Now that I only pleasure-fish I tend to take things easy, usually making any required rigs on the bank and spending more time in search of bonus fish than I otherwise might've in a match. In that respect, when I was a club match angler, it was always my style to fish for bites and target a section win, with less emphasis on pushing for the outright win. Well it wasn't so much a case of fishing for bites on the Grand Western Canal yesterday, but a bite.
I was full of anticipation, if not optimism, for the Tiverton DAC christmas match, but after an hour of fishing and nobody in my section having reported a bite, the signs were not encouraging. Truth be told, I was worried when I drew my peg, as I walked the length on Friday and discovered that the water was heavily stained, a kind of red-brown colour. I really wanted to be at the basin end, as a mass of water entering the canal from the culvert draining the hill road from Tiverton to Cullompton left everything 'downstream' markedly worse.
I'm afraid I didn't get any photographs from the match as I was hoping to take these at the end, but some heavy rain, and no doubt exhaustive disappointment, deterred me. I had three bites. The first one I missed, but the second one met with the solid resistance of a good skimmer. I could've cried when the hook pulled! Well not quite, but to compound things, Wayne Mitchell (Team Jinx), on the next peg, then had his only bite of the match resulting in a 1lb skimmer bream. I then slipped on my bream rig, laying a bunch of squats on a size 18 hook a couple of inches overdepth. This brought a further bite fifteen minutes from the end, seeing a roach of 130 grams safely landed at least.
The going was so tough, I think that the most successful tactic was purely maximising the amount of time your hookbait was in the water. I learned nothing by swapping lines as bites throughout the section were so rare. There were six fish caught in my section, and six of the ten anglers didn't catch and may not even have had a bite as far as I'm aware. Annoyingly, that dropped skimmer cost me second in section, which would've at least seen me get my tenner pools money back.
There were 40 anglers competing in total, and the sections elsewhere fished pretty well, with roach, skimmers and even a small tench caught. Credit must go to overall winner Simon Maunder who fished according to conditions, rather than being blinkered by the reputation of the venue as a breadpunch-only water, catching over 5kg of big skimmers on chopped worm.
The fishing might have been rock-hard for some of us, but the organisation of the event was superb, and there were even more prizes than anglers at the presentation afterwards. Thanks to those who arranged all this, and the ladies who put on a fantastic breakfast beforehand, and hot dogs and hot drinks after.
I'm sure many of you will have seen the devastating images of the Grand Western Canal in the news and on the TV last week. The section affected is where I have had some of the best days roach fishing that I have ever experienced. A few summers back, I could catch double-figures of quality roach in an evening on the waggler and hemp. Add to this probably the biggest rudd in the canal, bream of all sizes, perch, pike and tench all to specimen size for such a canal, and it will take many years to recover. Even repairing the bank, and filling this section with water again is not something I can see happening in the near future, such will be the cost. I understand that the club are awaiting the go-ahead from the Environment Agency to net the lake which has been formed in the field, and they are hopeful of recovering at least the majority of tench.
I have to point out for those of you who don't realise, that the section used for the Christmas match is a considerable distance away from the breach so was not affected, but arguably the best fishing on the canal has been lost. There are two damned off sections now, either side of the collapsed bank. I have not seen the other end but understand that it is very low. A very worrying time for those of us who love this canal.
I was full of anticipation, if not optimism, for the Tiverton DAC christmas match, but after an hour of fishing and nobody in my section having reported a bite, the signs were not encouraging. Truth be told, I was worried when I drew my peg, as I walked the length on Friday and discovered that the water was heavily stained, a kind of red-brown colour. I really wanted to be at the basin end, as a mass of water entering the canal from the culvert draining the hill road from Tiverton to Cullompton left everything 'downstream' markedly worse.
I'm afraid I didn't get any photographs from the match as I was hoping to take these at the end, but some heavy rain, and no doubt exhaustive disappointment, deterred me. I had three bites. The first one I missed, but the second one met with the solid resistance of a good skimmer. I could've cried when the hook pulled! Well not quite, but to compound things, Wayne Mitchell (Team Jinx), on the next peg, then had his only bite of the match resulting in a 1lb skimmer bream. I then slipped on my bream rig, laying a bunch of squats on a size 18 hook a couple of inches overdepth. This brought a further bite fifteen minutes from the end, seeing a roach of 130 grams safely landed at least.
The going was so tough, I think that the most successful tactic was purely maximising the amount of time your hookbait was in the water. I learned nothing by swapping lines as bites throughout the section were so rare. There were six fish caught in my section, and six of the ten anglers didn't catch and may not even have had a bite as far as I'm aware. Annoyingly, that dropped skimmer cost me second in section, which would've at least seen me get my tenner pools money back.
There were 40 anglers competing in total, and the sections elsewhere fished pretty well, with roach, skimmers and even a small tench caught. Credit must go to overall winner Simon Maunder who fished according to conditions, rather than being blinkered by the reputation of the venue as a breadpunch-only water, catching over 5kg of big skimmers on chopped worm.
The fishing might have been rock-hard for some of us, but the organisation of the event was superb, and there were even more prizes than anglers at the presentation afterwards. Thanks to those who arranged all this, and the ladies who put on a fantastic breakfast beforehand, and hot dogs and hot drinks after.
I'm sure many of you will have seen the devastating images of the Grand Western Canal in the news and on the TV last week. The section affected is where I have had some of the best days roach fishing that I have ever experienced. A few summers back, I could catch double-figures of quality roach in an evening on the waggler and hemp. Add to this probably the biggest rudd in the canal, bream of all sizes, perch, pike and tench all to specimen size for such a canal, and it will take many years to recover. Even repairing the bank, and filling this section with water again is not something I can see happening in the near future, such will be the cost. I understand that the club are awaiting the go-ahead from the Environment Agency to net the lake which has been formed in the field, and they are hopeful of recovering at least the majority of tench.
I have to point out for those of you who don't realise, that the section used for the Christmas match is a considerable distance away from the breach so was not affected, but arguably the best fishing on the canal has been lost. There are two damned off sections now, either side of the collapsed bank. I have not seen the other end but understand that it is very low. A very worrying time for those of us who love this canal.