Sunday 12th June - SW Super League Round 1 Gloucester Canal, Hempstead to Pilot

I was looking forward to Round 1 and with 8 Teams of 8 taking part in the League there was always going to be a good turn out on the natural venues selected.
We had to borrow a couple of anglers for this round as a few of our guys were committed on family business etc but this was sorted out a week in advance.
Captain Chris Hook done the draw for us and informed me I was on 27 at Hempstead, I had never fished the early pegs on this stretch but word was it was going to be hard. New signing rob had 47 so was looking for a few fish. Nothing notable for the other guys at all. Team mate Sean was 8 pegs above me and I walked down the same stretch of tow path as him. His peg did not look good and was right opposite a boat dry dock, a few pegs down was welsh wizard Clive Branson with tree cover and a big lily pad in front of him, nice.
I got to my peg and it looked pretty crap with little cover on the far side and right on the far bank was a garage forecourt!

Anyway job to do so set up the standard pole rigs, one at 13 meters down the track and one just off the near shelf at about 9 meters. Down the track it was just under top 5 deep and on the shorter line around 12'. A Feeder was also set up for the far side and around 2 meters off the bank. During the time I was setting up a few decent fish rolled.

The peg was right on the tow path so had to keep the gear tight and tidy.

Boat traffic in the form of rowers was busy to say the least 

Pole lines were fed with just a couple of balls of chop and caster with a few dead pinkies added.

Bite's on the Feeder usually come quite early but after an hour there had not been any indications at all. Looking down toward Richard Candy on the next peg I hadn't seen him catch either. 

The short pole line was tried just after an hour in and I had a small skimmer of around 4 ozs straight away followed by a ruffe (bad sign).

I feed a few loose caster on the short line and tried the track, nothing (all match).

The match was spent swapping between the inside line and the feeder with very poor results, the weigh board for my Section shows how hard it was.

One to forget for me. Team wise we had 3 guys pick up money and we finished 5th out of 8. Next round is n a few weeks on the Bristol Avon, Crane Section with a practice match the week before.

The glorious 16th sees me on the River Kenn followed by a Club match on the same river Sunday 19th June.