Not quite your average canal!
After 4 weeks off the canals and with nothing to shout about I was more than happy when my mate Ernie phoned to say that the "sportsman" were going to start running Sunday matches on their stretch of the Birmingham mainline canal in Tipton. The stretch in question is 16 metres wide and perfectly straight, the target fish are tench and skimmers and with this in mind the usual squatt and pinkies are replaced with fishmeal ground baits and pellets to go with the more conventional casters.
I paid my £7 pools ( expensive match i know but what heck ) and drew peg 50 which is a consistent peg but I would have rather had 51 which was end peg on the day, my mate/Hero Ernie Thomas was on that one.Looking up and down the stretch there were a few rudd showing on the surface so 1st rig set up was a 4x10 drennan choppa with 0.08 straight though to a size 16 B511 hook, this was attached to number6 Vespe elastic, no plumbing was required as this was just for fishing 4ft off bottom.rig number 2 was a 4x12 Maver black ice float on 0.14 mainline to 0.10 bottom with the same B511 hook, this would be fished at 9m on the same line as the shallow rig but only this time at 5-6 ft deep.Rig three was to fish just down he far shelf at 13m left and right into 4ft of water and was a 4x14 Maver black ice with 0.14 straight though to a size 16 Gama pellet hook and number 12 laccy, one thing i always do on this is leave at least 12 inches between the hook and the last dropper, this is because on every peg there is a covering of blanket weed.
Bait wise I had 1 1/2 pints of casters, a few 6mm and 4mm ringer expanders, a pint of micro pellets with a few 4mm mixed in and two pints of pellet slop.
At the all in I put a toss pot of slop in at 9m and catapulted 20 casters over the top, I then put a 250ml pot of slop to my left at 13m and half a pot of micro's with twenty casters to the right, first drop in with the deep rig at 9m with a single caster produced a rudd on the drop of about 2oz but I think it must of been the scout because no more followed and apart from the odd perch it was a bit slow, after 40 minutes the float buried and a tench of about a pound and half was netted, this was followed by a skimmer of a pound and a small tench in the next 20 minutes to give me around 3lb at the end of the first hour.
The second hour was a bit slow but by feeding a bit of slop after every fish to go with the loose fed casters I found I could keep the odd tench coming but they were only between 4 and 6 ounces, this was to continue for a while until I hooked another skimmer only to pull out of it right over the top of my catching zone, this killed the swim completely. a pot of slop was fed and left to rest.
Switching to my 13m swims was very slow, although I was getting indications on pellet and double caster none of the bites were turning into proper bites. Something just was not right, either my presentation was wrong, there were only small fish present or the fish were not really having it, having not fed these lines for 2hrs I decided to refeed and come back to 9m's, again I was catching the odd tench but most were very small and with only about 7lb and over half the match gone I needed to catch either quicker or a better stamp!
Ernie on the end peg seemed to be catching a lot slower than me but he seemed to be catching a better stamp from 13m so i knew i had to catch off my longer lines, the problem was the float would dip, lift, go to the left, then the right but not under,striking at these indications just made me a little more folically challenged,after about twenty minutes of this I then made the decision to make up a new rig, this was a Bill Deakin dibber with three number 12 shot equally spaced but with a number 8 backshot to stabilise it, this was made up with 0.10 straight though to a size 16 B511 and attached to number 6 laccy, two casters were put on shipped out and the float settled and carried on going, a tench of 2lb was on the way to the net, this trend continued until the last 20 minutes (until the lighter rig attatched itself to the ptfe bush in a birds nest) with another 6 tench between one and two and a half pounds joining there mates in the keep net.
What I had noticed was that even though Ernie was using much heavier elastic I was actually getting the fish in a bit quicker and losing less, in total I had caught 17 tench, 1 skimmer and a dozen rudd and perch but even though I was using fairly light rigs and elastic on a weedy canal I had only lost one tench and the skimmer and both had pulled off the hook.
Ernie was 1st to weigh and put 8 or so tench with a few skimmers and rudd on the scales to record 16lb 8oz, I weighed 19lb 11oz only to be beaten by Neil Homer on the other end peg with 24lb 10oz including a couple of rudd around the pound mark.
All in all I had really enjoyed being back on the towpath, I was just a bit annoyed that I had not changed earlier.
I think I better get making some rigs up.
