November Update.

Hello once again.

Following on from October's post the final River Severn Classic Qualifier was cancelled twice due to high river levels, following rain.

As a result of this I decided to fish an open at Brookside in order to at least catch a few fish following the struggles of late. However the weather played an important role. In the days leading up to the match it had been relatively mild and the nights frost free. On the Sunday morning that I decided to go the previous night was the first proper cold one and it remained very cold all day. Trust me to pick a days fishing once the cold kicks in. Anyway I had made my choice to go and that was that. When I arrived at the draw only 8 others had bothered as well. (Partridge and Blundells being more popular lately) The owner decided that the match would be spilt over the front and back snake lakes and have a winner from each lake. Therefore 4 or so fished on the front and the other 4 fished on the back.

I drew peg 51 on back snake, which one of the regulars said might produce. I had with me maggots pellets and corn. I had also killed some maggots and planned to use dead maggots as feed and hookbait to see if an inert bait might tempt the wary fish. The peg was about 12 metres wide, so I only set up 2 rigs one for the far bank and a rig for fishing in the deeper water before the it shelved up to the far bank at about 11 metres out to the left and right hand side. One swim would be fed with a small amount of pellets and corn, and the other would get the dead maggots. The far bank swim was only fed with a few pellets, couple of pieces of corn topped off with a little groundbait in a small kinder pot. After feeding the swims I started on the far bank line hoping to catch an early F1 or 2. Needless to say following the frost it was very slow, and no bites came to pellet or corn. Very little was being caught from what I could see, but I was a little concerned about the slight cold breeze that was blowing from right to left. Usually the F1's move away from a cold wind into a more sheltered area. So it was just a case of keeping my head down, trying each swim and concentrating. With about an hour and a half left I caught an Ide on maggot on the left hand maggot swim, this followed a few more and then an F1, I keep trickling a few dead maggots in and I started to get frequent bites. By now the light was starting to fade and the temperature was dropping further. A few fish were starting to move about now as well, with the odd swirl around the peg. I tried the far bank swim again and caught a couple of nice sized F1's. By now it was a little too late and I weighed 12lb odd, not too bad for only 1.5 hours fishing in the conditions I suppose, but 33lb won the match from peg 58. Once again this just shows that if you do not fish any venues regularly you will struggle to do well.

At least I had my elastic pulled a bit and caught a few fish.

The last River Severn Classic qualifier went ahead despite the river being higher than the organisers would have liked, but time was becoming a limiting factor. Following the previous poor results from the river I had decided that I would mainly be fishing a chopped worm feeder with sections of worm for hookbait, praying that I might catch a few fish. To be honest I was not expecting very much at all, but it seemed the only viable method following recent results.

Low and behold I managed to draw peg 80 again, following the blank in match 3 I was not looking forward to it, but you have to try and remain positive. After all anything could happen with a river that has been high but is starting to drop. I set up the chopped worm feeder as well as a bolo rig and stick float, just to try and keep me occupied more than anything. I started on the feeder, just with an underarm swing about 11 metres out. The loose plan was just to try different areas of the peg but without casting too far out, leaving the bait in the water for 10 mins or so. After 20 mins I got my first slight indication as the tip knocked slightly, then it trembled and I lifted into a small fish, which turned out to be a Ruffe, I got another Ruffe shortly after that and then a long period of no bites. I tried the stick and bolo more in hope and desperation than anything. Needless to say nothing was caught on the float. After a couple of hours I went for a quick walk upstream a few pegs to see if anyone was having any better luck. At the same time another angler was walking and told me that only 1 dace had been caught in my section. So I went back to the peg and sat down to try and concentrate on catching whatever I could on the worm. Whatever bites I got, which may or may not have been bites, could only be classed as odd movements on the tip, not the usual plucks etc. By just guessing at what was a bite or not I managed to get 2 more Ruffe before the all out. I was first to weigh in my section and my 4 fish totalled 3 oz, the angler next door had 2 fish for 2oz. Once again not exactly the best fishing.

Back in the pub, some people were saying that I had qualified, but I preferred to wait for the proper results. In the end 1 Eel weighing 1lb 9oz won the match and there was one other weight over a 1lb. Fourth place was 5oz, which was caught from my section that meant I had won the section by default and thereby qualifying for the final. I also won a keepnet from the sponsors of the match. In the end I am made up to have qualified, it's just been a shame for everyone involved that the river has fished so badly.

As I write this the final should have been yesterday, but the weather has put pay to it. Following the recent snow fall and freezing temperatures, it was decided that the final be postponed to mid January due to the adverse weather and health and safety reasons. The river level at the moment is fine, however the banks must be dangerous and no doubt the roads into Shrewsbury might be tricky. So now I will wait for mid January and the final. If the River's form does not pick up it could be anyone's match to win, so in that sense I am looking forward to it, but it would be nice to catch a few plump roach and dace that the stretch was once famous for.

I must say a big congratulations to all those hardy souls who have qualified and a big thank you to all the people involved in organising the event.

Tight Lines.

October Matches.

Hello once again.

My fishing in October has involved canals and rivers. I have been fishing on the Shropshire Union Canal and the River Severn.

My first match was on the Shroppie at Norbury in the Shropshire Canal Winter League. I was drawn on peg 2 of D section. This gave me a peg about 12 metres wide with some overhanging cover on the far bank. It was a pretty miserable day with persistant rain throughout most of the match, so it was not the most comfortable fishing. (Second picture above shows the peg) I set up 3 main rigs. One for breadpunch, one for squatt and the other for caster. The plan was to start on bread until the boats killed it and then fish squatt and move onto caster later in the match. The bread line started ok with a few roach and gudgeon, but as expected the line died after a couple of boats. Next was the squatt line, which was ok but the fish were small again mainly little roach and gudgeon. Due to the bankside vegetation it was difficult to see what was going on around me, a few fish were being caught as well as some better samples. It was time to try the caster swim. This was a swim in a small gap in the overhanging branches. I got a couple of quick bites and dumped a nice roach. Oh dear. After a couple of minutes another bite resulted in a lot more elastic escaping from the pole. I managed to quickly bring the pole back and seemed to have moved the fish away from the far bank, when low and behold the hook pulled out. After the last match this was becoming very annoying. Anyway after calming down a bit I carried on, but the caster swim seemed totally dead. Back to trying bread and squatt which brought a few more small fish. By now I felt as though I was long way off doing well in the section. No more fish came to the caster and the match was soon over, and I was left feeling what could have been once more. Speaking to the angler on peg 1 suggested that my lost fish may have been a good chub or perch. I will never know I suppose, but I felt that it was probably a chub. I watched the weigh in of the section and it was a bit of a mixed bag, some had nets of small fish to 4lb and others had the odd bigger fish as well. Some had struggled, my 1lb 15oz meant that I had beat 3 in my section and got 4 points. That was a bit better than my previous canal match, but I still feel a long way off doing a good job for the team. So I was starting to feel a bit down with my performances again.

