had killed the fishing. The fish and canal didn't have the time to recover. When the likes of Norman Carpenter and Tony Keeling struggle to trouble the scales, you know it was a hard match.
Anyway, back to 'the scratter' for the results. I was stood at the bar and the excuses could be heard all across the room. Well, it wouldn't be a fishing match without all the excuses would it? The best one I heard was from my team mate and talkangling.co.uk editor Gary Plant.
 
Gary's Peg.......Allegedly!
Apparently, the howling wind had blown a British Waterways barge free from it's mooring (oh yeah!) and the barge had finally come to rest across his peg in a diagonal from bank to bank thus rendering most of his fed lines un-fishable. Nice one! What's your best excuse for a crap result? There's got to be better than that, hasn't there? The trouble with Gary, he has this terrible habit of carrying his camera around with him and had a photo to prove it. So be warned!! If you come to a sticky end, you could well end up with your mug on the pages of talkangling.co.uk but even now, I still think it was somebody else's peg, or he moved his kit when no one was looking!
The individual winner on the day was local lad Mark Oakley with a creditable 5.5.0
Team winners were FAPS Trinders with 27 points closely followed by Pelsall Social Red.
Us? Well we finished 14th on the day. Plenty room for improvement and five more weeks to do it.
Pelsall have some real good anglers and know the venues well. They are on a good run at the moment and are my tip for a top 2/3 place at the end of the series.
Finally, I was standing at the bar when I heard a shuffle behind me. I looked round and saw the 'train driver' coming towards me like Les Dawson with his sleeves rolled up. Surely he couldn't have been reading my thoughts? I wasn't waiting around to find out. I was off till next week.
See ya.
Dick Tranter.
Ps Just to make matters worse, West Brom lost and Wolves won. Now that really was an end to a bad day!!!
Many thanks to Dick for enlightening Us.
The 'train driver' turns out to be non other than Tony Keeling of Anglers mail Fame.....Ed. |
