Sunday 13th May - ''knock up'' Bristol Feeder Canal

A couple of weeks ago I received a message from Will Gibson who has fished the Feeder Canal quite a bit over the last 2 years asking if I was going to organise another ''knock up''. Will told me the Canal had been fishing quite well with 6lb nets of dace and roach commonplace. I had a look at my diary and found that 13th May was match free so sent out a text to the usual contacts and 10 positive replies came back although later reduced to 9. So it was on.

On the Friday morning (just gone) I decided to go and have a few hours on the Canal to see if the fish were actually there and migrating up from the City Docks.
I had about 4.5 hours down near Manor Scrap and had loads of bites netting big roach, dace and skimmers. I didn't weigh them but well into double figures. Most of the fish were caught down the track on 1 gram - 2 gram floats to 18's on 0.10 fluro over a mix of Sensas Gros Gardons, Noire and leam. Hold back hard was the best approach with pinkie or maggot on the hook.

A busy few hours 2 days before the ''knock up''

I was looking forward to Sunday not just for me but for the guys who were turning up and thought 15lb - 20lb would be needed to win.

I was up early and called into McDonalds in Bedminster for a breakfast roll and coffee on the way finally arriving outside Brandon Tool Hire Feeder Rd at about 07:10, the draw was at 08:00 so I set about pegging out. No pleasure anglers in sight so all good so far as you cannot close the stretch as its free fishing.

Just as I finished pegging out mate Steve arrived as did a pleasure angler but he went in below our last peg so no worries. Steve and I started carrying our gear across the road to the Canal to save time and the others started to arrive. 

I made it £15 all in paying 1 section of 5 £25 and 1 section of 4 £25 (luck of the draw) plus 1st £45 and 2nd £40. So almost 50% chance of a pick up.

I had the last peg left in the bucket and it was peg 9, end peg in our match but with 2 anglers now immediately below me not really, but I still got ribbed about the ''end peg''.

We were scheduled to fish 09:30 - 14:30 but as everyone was read at 09:15 the ''all in'' was called. In went 4 big balls of chop, caster and dead pinkie with a sprinkling of hemp down the track at 11 metres and 2 of the same further across at 13 metres. I had 3 rigs set up today, a 1 gram, 2 gram and 2.5 gram. The latter 2 rigs had 18's to 0.12 fluro and the 1 gram rig a 20 to 0.10 fluro. The 11 and 13 metre lines were more or less the same depth so marked up with tippex as you need to keep adjusting due to the level fluctuating during the day.

Starting down the track on the 1 gram rig it took a while (15 - 20 mins) to get my first bite ( I was beginning to have my doubts) which turned out to be a 2oz roach, phew I thought as it was looking dire. Leigh next to me started on the tip across hoping for a bream as they have been caught during the past week.  I started to put a few bites together and connect with a few fish, not big but more than I could see looking up the stretch. 

Lots of rowers appeared along with a few boats so it was difficult at times to keep the rig in the water for any length of time for a while. I nicked the odd fish now and then usually after topping up with a ball of ground bait. 

It was not fast and furious by any means and after 2 hours it appeared to switch off completely. At this point Leigh above me hadn't caught on anything.

A guy came up walking the bank and told me the 4 or 5 pleasure anglers below me hadn't caught but they had quite a few bream the previous week!

Around the 3rd hour Steve came down and said he only had a small chub and that most were struggling, not having a fish.

I just kept swapping lines and rigs all day getting the odd small fish and ended up with 3lb 5oz which was good enough on the day.

cannot believe how bad it fished after Fridays good bag?

Above me did not improve either during the day, results as follows:

1st     Ivan Currie  3lb 5oz (peg 9)

2nd    Jeff Surman 1lb 13oz (peg 5)

Section 1 - 5 by default Chris Hook 1lb 3oz (peg 4)

Section 6 - 9 by default Leigh Wakefield 10oz (peg 8)

Think thats it for the Feeder Canal this year.

Next Sunday I am fishing for one of the Sensas Nomads Teams on the K & A Canal, no idea where.