The next matches were fished on the River Severn at Shrewsbury. I have been looking forward to these matches, however the fishing turned out to be very poor. The roach and dace that were expected to be in town for winter have simply not arrived or are being eaten by cormarants and goosesander. So the matches have been dominated by either big fish or a few perch.

In the first match I drew peg 10 on the County Ground. The river level was up and going through at a good pace, most people expected it to be tough. This being a slightly shallower area than the average, I set up a waggler, stick float and feeder in case a chub showed. The chub did not show in my peg and I only managed 1 small dace. It was a bit of a let down, but the whole match length was poor. Nearly 4lb won the match, which was a good chub and a couple of bits, some sections were won with less than a pound. The fishing was not what was expected.

The second match I drew once again in the County Ground on peg 35 right next to the car park, so I was able to park right behind my peg, very handy. This time the river was lower and the colour and pace had gone. With the clear water I hoped to catch perch by fishing chopped worm on the pole, and I also set up a stick float for the inside line and a bolo for down the middle. There was hardley any flow until about the middle of the river, so I hoped to catch there. Needless to say just as in the previous match I only snared a small dace on the bolo, and no bites came to the stick float or pole. The winning weights were a little better as over 6lb won the match, but once again it was made up of perch and eels. Most anglers were again struggling to catch silver fish.

For the third match I drew peg 80 on the Quarry section. (First picture above is the view upstream from peg 80) On this day the river looked spot on, nice pace and a bit of colour. I had decided that my only chance to qualify would be to catch a big fish. So I set up a heavy feeder rig to fish with halibut pellets to try and catch a barbel or big chub. I also set up a stck float rig and a bolo rig for down the middle. I spent the first half an hour on the pellet, but kept getting snagged, so I did not bother after that. I tried the bolo and stick but to no avail and I blanked. The match was won with a single barbel nearly 6lb, so maybe I should have stayed on the feeder. Again it's all about making the right decisions on the day. Staring at a tip hoping it will pull round once in five hours is not my idea of fun and is something you need total confidence in.

So I now await the last qualifier match. At the time of writing the match has been cancelled twice due to high river levels following periods of rain. Hopefully the match will go ahead soon and who knows maybe the flood water has moved the roach and dace into the County Ground and Quarry sections.

Thats it for October. Tight lines.

September update.

As it is nearly the end of October I thought I had better include an entry from my goings on in September.

Following the Division 1 National I took a break from fishing for a few weeks in an attempt to have a bit of a rest and get some jobs done. Well I only managed the rest, I still have kitchen walls not painted etc.

River Mersey and Bolo Floats.

Anyway I managed a few hours on a Friday afternoon on the River Mersey near Victoria park in order to try fishing with bolo floats. Prior to the National I had bought a 15/17ft Maver Powerlite rod in case it might be needed. With hindsight maybe I should have tried it!!! So I thought it might be a good idea to give it a go. Having previously got some Woody's floats together, which were ordered from the net I got some maggots and hemp and sat on peg 14. The river was carrying a bit of extra water and colour. As the river is quite deep in most places I set up the rod to 17ft and began plumbing the depth with a 3gr float on. I must admit I eneded up fishing not far short of the maximum rod length. I started by catapulting some hemp slightly downstream and then followed that with some maggots.

As a complete novice I did struggle a bit with the casting, bankside vegetation stopped me casting sideways and the overhead cast tangled sometimes. However I did manage to get it right some of the time and I actually caught some fish, dace and some nice roach, mainly quite a way down the peg due to the flow. I must admit the length of the rod helped to pick the line up on the strike and mend the line. After 3 hours or so and another tangle I decided to call it a day, the maggots had nearly gone as well. With more practice it would become a very good way of catching, more interesting than watching a tip. However the pegs on the Mersey are a bit close together, so I am not sure how good it would be in a match. Maybe feeding small hard balls of groundbait would help to keep the fish in your peg.

On the Sunday after my little practice session there was a match organised to help raise funds to enable Helen Dagnall compete in the Ladies World Championships in South Africa in October. After Fridays little session I thought the river would be in good nick, however there was more rain on the Saturday and the river was running faster than normal, but the colour had dropped out of it. Everyone thought we would be in for a grueller!!! I drew peg 46, I think, and had Stu Conroy for company on the downstream peg, no pressure then. Due to the pace of the water I discounted fishing the bolo and set up a 4grm pole rig and a feeder rod. After plumbing up I had a good depth at 13 metres and a clear run. The feeder set up was a 40grm black cap and a 3oz tip, for fishing down the middle. I fed 6 balls of groundbait and casters via a cup at the start. (How it did not break a pole section I will never know) and started on the feeder while the pole line settled down. I have modified the black cap feeders slightly by removing the red tag and making a hole in the bottom of the feeder in order to pass a loop of powergum through and clamp it under the feeders weight, this way the feeder can be used either as a standard block end or a semi open end by removing the black cap. These feeders are ideal for the Mersey as the different sizes allow you to change the amounts you feed more easily, which suits the changing conditions and feeding habits. My match did not go well, they never do on the Mersey. I spent too long trying to catch on the pole, when it was clearly never going to work due to the pace of the river. I did manage some fish on the feeder, dace and roach again, but I think I weighed less than 2lb. Once again I made the wrong decision about the pole and should have fished the feeder all match. Anyway the match was won by Dave Brooks with 13lb and 6lb was second. The river was patchy and most did struggle. Stu Conroy only manged 2lb odd, so I could have scalped an England man.

Up-coming matches and Winter Leagues

Following on from exploits on the rivers lately I decided to enter the River Severn Classic matches at Shrewsbury. These are a series of 4 qualifier matches and a final from October onwards to a final in early December. The top 4 and the section winners qualify for the final. I have always been interested in the fishing on the Severn at Shrewsbury as I have read about the fishing in the town in the winter months for roach and dace over the years and always wanted to have a go, so this seemed like a good oportunity. So sent my cheque off and got my name on the list for the 4 qualifiers. The first match is in October, so hopefully there will be a few fish about and not much rain to spoil it.

