The SW Super League starts officially next Sunday, the first match is on the Gloucester Canal. I think organiser Mark Treasure had 52 booked in to fish this practice but there were 5 no shows. Mark spread the anglers from Hempstead down to the Pilot Inn as these are the Sections to be used next week (although he may make some changes following todays match.
team Captain Chris Hook, new signing Rob Wood and I fished todays match, the others had previous engagements but are OK for next week.
The weather was already glorious at 08:00 and the forecast was for a very hot day so there would be lots out walking and cycling the tow path as well as a high number of boats on the water.
At the draw Chris drew peg 47 at Hempstead, a great draw and he was looking to break his recent duck of 2 blanks on the trot on the canal. I was behind him and drew 209 at Rea, really poor area as I had done some weighing in on this Section on one of the Teams of 4 Spring League recently. Rob did not do much better and pulled out peg 219. But .... hey the pay out was top 2 in the Sections and top 3 overall to spread the money about.
It was a fairly long walk to the peg but we had plenty of time to set up before the 10:30 ''all in''.
My peg was virtually on the towpath leaving little room to ship the pole back so I opted for just an 11 meter line at about 14:00, it was just on the shelf with around 12 feet of water. Two Feeder Rods were also set up, one clipped up to fish at the bottom of the far shelf and the other for down the track.
My ground bait was green fish meal for both feeder lines and the pole line was simply chopped worm and caster with dead pinkie squeezed together and cupped in.
On the all in everyone started on the far feeder line after baiting up their other area's. An hour passed and I had not seen a fish of any description caught. Many were out on the pole now but I decided to give it another 20 minutes. Nothing happened.
I went out on the 11 meter line with double dead red. I did see a couple of small eels being caught but no fish. 20 minutes in and after lifting and dropping the bait the float buried and a healthy about of No.5 elastic came out...fish on. A family stopped directly behind me to watch and I had to give them instructions were to stand so as not to get in the way. A decent hybrid of just under a 1lb was netted.
No more fish followed in the next hour on this line so I swapped between the far and middle feeder lines with no indications whatsoever.
The pole line had been topped up little and ofter and as soon as I went back on it around 14:00 I had a bite which resulted in a Ruffe. Well it broke the boredom. I also took a small eel on this line 15 minutes later. I still had not seen any fish caught and some anglers were away from their pegs or packing up.
The angler above me came down and was thinking of packing up as he only had 2 eels but decided he would have a walk down our Section to see how it was fishing first. He came back up 20 minutes later and said very very little had been caught and was going to stick it out, the time was now around 14:45 with the match ending at 15:30.
I had no more fish but he had another eel 10 minutes from the end.
The weigh in started but I could not see who was in my Section as peg 207 and 209 (we all had a peg in-between us) was being weighed in with the Section above.
The only angler I knew of in my Section weighed 1lb 4oz, I weighed 1lb 3oz! That eel he had before the end could affect the result.
The results were being done back at the Pilot Inn so I gave Chris a call to see if he was going back. He had done well, weighing 14lb plus and just beaten off the next peg who had 17lb plus. At this point we were not sure if there were any bigger weights but I said I would see him back at the pub.
It turned out Chris came 2nd overall picking up £90 and I got 2nd in my Section so a £30 pick-up, cannot believe I got done into 2nd by a late eel. my Section fished the hardest so don't want that next week. all the better weights came from Hempstead surprise surprise.
No pictures and there was nothing worth taking a pic off down my end.
New Team mate Rob had 10oz.
Probably pleasure fish on the Gloucester Canal Tuesday and then Bristol Docks match Thursday night.
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