It kinda worked as I was given a place fishing for Sensas Wiltshire Angling but then found out a day later they had a full team after all.
Team mate Chris Hook also fancied fishing at the weekend and was up for a pleasure session somewhere. I suggested the Gloucester Canal downstream of Castle and he was up for it. The previous week in the League this is where the two biggest weights came from and where I won the knock up the week before that.
I didn't need any additional bait as I had plenty of worm, dead maggot and pinkie plus live pinky from the week before as well as some green F1 Fishmeal ground bait.
I met Chris just before 08:00 in McDonalds at Hardwick where we had a bite to eat before travelling down to Castle which was only 5 minutes drive. I thought we may have been able to get parked up the west side of the bridge in the rough lay-by but it was completely full with boaters vehicles. Fortunately going back over the bridge we were able to park at an entrance to an orchard without blocking the gate, a bit of a walk but we had plenty of time.
I was travelling light today with only two feeder rods plus my box, bait bag, nets and accessory bag, Chris took the lot. Given that I knew were the fish had been we started the long easy walk down towards the sunken barge (tow path side).
I pointed out to Chris where I had been a couple of weeks ago (peg 441) so he suggested I fish there and he would go in on the next one down, 442.
It didn't take long to set up, Chris too a little longer trying out the slider plus a feeder rod. I usually mix up some black F1 for the feeder but picked up a bag of green by mistake instead. It was premixed the night before and after adding a little more water became a nice fluffy mix by the time I was ready to cast in.
I had one rod clipped up to fish two metres out from the tins on the far bank where it was around 7 foot deep with a 25 gram cage feeder to a 0.11 hook length with a drennan wide gape 16. The other rod which I didn't use all day was clipped up for the bottom of the far shelf with the same end tackle except for the feeder which was an ordinary open ender.
I started off putting a bit of worm and caster through the feeder with double dead red on the hook and I suppose it was around 20 minutes in when I had my first pull round ending up hitting the bite and netted a 1lb skimmer. 15 minutes later another pull round and connected with a better fish a big skimmer of around 2lbs happy days, Chris had still to get a bite. That soon changed when he netted a 4lb bream of 12mm double punch.
Chris netting his first bream
I cannot remember if I had a bream next or the tench which was a big surprise and a decent one at that around 5lbs. I thought it was a tench as when I got it half way across it started to take a lot of line.
I kept fishing the same line all day and had regular bites swapping hook baits and varying between half a worm and caster, dead red and live pinkie.
Chris and I both got smashed up so upped to 0.13 hook length and a 14 B520 hook without any more problems.
Chris did catch on the slider but the wind conditions prevented him from fishing it for any length of time.
We called it a day around 15:15 have enjoyed a great days fishing although a bit cold at times with the NE wind but it stayed dry.
Here are our catches......
Chris with his bag
my catch
close up of the tench
Decorating the hall stairs and landing at the moment so unlikely I will get out before the weekend unless I decide to got fluff chucking.
Round 3 of the Gloucester Canal Spring League this Sunday which I believe is from Splatt to Purton which fished its socks off last year. I was at Splatt and there was 800 lb of bream caught by 15 anglers!
Lets hope i get a good draw.
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