Warrington match group have also entered a couple of winter leagues, which are on alternate Sundays so as not to clash. The first match was in the Wirral Winter League on the Shropshire Union Canal at Soudley and Goldstone on the last Sunday in September. I was drawn on peg 6 in B section at Goldstone. I was not sure what to expect other than the skimmers are a good size around 2lb if you get them and a recent match was won with 30lb, close to where I was pegged. As the weather had not turned cold I decided to fish a squatt line, caster down the track and across as well as a hemp line a section past my squatt line. At 11.5 metres I found a nice depth of 2ft+ going up the far shelf, so this is were I fished with squatt. To the left of a small overhanging bush I plumbed a caster line as well as 1 at 6 metres down the middle, and I also set up a light hemp rig at 13 metres directly past my squatt rig. At the start I potted in 3 balls of groundbait and one pot of loose groundbait with squatts and hemp in. Some casters and hemp went in down the middle and next to the bush, and finally I potted in some hemp at 13 metres. I started on caster down the middle to try an snare an early fish and let the squatt line settle down. There were no bites on caster so I started to fish squatt. I immediately started to catch small roach and guedgeon at which point I started loose feeding squatts every cast as well as a few grains of hemp further across. I could not see that much being caught around me so I plugged away. After a while I caught a small skimmer and then I hooked it's bigger brother. It came to the surface shortly after being hooked and looked over 2lb, so I gently started to ship back and the hook pulled as the fish neared the middle, oh dear. I carried on with the squatt and tried the other lines as well. The hemp was very slow roach wise although I did manage a 1lb skimmer on it which went off like a big roach. By this time the angler to my left had caught a couple of very big fish, it was time to try something positive. I cupped in another ball of groundbait and went back to caster down the middle for a while, this resulted in a small perch. I then tried caster over the squatt line, to see if I could single out the skimmers and I did manage one small one and a couple of guedgeon. It was no time to try the far bank caster swim, but this only resulted in a couple of small roach. By now I was running out of time, so I stayed on the caster to try and catch a bigger fish.. Needless to say it did not happen and my 3lb 10oz only beat 1 other in my section. The angler next to me weighed 14lb of chub caught on worm and caster to finish second in the match. Our consulation was that team mate Martin Griffiths won the match with over 16lb of skimmers and bream again on caster and worm.
In the end I was on a good peg and have not been positive enough. I did not feed any chopped worm and that was costlty. I also think my far bank caster and hemp swims were too close together, so I don't think the fish settled properly. I was very disappointed to finish so low down in the section, but I did loose over 3lb off the hook, which would have put me a lot higher in the section. On another day those fish might have stuck, on the other hand.....At the moment I am not making the right kind of decisions tactically and do not have enough knowledge about the pegs I draw. On the plus side it was the first time I had fished that area of canal and the fishing is a lot better than the canal fishing I am used to.

So eventually thats about it for September. I do ramble on a bit.
October sees the start of the River Severn matches and more canals.

Tight lines.

August update.

Hello once again.

Well the big day on the River Trent for the Division 1 National has come and gone. I will get straight to the point and say I had a bad match. I weighed in a massive 600 grams, which was very poor considering that the anglers around me all caught over 2 kilos, so I should have done a lot better. I felt a bit dejected at the end of the match, however I was a bit surprised to find I got 29 points for that weight, which is not far off half way in the section of 67. I think the team finished 29th with Martin Griffiths finishing second in his section and we had no blanks which some teams did suffer from. We did have a couple of bad results similar to mine, otherwise we could have finished much stronger.

I was drawn on H section on the tidal river at Besthorpe on peg 64, which was permament peg 56 on the Scunthorpe AA water. This put me on the inside of a bend and the section was double pegged so I had plenty of room between myself and the next angler. After chatting with the stewards they told me I was upstream of a noted barbel peg (57) and with a downstream wind I would also be better off fishing a waggler than a stick float. So therefore I only set up a feeder rod with heavy line and hooklengths for trying to catch barbel and a waggler rod for fishing down the middle of the river with maggots.

I started on the maggot feeder with 3 maggots on the hook hoping to get a barbel whilst feeding hemp and maggots down the middle of the river. I only caught a small dace on the feeder in the first half an hour, so I started running the waggler down the swim. It was very slow with not many bites. I tried altering the depth to see at what depth I could locate some fish at. After a while I started to get odd fish fishing around 6 foot deep. However I was also bumping fish off on the strike, which began to annoy me. Although at least I knew there were some fish in the peg, so I kept plugging away. After a couple of hours it started raining and the bites began to tail off. I think that the rain pushed the fish down in the water coulmn and after that I struggled to catch at all on the float. So I spent the last hour on the feeder, however I only snared a couple of dace. In all I ended up with only 10 fish. The angler downstream of me fished on the pole and caught more fish and a couple of better stamp ones. I knew at the beginning of the match that I should have also set a pole up. So I was dissapointed that I did not have everything covered. I decided to fish how I was most comfortable.

On reflection this match showed that I did not have a great deal of experience at the different varieties of fishing required for a match on the River Trent as big as a Division 1 National. I just have not got enough hours behind me. Although I did enjoy fishing the river as it was more challenging, and hopefully I have learned a bit more.

Also in August a group of us from POHAS made our way to Bewdley for a weeks fishing on the annual club outing. This was the week leading up to the National so I wanted to fish the river as much as possible, however the river conditions were low and clear and the fishing was very poor. On my 3 trips to the river I did not catch 1 barbel and only caught perch and dace. The highlight of the river trips was a Robin that took an interest in my maggots and halibut pellets whilst on the river one day. (see pic above) It was just bad luck I suppose. The fisheries in the area were very good and my 2 trips to Solhampton saw lots of fish caught by everyone.

After the national I decided to have a bit of a break from fishing in order to have a rest from getting up early etc. So now into September I have got a couple of winter leagues to look forward too and I have also entered a series of matches on the River Severn at Shrewsbury, which will hopefully be better fishing than on some of the Trent sections. I must have caught the river bug.

Tight lines.

July update

Hello once again.

Most of my fishing time has been taken up by fishing matches in the build up to the Division 1 National on the River Trent on 21st August.

The first match was fished at East Bridgeford near Nottingham. This was a match were I struggled a bit to say the least. It mainly involved me discovering that my gear is not quite up to scratch. It was a nice sunny day and the river was clear and the level down. Like everywhere else a lot of rain was needed to flush the river through and add some colour to encourage the fish to feed more freely.

About 18 turned up to fish and I drew paper peg 6 upstream from the carpark. I set up a stick float rig and a feeder rod. The float fishing was difficult due to a downstream wind, I tried to cure this by adding a backshot about 2 feet above the float. This did help with presentation and I was able to control the float better, but with hindsight I should have fished a waggler. My feeder fishing was a disaster. I set up the wrong weight of feeder and struggled to hold bottom correctly. Each time I reeled in I had bust maggots, but I was not seeing the bites. I messed around with the set up but I should have concentrated on the float fishing. I ended up with 2lb of small roach and dace on the float, which was probably the lowest weight from my area.

After the match I realised I needed to get my gear right, at the moment I do not have a good enough range of stick floats and my feeder fishing set up is totally wrong.

The next match was at Shelford, which is a couple of miles upstream of East Bridgeford. Before the draw the locals were predicting a poor match as the pegs had hardly been fished and if the bream did not feed then there is not much else to be caught. The bream in this area are up to 9lb and swim in a large shoal which is several hundred yards long, or so the locals say! So a big weight could be on the cards or it would be a bit of a grueller. Have a guess which one it was!!!

The weather for the day was breezy overcast and some rain about, however the river was once again low and clear as any rain that had fallen had no effect on the river as the surrounding ground is so dry. The weather conditions were OK for bream, but the clear water might still prevent them from feeding properly.

I managed to draw a peg in the bream area which was downstream of the carpark, the match was pegged with 20 pegs upstream and 20 downstream of the carpark. This was to be an out and out feeder match so I only set up 1 rod with a groundbait feeder with chopped worm and casters in the feeder plugged with 50/50 Senas magic and Black lake. The darker groundbait is added for the clear water and Senas Magic is apparently good for bream and skimmers. For hookbaits I would try combinations of maggots, casters and worms.

