Pawlett match - Bridgwater/Taunton canal 9-3-14

Sunday saw 22 of us fishing on the Bridgwater and Taunton canal. The section used was the Wide Waters section back towards the Boat and Anchor pub. The weather was due to be a little better than recently wuth lots of sunshine and rather mild if not breezy.

 

It has been years since I have fished the canal in a match,  maybe 15+ yrs. But having seen recent catches and some very decent bags of tench, with weights to over 60lb. Thw odd big bream an plenty of roach and rudd to over 1lb have been caught to.

 

Leading up to the match I had been prepping for the white acres dynamite baits festival. I had to knock up 3 rigs. I almost nearly went with none made that'd be suitable.

 

Anyways, at the draw the hands attacked the tub with my mitt pulling golden peg 6.
This was 2/3rds of the way along the houses in the wides. A nice area worth some fish.
As I wandered along to my peg I commented that peg 21 or  22 would win as it looked fishy and has always given up tench. Chris Ware (giffy) and Colin Haggett were on those pegs.

Once at my peg a couple of the house owners came out to tell us that we are not to fish there.  But after a bit of conversation the 7 of us in front of the houses stayed put but kept our kit away from the track which vehicles use. Well 6 of us did....The seventh had a section of his pole run over.....should have put his kit tidy!

 

My peg looking up Wide Waters

My peg in front.

 

I set up 3 pole rigs, one was a 0.3g silverfish rig with 0.08 hooklength and a B511 size 20 hook. This would be for the roach/rudd short and just off bottom.

The 2nd rig was a rig for tench/bream to be fished at 13m, I would have gone longer but the towpath was busy and I had a wall/hedge/garden about 3m behind me, it's also near impossible to sideways ship due to foliage in the water and on the bank. Hooklength was 0.14 and attached was a size 16 B611 hook.

Lastly I set up a 0.2g rig for close in to my right, more in hope than anything, this was for perch and tench in mind, hooklength and hook was 0.14>b611 size 16.

I also set up a waggler with a couple no.10 shot down the  line.

For bait I had 1pt hemp, 1pt caster, 1/2 pinkie and 1/2 maggot. I also mixed some groundbait.

 

On the whistle I fed positively as the water was a decent colour, it had been really coloured after the floods, but it had cleared to a nice colour. 6 Satsuma size balls of gb were cupped at 13m in front and slightly left. I also cupped some hemp/caster down the edge to my right at topkit+2.

Lastly I catapulted a few maggots and caster across towards the far side.

 

I started on the waggler and had to wait 20 mins for my 1st fish, a 2oz rudd, then followed a roach of similar size. That was it for me for an hour or so.......Kev crouch to my left had a couple tench on the feeder (I didn't/wouldn't set one up...I never even had a rod with me). The angler to my right had a handful of small silvers and that's all I could see.

However news came down that Giffy had landed 11 or so tench in the first 90 mins and fed 1.2kg worm and 1pt of caster. So the match looked over already, lol.

There were also a few guys with 1 tench, but they were around 10 pegs up and beyond. The lowere pegs in the wides were struggling, but Vic Bush on peg 10(?) had cupped in some worm/caster and went for a walk. He came back and had a tinca right away!! Good angling.

 

The 3rd to 4th hour saw me get 2 bites on the pole, both were from 2oz roach, but I really was struggling, a couple guys had packed up some kit and were likely to be gone by 2:30 (fishing was 10:30-16:30). Another few casts on the waggler saw a run of roach and rudd to 8oz and I guess that I had 3lb+ in the net. But Kev Crouch was on 4 tench and a big bream by 3pm, Vic was upto 6 or so tench and Giffy was on 18 or so green fish.

 

At 3pm, with the sun being an arse and other anglers leaving, I decided to slowly pack up, I couldn't see my float whatever colour tip I used and the roach hadn't shown. So by 3:30 my barrow was loaded and I wandered up to Giffy to see how he was doing. He was on 20 tench with the best part of an hour to go and was aching from fishing 16m in the strongish breeze we had, but fair play he caught the fish early. On walking and talking to the other guys it seemed like the results were sorted, but sections could be anyones as a lot of them had a single tench and the odd rudd or roach.

So my estimate 3.5lb net of small fish was actually a decent catch.

 

I don't know the full result but have since found out that Giffy's tench and rudd went around 66lb, a very good canal weight, I would guess Vic Bush came second and possibly Kev Crouch 3rd, but cant be sure.

 

Overall it was a tricky day for the first 7 pegs (only 2 weighed in I believe) and from p8 to 22 the tench had showed with most catching 1 and a couple guys netting a decent bag.

I will be back on the canal as I like the place, it's a shame the winter leagues are not run on there and it is underfished and can give good fishing (you only need read Russell Hilton's blog to see that).

 

Next up for me is the last round of the Avalon teams of 3, this coming sunday......oh it looks dry, but again windy!!

 

Take care

 

Lee