Team mate Sam Johnson and I have fished this early Christmas match a few times now. It is always well run and the prizes are very good.
Sam travelled down the week before and picked up our tickets in Cullompton Angling Centre.
I contacted Russell Hilton to see if he knew where it was being pegged in order to get my bearings as I have been way out of Tiverton before and nearly got lost. Russell indicated that it would probably be from the town basin towards Tidcombe and sent me a couple of map images. He also said "you don't want to be in front of the houses at Tidcombe".
There had been a pairs match on the canal a few weeks ago and it fished pretty well with bream dominating but there had been a bit of colour then.
The Grand Western is a very shallow canal and in most places no more than 13 metres wide. Boat traffic is just about non existent. My tray of rigs for the Kennet and Avon would more than suffice so prep was minimal.
The draw was in the Canal Basin Car Park at 08:00 with fishing 09:30 - 14:30.
After meeting at McDonalds in Tiverton we headed off to the draw.
After registering we found that 41 were fishing today and everyone could walk to the pegs from the draw.
The draw was done after someone called a random number between 1 and 41, 25 was called so the person against that number was first. As Sam and I were 19 and 18 we would be near the end.
Most fancied pegs 1 to 10 and at the start a lot of high numbers were coming out. By the time it got to Sam there was only one peg left in the basin, peg 2 and Sam got it, he was happy with that.
I was next and number 31 was given to me, not good, Tidcome in front of the houses. I had to walk past the decent pegs and passed Russell on peg 8, needless to say he was quite happy as a bream weight had come off it during the pairs match.
I got to my peg and it did look inviting but I was conscious of what Russell and others had told me. Basically on the opposite bank were gardens coming right down to the canal from bungalow's. The area was also full of ducks and swans waiting for the owners of the properties to feed them. The ducks were all over the place chasing each other etc.
The towpath here had a bit of wear but I was able to set up a platform in the water.
Angling journalist Dom Garnett took the photo
I plumped up with a 4 x 12 and found that down the track it was less than 3 foot deep so set up two identical rigs one with a number 4 elastic and the other with a 5 just in case big fish turned up, yeah right. Size 20 hooks to 0.10 completed the set up. Across it was around 2 foot deep about half a metre from the bank. Another 4 x 12 with a 4 elastic covered this area and that was it, simples.
At the start I put in a small amount of minces worm across to the left of the bush, loose fed pinkie right in front of me and another minced worm line to my right.
I then put a small ball of liquidised bread down the track to my right leaving in front of me and to the right free to see what happened.
First put in down the track over the bread with a 5 mm punch the float buried and a small roach about 3 ounces was caught followed by another then nothing. I put another pinch of bread in and had another then nothing. I gave it another 15 minutes and nothing.
A small ball of bread then was put in to my right and as soon as I went over it a slow sail away bite brought me a small skimmer. As soon as I hooked it you could see it. No more bites on that line after that.
Hmmmmm what to do.
I went over on the minced worm line a bit early but I had an immediate bite and had another roach around 4 oz, yes please I thought keep them coming. As with my bread lines, no more bites followed so re-fed more worm. A look across in front of me with pinkie produced nothing.
Dom Garnett was next to me on 30 and he was also struggling despite trying different lines. I was also ahead of the angler on 32 would as far as I knew only had a couple of blade roach.
Get your head down Ivan and win the section I thought.
The minced worm line across produced the most fish but you would feed, catch and then have to feed again wait 10 minutes and then nick another one. The middle didn't give me anything.
About 10 minutes from the all out Dom caught and landed a small pike which count in these matches.
Bugger I thought but then remembered he was in the next section.
When the scales came down to me I weighed 0.975 which was made up of about 20 fish, I certainly had the most in the section but not enough weight as a couple of the 1kg weights had perch.
As I walked back to the car park I had heard that Russell had a good day catching skimmers and bream.
I met up with Sam before he weighed, the basin area had fished poorly, Sam weighed 0.700.
Russell blitzed the match with over 9 kg, photo below.
Here are the weigh sheets and full results, I actually finished 15 from 41 so not too bad.
Sam got his section by quadruple default, unbelievable, lol.
Acorn fishery match tomorrow and then Commercial House Xmas match on the K & A Sunday.
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