I cast a few feeder fulls of bait out in the middle of the river and started fishing with double red maggot on the hook, just to see if I could get a quick bite. After 15 minutes a couple of people had caught a bream, then my tip bounced and I struck into a reasonable fish. After a couple of careful minutes I guided a 3lb bream over the net. At this point I thought that as 3 of us had caught a bream at around the same time there might be a few more fish caught. However that was my one and only bite of the whole match. In the end two bream for about 14lb won the match and the rest of the weights were made up of 1 or 2 fish. My 3lb fish was one of the babies and I just missed out on my section as someone else caught a bream that was slightly bigger than mine. The upstream pegs were very poor, but a couple of people stuck it out and managed 3lb or so of bits, so there might be some small fish to go at.

It was a poor match and not the sort of section I would want to draw in the national.

The next week I travelled down to Newark Dyke with team captain Craig Richie. Newark Dyke is a channel that splits from the main river above Newark and runs through the town and rejoins the main river again at Crankly Point below Newark. Newark Dyke will form 1 complete section in the National and on the day of the match around 16 turned up. With this in mind the pegs were spaced out and on the better pegs that had produced before.

I drew peg 42 (see picture above for a view downstream from peg 42) just a few pegs down from the carpark at the end of the track next to the river. This peg had won a previous match with bream and skimmers, so once again I set up a feeder rod and this time decided to go with a waggler down the middle of the river. On plumbing up the river was around 10 feet deep down the middle and had 2 distinct shelves on each side of the river. I aimed to fish the feeder about 3/4 of the way across before the water shallowed up again. I started the match on the feeder, again putting a few casts in to get some bait in the water. I also started feeding around 20 maggots and some hemp for the waggler.

At first the feeder started OK I got a few small fish, 2 of which were grabbed by a small pike as the fish were brought over the near shelf. Pike don't count in the matches so I was glad that they came off. I managed a decent size perch and then lost a better sized fish in the nearside cabbages. I think it was a bigger perch and not a skimmer. After that things went very quiet on the feeder and I could not get any bites. I was starting to think that the fish were shying away from the groundbait. So after an hour I picked up the waggler rod and had a few runs down. The weather on the day was quiet good, warm sunshine and a bit of a breeze. The breeze was coming from behind me which helped casting and did not drag the line around so the float got a good run down the swim. I have not fished the waggler on a river for a long time but I managed to hit most of the bites I was getting from very small chub and the odd roach. After a while a decided to half the depth to around 4 feet on the rig leaving just 2 No.8 shot at 1 foot intervals down the line and ran the float down some more. Again I started to catch small roach with the odd bigger one. It was no different to fishing at full depth and I also feel that the majority of the fish would be in the upper layers of the water. At this point it was a case of sticking at it and trying to build a weight of fish up. After a while the float disappeared and I struck into a much better fish, I took my time and after a couple of hairy moments with the nearside cabbages I netted a chub that was over 2lb. This got my hopes up and I concentrated even more. I tried to vary the feed pattern by either casting then feeding and vice versa to see if it made a difference to the catch rate, but it remained pretty similar all the way through. As the match developed 2 distinct areas were the fish were caught developed. If I got a bite almost immediately it was from a very small chub and about 10 yards down the peg I caught roach and the bigger chub. There were a couple of people walking the bank saying that the match was a struggle for most, so I kept on plugging away hoping for some more chub. In the end I managed 2 more and lost 2, one of which was a really good fish, when I struck it just stayed motionless in the current, but the hook pulled. At the end I weighed in a level 8lb which was good enough for 3rd place which I was very pleased about.

For the next match the following weekend some of the team were going to fish Newark Dyke, but I felt that I would be better off fishing a match on the tidal river. So myself and another team mate, Martin Griffiths fished the Scunthorpe match which would include 3 sections of the tidal river. Once again the river needed rain and a decent sized tide to fish well.

In previous weeks the fishing had been quite patchy. Martin and myself drew in the Dunham Bridge section, so not the best from a practice point of view but good for driving and dropping the gear off. I had peg 12 and Martin fished 16. The pegs were close together which was a bit short for float fishing. There was a chance of barbel along this stretch, so I fished positively on the feeder with a pellet hookbait and I also set up a 7 No.4 stick float to fish about a rod length out which was about 9-10 feet deep. Again I fed maggots and hemp on the stick float and fished with pellets and casters in the groundbait feeder. Once again the feeder was slow and I did not get any bites on pellet or maggot. The fish really don't like my groundbait!!! So after an hour I started on the stick float line. Anglers around me had been float fishing for a while and caught the odd fish, and soon enough I started to catch the odd nice roach. About 2 hours into the match and the flow started to slow down as the tide began to move upstream. Once the flow came to stop so did the bites, it was only when the flow picked up as the water was pushed upstream did bites pick up again. I was catching perch and roach on single maggot and as the water levels rose I had to adjust the depth of the rig accordingly. Luckily I had set up my 15 foot rod for the stick float and I think the deepest the river got was around 13 foot, so I would not have managed using a standard 13 foot rod. Once the tide peaked and the flow reduced again so did the bites. In these quiet spells I tried the feeder again, but again there were no bites. Before the river began to run back downstream again I catapulted a few pouches of hemp and a couple of maggots to create an area of feed a little downstream for the fish to move onto once the flow picked up. Hemp is quite a heavy bait and once on the bottom it will more or less stay put and hopefully the roach will move in. There was a transformation when the river started flowing downstream again I started to catch good sized roach and perch and staying true to form I managed to lose a good fish which was either a big perch or a Chub. I applied pressure to try to keep the fish out of the nearside rocks and the hooklength broke. I had previously tied hooklengths for the trips to river so I was back fishing again in no time. However time did run out, that last hour after the flow turned was very good and I wish I could have carried on. At the weigh in I scaled about4.5lb which beat the angler downstream and was very close to the upstream angler. In all I was 4th in my 10 peg section, most of the fish were caught in that last hour. At the end of the match I was pleased with the float fishing, but the feeder fishing is becoming very frustrating.

The last match to report on is the final match in the Sunday evening series at Meadow View. This was fished the day after my success on Newark Dyke so I was brimming with confidence, however the fish had other ideas. I drew peg 30 and had already made my mind up to fish meat at 5 metres and down the side. By the end of the match I had lost 2 carp and caught a couple of roach. I did not bother to weigh in. I was brought down to earth with a big bump. I now realise that the carp in Meadow View seem to respond best to a pellet approach, and my stubbornness to fish with meat has been costly. 3 more matches have been booked for next year, so hopefully I won't make the same mistake.

On reflection by the end of the month I was getting a bit fed up of driving over 200 miles each weekend with mixed results and more questions than answers. Although I feel comfortable with my float fishing both on the stick and waggler, my feeder fishing and set up is terrible. I still need to get some more stick floats so that I have a good range to choose from and I have ordered 2 new tips for my feeder rod, which will hopefully improve my bite detection.

