As is often the case my weekends fishing started on Monday teatime when I had a phone call from Mojo (Andy Moulton) telling me there was not any matches on Saturday due to AT semi-finals and practices and asking if I would run a match, I then found my evening taken up with people ordering bait in between phoning round informing people of the match that was to take place on my HanKat AS waters on the Birmingham mainline canal at Coseley.
With my phone strangely quiet for the rest of the week only 15 anglers were booked in, this was to become 16 when a glass on Ribena found its way into my works laptop rendering it useless, it also meant that it would be pointless going into work and with a bit of joker left from last week I thought I might as well join in.
After what I consider the best breakfast you can get for £3 was devoured I made the draw and with most of the fancied pegs already gone I was quite happy when Darren Massey drew me "the barking dog peg" peg 144,one thing I never do when I run a match is draw my own peg because I feel it leaves you open to suggestions of fixing if you go on a run of good draws, the peg is two away from a bridge and with the peg next to the bridge left out it meant I was end peg, the downside was that although it produced 9-15-15 in my xmas 2 day festival two years ago it had not produced a decent weight since, but I'd still rather draw a peg that's produced before than one that hasn't.
On arriving at my peg I was encourages by the fact that I'd got 5 1/2 foot of water down the track and more importantly nearly 3ft next to the reeds across and 4ft at the bottom of the far shelf which on this stretch is where you need to catch if you are going to win money, the stamp on this line is usually a bit bigger and you can keep them coming a bit longer before resting it.
Even though there is very little flow on this canal I still decided to fish with quite positive rigs, I opted for my usual 0.3gram Dufils olivette rig for perch rig down the track and 4x12 PB14's both down and up the far shelf, both rigs were shotted with a string of 16 number 13's about 1/2 inch apart 18 inches away from the hook and 3 number 13 droppers with the last shot 6 inches from the hook. all rigs were finished with size 26 MP-1B hooks to 0.06 bottoms with number two Maver latex laccy's.
With my target being 8lb+ I only fed 4 lines at the all in, one thumb nail sized ball of raw joker was fed down the track at 6m, I fed two lines with a tangerine sized ball each at 10m down the far shelf at 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock and my final line at 10m right in front of me was fed with a golf ball. For anyone who doesn't know raw joker is exactly that, it has nothing added all , it is taken straight from the newspaper, put it a pole pot and cupped in.
Within fifteen minutes I had put 3 perch in the net for about 8 oz,a good start on this water, after 15 minutes with no more bites I put in another thumb nail of bait and it was time to try my roach lines. I have to admit I was confident of catching on these lines straight away as Ted Yearby of the Dams & locks squad on peg 143 had already taken some roach on the punch down the track, i was less confident when visits to both swims down the shelf failed to produce a bite, confidence was restored shortly when the first three drops up the shelf produced three roach of between 1 and 2 ounces, now usually if you start catching roach early on this section then you carry on catching all match, OK you need to keep constantly resting your lines, altering depths and occasionally topping them up but on this occasion i went over a hour without another bite despite moving swims every 5 minutes, i was not on my own either with only the odd fish being netted.
It was at this time that I noticed Fozzie (Ian Moulton), who had drawn 4 pegs to my left, had gone for a walk. He had turned up very the worse for wear after a night out on the ale with his mates. I quickly scoured the towpath in search on empty beer cans, i promply found some of the local wino's litter and filled his keepnet with some Carling cans before going off for a walk in the opposite direction to see how the three lads in my section on the other side of the bridge were faring.Dave Hughes on 147 had got 8 perch, Simon Preece had 3 perch and a roach on peg 148 (This is known as Jimmy's peg because on the last two matches Jimmy Hines had won the match both times with 15lb+ and 12lb+ Roach weights) and Neil Martin had only had a couple of 4oz perch, down our end it was fishing much harder than expected, nobody could understand why, it was mild and the colour was as good as you could have wished for but for some reason the roach were NOT playing game, i suppose that's why our sport is called fishing and not catching!
With three hours of the match remaining I returned to my peg knowing that if I was going to take home any of the pools money I was going to have to start catching soon, a quick perch taken from 5 metres was followed by a 5oz roach from my left hand down the shelf line then again it was a case of searching all my lines with no success, time for another walk.
Nobody was catching until I reached Darren Massey on peg 134, he was admitting to 60 roach but had slowed after a boat had gone through his swim, as I went under the bridge between pegs 131 and 130 I could see Mojo in the distance trying to net what was obviously a good fish, that was until he lost it at the net, when i did not hear any swearing i knew straight away that it was one of our friends with teeth that had decided to eat one of his roach and wreck his delicately prepared joker rigs.....I promise i didn't laugh....much.
As I got to Lewis Breeze on the 1st peg under the bridge it became apparent that it was like a different match with Lewis catching Perch regulary, Adam Slade not catching as quick but catching a decent stamp then Darren "The Mouth" Lewis and Mojo catching steadily but not quickly and George Neat on the end peg catching smaller roach one a bung.
I returned to my peg and caught 4 roach in 4 bungs before losing a dog roach and going another hour without a bite, I packed up with 3/4 hr to go and exchanged my tackle for the scales and made my way down the canal to start weighing in.
With 9 pegs having weighed Ted was leading with his punch net of 4-9-7, this was until Darrren Massey put 5-14-4 on the scales and with "The Mouth" and Mojo putting 5-11-0 and 5-0-8 on the scales only George could beat him, this he duly did with a weight of 7-15-0. With George 1st, Darren Massey 2nd and Ted and Darren Lewis taking the £30 section money it was definitely a Dams & Locks day.
After the accident with the laptop the previous day I didn't think it could get much worse, but while a laptop is easily replaced a snooker cue that I have used for 21 years and was now in 23 pieces after the girls had decided to use it as a tight rope could not, luckily neither of them were hurt,,, any one know of a vicar that does exorcisms?