August sees the big day arrive and also POHAS are on their annual holiday to Bewdley. The holiday is booked for the week before the National, so I have all week to get my fishing and gear sorted for the day on the Trent.

Well that has been a long post, has anyone stayed awake long enough? I will post again at the end of August and include some pictures from the trip to Bewdley and the long awaited Division 1 National.

Tight lines everyone.

June's update.

June has come and gone, at least the sun made a very welcome appearance and the weather became very warm for a few days. I have been a bit slow getting the page updated, so this info will be from memory and I might miss a bit.

So in no particular order here goes.

Although the weather has improved and the days have been longer I have not fished that many matches. After a chat in the pub one night I suggested a couple of evening matches on Meadow View near Lymm. Following the Supercup practice match at the beginning of the year I felt that with the size of fish it was possible that someone could get get a good weight and hopefully break the magic ton. So a mini league of 3 matches was organised on Sunday evenings. The first match got off to a good start with John Bryan netting 87lb on pellet at 4 metres from peg 4. I was on peg 6 and managed 28lb on meat for 5th place. (battered off the next peg, I know) The second match, a week later I faired a little better getting 47lb on meat fished shallow at 13 metres or at 5 metres, from peg 20. This weight ended up third in the match. 51lb won so it was a little closer. My thinking after the first match that fish would be caught shallow, so my main lines of attack were to fish meat shallow and feed 4mm pellets at 13 metres and then feed a line a 5 metres with 6mm cubes of meat for later in the match. I got a fish straight away at 13 metres, but was quiet after that. I tried changing depths and feeding, but all I got were a cluster of bubbles in the peg over the feed. I tried on the deck, and managed a couple of fish and caught a couple more shallow. It was very frustrating having fish fizz in the peg and not be able to catch regularly. However switching to the 5 metre line I caught fish a bit better by feeding around a dozen cubes of meat and fishing a single cube on the hook.

I think my main problem was trying to make meat fishing work, thinking it would sort out the better fish. However in reflection I feel I would have caught more in each match by fishing the same way but with pellets as bait instead. This was a lesson I was to ignore as you will find out in July.

To take advantage of the lighter nights and an early finish from work I fished a Warrington AA evening match on the Bridgewater Canal at Stockton Heath on the pegs at Beech Road. In order to win the main line would be catching skimmers on pellets, not exactly traditional canal fishing. but when in Rome. So I set up a pellet rig for 11.5 metres, which would be fed with 2mm pellets and some fishmeal groundbait with a 4mm expander on the hook, and I also fished a light rig with pinkies at 4 metres. At the all in I feed the pellet line with a cup containing pellets and groundbait and started on pinkies while that line settled. After 20 mins and only a couple of small perch on pinkie I tried the pellet rig. Much too my surprise after a couple of minutes the float sunk and I lifted the pole to be met with...nothing. After that I could not get a bite! I re-fed at regular intervals but I only managed a small skimmer of around 6oz. The match was won from the end peg with 7lb odd. I did not bother to weigh in. Never mind.

I did manage to spend another evening having a pleasure fishing session on Budworth Mere, near Northwich. This is a very nice place to go with hopefully a few bream thrown in for good measure (see picture). Anyway I just set up a feeder rod and fished as far as I could accurately cast in line with the buoy in the picture. I set up a simple paternoster rig with a groundbait feeder and double maggot on the hook, with groundbait and casters in the feeder. The water on this bank is quite shallow but a good day can be had in the right conditions. Thankfully when I fished it was warm, overcast and a little breezy. From previous visits it seems the lake was down a little, and with shallow margins it is possible to wade out and set a platform up and fish away from the bank. Once the tackle was ready I quickly punched out six casts with just groundbait and casters to get some feed in the peg and hopefully the noise would bring in some fish. After that I tied on a 3 foot hooklength and baited with 2 red maggots and started fishing. I soon caught a few nice roach and the odd perch, and after a while I started to get some nice hybrids up to 2lb or so, which gave a good scrap. Unfortunately I did not get any bream. To be honest I think I bumped a couple off so I could have spooked them in the shallow clear water. Bad angling! At the end of the night I think I had between 20-30lb, which was not too bad. In the past I have managed a few bream towards the end of the session, which average around 4lb. I would like to have a proper day on the venue to see if a bigger weight is possible, by fishing for longer. That's hopefully for another time soon.

The last match was an open at Brookside near Stretton outside Warrington on the Snake. I have not fished here regularly for a couple a years, but I felt like a change from Partridge, which was looking like becoming a race to catch the fish, which is fine if plenty of fish are in front of you, but not much fun if you are struggling.

Anyway I have always preferred to fish pellets at Brookside in order to catch the better stamp of fish. Since my more regular visits the venue has been stoked with Ide and the winning methods have been to fish caster shallow. If I did this I would be a long way off the regulars who fish it all the time, so I stuck with what I know. I drew peg 57 on the back Snake, which can be a good peg. I set up rigs to cover the far bank, 3/4's of the way across and at 5 metres. My far bank rig could also be fished in the margins if needed. I started across feeding 3mm green swim stim pellets, corn and a little groundbait and caught a couple of nice F1's but after half an hour I was slowing down. I tried down the middle only to catch a few small tench. Meanwhile around me anglers were catching on caster fished shallow. So I set up a shallow pellet rig to try to single out the F1's I did manage to get a couple, but nothing to make me think I had cracked it. During the match I had fed a line at 5 metres with pellets and paste to fish later on. Paste is something I have caught on in the past at Brookside. Even when I have not had a bite on anything else the same swim produces fish on paste. So I started on paste and got a couple of quick fish, but not many bites, so I swapped to pellet and started to get bites more quickly including a couple of good size skimmers over 2lbs. By now it was approaching the end of the match, so I stayed on this line, and I must admit that I caught most of my fish on it. In the end I weighed 34lb which was about 10lb short of the next best caster weight. At the end I felt if the far bank had produced more fish I would have been a lot closer to the caster weights. All that it illustrates is that you have to learn the winning methods in order to keep up. At the moment fishing caster shallow is the winning method at Brookside and Partridge, as it catches both the F1's and Ide.

At last one final note preparations for the Division 1 National started with a trip down to the Nottingham area to have look round some of sections on the River Trent, just to get an idea of where some of the access points are. So on the day that England got knocked out of the World Cup by Germany myself and Craig Richie got into Jeff Stolls car and went for a tour. After a good breakfast at Tesco's near Long Eaton we managed to find Fiskerton, Newark Dyke, Winthorpe and watched the weigh in from the tidal river at South Clifton. From those visits both Fiskerton and Newark Dyke looked good, but the tidal sections looked patchy.

So that is June in a long nutshell. Next month will be all about the practice matches on the legendary Trent.

Tight lines

May update

Hello again.

Only managed to fish 2 opens on Partridge in the run up to the Fishomania qualifier. Firstly on Covet 4 peg 78. Not the best draw and in the end it was a struggle. Fished the usual tactics of pellet and corn, but I did not have any maggots with me. Due to the colder than previous weather this was a bit of a mistake.
To cut a long story short I did not catch a great deal. The swims across were especially hard. Did catch a few down the edge to my left.
I did have the pleasure of watching Neil Machin on the next peg catch a great deal more than me. After a slow start he did have a run of fish on small pieces of paste at 5 metres.
Anyway I did not bother to weigh in, Neil Machin had 33lb and Dave Pimlott have over 20lb. I don't think I could have managed 10lb. A match to forget.

Second match at Partridge I drew peg 24 on Covey 1. This looked an interesting peg being on a slight point and having some rushes on the far bank. I fished the usual across and down the edge rigs and also I set up a rig for 5 metres on paste after seeing what Neil Machin had done in the last match, just to see what happened. Plumbing up against the rushes was slightly deeper than fishing against the far bankl grasses, so I thought this would the main line of attack. This rig rig was a 4x12 Chianti, for the deeper water, instead of the normal Garbolino DC6 for fishing in the swallow water against the far bank and in the margins. The paste rig was a 4x14 Garbolino DC11.
Most of the fish were caught against the rushes. The margin swim to my left was very quiet and the paste line was dead. In the end I caught about 21lb which was made up of over 30 fish mostly F1's. The stamp of these fish were smaller than what I had previously caught.
Once again Dave Pimlott was nearby and he caught about 28lb fishing mostly down the edge.

Next came the big one, the Fishomania qualifier. Prior to the match there had been a spell of warm weather, but come the day of the match it was cooler and rained for most of the day. Prior to the match one of the Holbar lakes was fancied to win it, with Holbar 2 being slightly better.
Preparing for the match I made sure rigs were ok and tied some more hooklengths. Biatwise I had a bit of everything in case I did draw one of the Holbar Lakes. I was planning to practice on Holbar to get an idea of what the lake is like and the stamp of fish to be expected. However work commitments stopped me form going.
At the draw I somehow managed to pull out peg 14 on Holbar 1. Someone at the draw told me to run to the peg, so it must have been alright. After unloading the gear I had a look round. In theory the peg looked great. Again on a slight point further out than the adjacent pegs and closer to the corner of the island. It looked good.
On plumbing up it was really shallow in the margins and gradually shelved off to about 6 metres and the deepest water, by the time you got to 13metres it started to shallow up again. Based on this I discounted the margins as being too shallow and set up a paste rig for 6 metres, a meat rig for 13metres and a rig for fishing at 16 metres in about 18 inches of water. Being opposite the island I set upa method feeder rod as well.
At the all in I fed the 13 metre line with pellets, corn and meat and the 6 metre swim with pellets and a few pieces of paste. The 6 metre line would be fwed by hand with pellets and paste looking to build it up for the last 2 hours of the match. I started on the method feeder with a banded pellet. In the first half hour I only managed a couple of line bite and slight touches. The anglers around me were struggling too. I tried the 13 metre line and only caught a few small stockie carp less than 8oz each. It was not looking good. The big fish that were expected to win it were not feeding at all, and very few fish were moving about.
I carried on trying each line in turn to see if the fish had moved into a certain area, but all I could catch were small stockies. A few big fish were caught, but no-one caught any numbers and the best weight from Holbar 1 was 34lb. Tom Pickering was on peg 12 and only managed 28-30lb, so I did not feel too bad about catching sod all.
In the end it was a bit dissappointing as the weather prevented the lakes from fishing as well as they could have. The winner came from Willow lake peg 20 with 126lb of chub caught on caster. Well done to the winner and good luck in the final.
Looks like I will have to wait until next year (again)

Next month sees the start of the River season again and preparations for the Division 1 National will start.

April update

Managed 2 matches on Partridge Lakes, and a club match at Border Fisheries.

Firstly drew peg 20 on Covey 1. Caught 22lb made up of 30ish fish by fishing corn and pellet against the far bank and close in down the edge. Tried maggot but only managed a few Ide. I was not catching quickly enough to make it worth while, so concentrated on pellet and corn. One thing that did happen was that I fished the margin swim at 4 metres down the edge after about 2.5 hours and had a quick run of fish with bite coming very quickly. Then after resting it and fishing it again I struggled to catch. I must have spoked the fish and I should have fished further down the peg in case the fish had backed away.
Apart from that I managed a section win, which I was pleased with. However the next week peg 20 won the match, so there you go.

Second match at Partridge I drew peg 68 on Covey 3 I had no idea what this peg was like. Its on the end of a straight just before the corner. At the time the pegging seemed strange as to my right about 4 pegs were empty and all the pegs between me and the bridge were taken. Peg 69 is especially tight as it is on the corner of the island and is close to the 2 adjacent pegs. Because of this I concentrated my lines in the direction of the empty pegs, hoping the fish would be away from the main disturbance. Once again I set up to fish close in and across with pellet and corn and also a maggot rig. Caught well on all methods especially fishing the far side to the right against a few stick ups and the margin swim to my right also. Corn produced the most fish and the better stamp ones. Had a good spell fishing maggot catching Ide and F1's fishing in about 3ft of water at full depth with a spread shotting pattern. In the end I managed 53 fish for 43lb which at the time of weighing in was second. It was not to last as 2 weights around 60lb also came from Covey 3 as well as some more high 40's pushed me down to sixth overall. So a section win again. Great stuff.

Sandwiched between the Partridge match was a club trip to Border Fisheries on the match lake. I wanted to fish here as the lake offers a chance to fish different methods and the fish are bigger. I drew peg 27 which seemed ok, the island was a gentle cast away and there was plenty of room for a pole swim at 13 metres. Baitwise was meat, casters and big pellets. My plan was to feed casters and meat at 13 metres and fish meat for the carp and possibly skimmers. Loosefed casters at six metres for the silvers if the carp did not show. Finally a bomb rig to fish with 10mm pellets on a hair rig. It was a slow start with not many bites on the bomb rig or meat on the pole. So I started on the caster line and caught a few roach and rudd, but not with much regularity. I kept on feeding the pole swim with a pot of casters and meat every half hour and after about 2.5 hours a patch of bubbles appeared. Straight out with meat rig and after lifting the bait a couple of times I connected with my first proper carp. Another 2 followed, but it went quiet, but the bubbles were still there. I started to feed a margin swim out of desparation and after a while I noticed the water cahnge colour due to the bottom disturbance. I could not get a bite there until 15 mins before the end when I hit into my biggest fish of the day, about 10lb. There was not enough time for another so I ended the match with 27lb for 8th place. 62lb won from peg 4 on pellet shallow. It was a nice day and most people caught a few.

So on to May and the FishOmania qualifier draws near.

March update.

Hello again.

3 matches to report on this month.

Firstly the 7th round of the Warrington Local league on the Bridgewater Canal from the M6 bridge to Statham. I was drawn on peg 2 of B section which put me along the boats between the motorway bridge and Statham. Once again the fishing was very poor, although I thought I might catch roach by fishing punch close to the boat, none materialised so it was back to trying to catch as many perch as possible. Again it was difficult with many anglers struggling to catch a fish. In the end I only caught 2 perch by feeding a large amount of chopped worm and caster at 6 metres down the middle of the canal. Most others caught a few perch and some roach did make an appearance very late on. Again I got a low score in my section. On the team front Lee Clark won the match and Kev Green won his section.

The second match to report on was the last round of the winter league fished at Grappenhall. At the start of the match we were in 4th place only 3 points behind 3rd, so a good performance would see us take 3rd place. I was drawn on peg 6 of c section which was peg 588 next to the bridge in Grappenhall village. Usually this would mean a few fish. But with the way the canal has been fishing expectations were not very high. Once again there were no fish showing on punch at the begginning or end of the match, so it was a perch match. What joy. By the end I had managed 5 small perch for about 10oz's which gave me 4th in the section. In the end it was just down to the number of perch you could catch. Back at the Star Inn and the results told us that we had done enough to take 3rd place by 2 points. A big well done to all the team Kev, Stu, Lee and Geoff, the organisers and everyone who took part.
On reflection in the main the canal has fished very poor since the new year and the very cold spell in January must have been a factor. I enjoyed the company and had a good laugh with everyone. However I don't know if that will be enough to make me want to fish the league again.

Since the league finished I have spent some time and money getting all my kit sorted for the warmer months and hopefully catching a few more fish. I have tied new rigs, hooklengths, replaced elastic and bought a MAP meat cutter, which looks a very good piece of kit. So hopefully I am geared up for the summer. By being better prepared I hope I will perform better in matches and win some money, fingers crossed anyway!

I fished my first match on Partridge Lakes yesterday in prepartion for the Fish O mania qualifier at the end of May. The previous weeks results were good, however some areas were patchy. The matches are fished on the Covey Lakes with No.4 having the current form. So low and behold I drew 47 on Covey 2. The peg was on a small island in the middle of the lake accessed via a footbridge, apparently not very good even in summer. The weather was ok just a bit of breeze to deal with. The lakes are stocked with F1's carp and Ide mainly, the biggest fish is probably 2lb. So I geared up to fish with pellet and maggot with corn as change bait to try and catch any bigger fish or single out the carp. I had rigs set up for the far bank, margins and at 4 metres. I fed 2 swims on the far bank, one with maggots and the other with pellets and a couple of pieces of corn. The 4 metre swims were fed with the same, and the margin swim just pellet and corn. At the all in after feeding each swim I started fishing across on pellet to catch an early carp or F1. It was a very slow start and I only caught 1 small F1 and an Ide, so I switched to maggot and by catapulting a few maggots across I started to get bites and the odd fish. That said it was very slow. Some of the bites were very fast and I did miss a few. It was slow for the anglers around me, no one was catching fish in numbers, so I kept plugging away. I kept feeding pellet and corn every 20mins or so hoping to catch on it later on. With about half an hour left I had around 9 fish in the net, not very good. So I slipped a piece of corn on shipped out and began to count to 100 in my head, about half way through it went under and I netted an F1, next cast I barely got to 10 when I hit a small mirror carp about 1-1/2lb, after another F1 I fed again but did not get anymore. At the end I weighed 9LB with 11lb odd winning the section. If I had caught a few more Ide on maggot during the middle of the match I may have won the section.

It was not a bad start to the matches at Partridge, but I will need some maggot rigs, so more prepartion is still needed. It was clear that the fish have not quite woken up and spread out since the weather has improved, but fish were topping, so as long as there are no more cold spells the fishing should improve. Also it was a struggle to catch on pellet, most anglers around me caught on maggot and the better weights were caught from corners and the pegs at the end of islands. The 4 metre swim only produced a small carp on corn and the margin swim was biteless.

For the next match I will probably start on pellet or corn and feed maggots just short of the far bank and look to catch either on the drop or at full depth to try and get the most from the peg. Hopefully I will manage to fish a match each weekend and get a good feel for the place by the time the Fish O mania match comes around.

Tight Lines

Feb update

Hello all.

Two matches to report on. Firstly it was round 6 of the Warrington Local league on the Bridgewater Canal at Dunham Massey. Once again the canal showed how bad it can be, coupled with poor weather conditions. The canal was covered with a thin sheet of ice that was easily dispursed. As in the last match at Cliffe Lane one of the problems was the ice moving about after it had been broken up. There had also been some snow in the days leading up to the match, so it was no great surprise that the match was tough. However there were many blanks in all sections and only a couple of teams managed four catchers. I managed to catch a single small perch, fishing pretty much the same way as at Cliffe lane this again got me 3 points and the team finished 3rd on the day with 1 blank and 1 section win. There are two rounds left and there is still a chance of getting third place in the league.

The second match was fished with POHAS on Meadow View near Lymm. This was a practice match for the forth coming supercup round against Richmonds and Partridge Lakes. As I am committed to fish the teams of 4 league. I am unable to fish in the supercup match itself, but was looking forward to fishing on a carp fishery for a change.

12 turned up for the practice and my luck held at the draw picking peg 42 on Lark pool. This is on the bank nearest the office and at the car park end. Generally speaking in cold weather this is the end you need to be at to catch carp, especially as the far end past half way in the lake can be very poor. My main methods would be pole and leger. Due to the weather I decided to concentrate on long pole at 13 metres with an option to fish a bit further at 14.5 metres if the fish backed off. I set up 1 rig of a Preston 4x12 Chianti with a size 18 808 to 0.12mm hooklength to fish two swims at 13m. On the left I feed about half a 150ml pot of 4mm fishery pellets and a bit of corn, and to the right I fed about 20-30 micro fishery pellets and 2-3 pieces of corn via a kinder pot. I also fished the leger straight in front in the middle of the lake with a single piece of corn on the hook feeding nothing. At the start I started on the leger after feeding both pole swims. After about 5 mins the tip went round and I struck into my first carp. After a short scrap a 4lb fish was landed, good start, no-one else was catching. After a couple of missed bites on the tip I tried the pole swim to the right with single corn. After 5 mins I got my first bite and struck into a good fish. Using size 10 latex I just had to take my time and the fish would soon be netted. This fish was possibly 5lb. I tried the left hand swim for a while and again after about 5 mins I got another carp, this one was a bit bigger. So after about 40 mins of the match I already had around 15lb in the net. A couple of people had managed at least 1 carp, so it was looking good. After swapping and changing through the different swims and trying pellets and corn on the hook, things were a little quiet. Then after 2 hours I caught 3 fish one after the other, one of which must have been close to 10lb. Again it went quiet until the last hour when another 3 carp were landed the last coming just before the all out. In total I caught 10 carp plus 1 roach and 1 Ide. The fishery staff carried out the weigh in and I was last to weigh with 64lb. This was enough to win the match as 39lb was second.
All in all I enjoyed a good days fishing for this time of year, but I was also lucky getting the peg in the right area and having a fair amount of room around me. I was surprised that most of the fish 6, came from the heavily fed left hand swim. At around 3/4-1 hour intervals I fed the same amount of bait as I did at the start, just to see what the reaction would be. In the last hour my 3 fish came from this swim. If the match had gone on any longer I am sure more would have been caught as the light began to fade.
Once the winter league is over I am now looking forward to going back to the fisheries and hopefully catching more fish and enjoying myself more.

As a footnote I applied for 3 Fishomania tickets at Tunnel Barn, Larford Lakes and Partridge Lakes. Luckily I ahve managed to get a ticket for Partridge Lakes, so once the league is out of the way I will be fishing the opens at Partridge each weekend. As it is a local venue there is no excuse for not practicing.

Tight Lines.

Teams of 4 Round 5

Just a quick report from my recent match fishing in the teams of 4 local league on the Bridgewater Canal at Cliffe Lane near Grappenhall.

This was generally a poor match, most anglers struggled and their were blanks in 2 of the sections. The team drew peg 1 and I was pegged in B section which put me on permanent peg 638 towards the end of the moored boats at Cliffe Lane. There was a covering of thin ice on the canal, but part of my peg was clear due to the ducks and swans. The only problem was that once the ice was broken up it was moving around a lot and the boats only made it worse. So for most of the first half of the match time was spent gently moving the ice in order to fish. I first thought that with boat cover and a reasonable depth across +3ft that I would catch roach, sadly the bread rig remained untouched and as it turned out the any roach that were caught were from peg 1 of the match to several pegs to my right. After that I don't think a roach was caught. Therefore I set my stall out to catch whatever perch I could on chopped worm. Usually I fish 2 swims at the bottom of the near shelf on the left and right. With no roach showing I also fed swims further along the near shelf and two swims in the deeper water just past half way.

I only managed to catch 2 small perch from the new swims I fed part way through the match. If I had not done this I think I would have blanked. In each swim I only fed 2 or 3 worms finely chopped fishing a small section of redworm on the hook. My 2 fish gave me just over 2oz and fifth place in the section of 7. Although it was difficult the team did well to finish second on the day and Stu Hardman won the match with a weight below 2lb pegged next to the road bridge. Well done to Stu.

After the match a lot of talk was about the poor form of the canal, but in fairness we did have the melted ice water to contend with and the colour of the canal prevented the perch feeding properly. Hopefully the next round will be better which is at Dunham Massey.

My fishing history.

Hello all.

Hopefully this will be as brief as I can make it.

I first went fishing with my Dad when I was 7 on the Sankey Canal in Warrington, needless to say I did not catch anything. After numerous days out, mainly spent mucking about and climbing trees I caught my first fish, a perch from the Bridgewater Canal, near Houghs Bridge at Walton.

When I was 12 we moved house, which had ponds just around the corner. These were run by Penketh and Old Hall AS (POHAS) in Warrington and from then on I spent as much free time as possible fishing on the ponds. I was also a member of Warrington AA and would go to the Bridgewater Canal, Grey Mist and Ackers Pit with my mates on our bikes.

In 1990 POHAS ran their first series of matches throughout the summer including coach trips and a couple of years after that a winter league started and a very healthy match fishing programme started. I must say the competitive nature of matches got me really focused. All I wanted to do was catch as many fish as possible and learn as much as possible. Each year I got better and better and started to make a big impression on the league table and started to win trophies. By the mid 90's I was doing really well and the club had some really good anglers involved. This was the basis for my match fishing, I really enjoyed it, trying my best to beat the other competitors. I would try to get as much info about venues and tactics so I could plan what to do for the upcoming matches, just to be that bit more prepared than everyone else

Eventually I got to the point where I was winning a lot of matches and the overall leagues etc. At this point after finishing university and getting settled in a job I started to fish open matches and trying to compete against more experienced anglers, which I really enjoyed. Around this time the commerical fisheries were becoming very popular and people started to drift away from canal and river matches. A turning point came during a POHAS winter league match on the Bridgewater Canal in 2000. I think 1 person caught a fish. So after that the club booked matches on commerical fisheries through winter instead of having all matches on the canal. The change was fantastic everyone caught fish most of the time and the winning weights were much higher.

Once I gained more experience on commerical fisheries I started to fish open matches at places like Brookside and moving onto Cudmore. Once I got used to the level of fishing required and getting tackle and tactics correct I started to win some money, not regular but certainly enough to realise I was doing ok. My highlight came in 2005 when myself and Ian Armstrong qualified for the Maver Pairs Final at Larford Lakes after fishing at Cudmore. Larford was great, I did not catch a fantastic weight and I felt out of place against all the top names in match fishing, but everyone was friendly and it was a great experience. I just bottled it a bit.

The past 12 months have been completely different. In May I was asked to join Warrington Anglers team to fish a leauge on Cudmore and The River Weaver. At the time I was looking to do something different with my fishing, as I was not enjoying myself very much and felt I needed a new challenge. This also led to fishing the Division 1 National on canals around Stafford. This was a great privelige and experience and thankfully I did not make an idiot of myself on the day finishing with 49 points out of a possible 69 and second best points scorer in the team. After this we compteted in the Mid Cheshire Winter League, again personally not doing very well.

So I come full circle and I am back fishing rivers and canals again. I must admit that I have found it difficult, it is like learning all over again. I have to make a decision to either carry on or go back to commerical fisheries. At the moment I am going to wait until the end of winter to decide.

All I will say is that I would not swap any of it for anything, so far I have had a wonderful time and had a great laugh no matter what was caught.

So that is a briefish fishing history. Even writing this brought back some good memories.

January 2010.

Sorry for updating much information recently.

I have to admit my motivation has been a little lacking recently. Mainly due to the weather and poor catches from the matches I have fished. (Not really worth writing about)

I have completed fishing in the Mid Cheshire winter league for Warrington. These matches had a good atmosphere with good anglers, however I did not personally enjoy the fishing very much. I must admit I did struggle on most occassions and did not do very well in my section on all the matches. I was disappointed that I did not do well for the team.

This has lead me to have a bit of a re-think about what direction I want my fishing to take. I am thinking more and more about going back to commerical fisheries and fishing more as an individual, where I want and when I want. As part of this I have registered for 3 Fish O mania tickets on Tunnel Barn Farm, Larford Lakes and Partridge, hopefully this will give me extra motivation to do well. Once the winter leagues are over I will take stock and start to apply myself more to consistent fishing.

I really enjoy catching fish from a canal or river because thats how I learnt to fish when I was younger. However I am becoming more and more upset by the attitude of the minority of the public who think we have no right to be fishing on a canal or river bank when they are either walking, boating, cycling etc. At least on a commerical fishery your tackle would be safe and you can relax whilst fishing instead of worrying about anyone damaging your pole or complaining about blocking footpaths. I think I have noticed this more as its only been over the past 12 months that I have been back fishing canals and rivers on a regular basis.

Anyway as I say it is the minority who seem to want to spoil it for the others as with everything else in society. The majority of people you come across whilst fishing are polite, friendly and patient.

My next post will be more positive and concentrate on actual fishing. HA.