Sunday 14th June - Gloucester Canal Open, Slimbridge Down

I went back up the Glossy to fish Slimbridge Down again on the Tuesday before this match. Fished the same peg as the previous Thursday and had a nice day catching 5 big boys and about 8lbs of skimmers and hybrids. The session followed the same pattern as the previous Thursday i.e. wait nearly 2 hours before they started having it.

Myself and Chris Hook had booked in for this match immediately after the last one and as always we were looking forward to it.

Andy Jane was running it again and Kev Forty the Canal and River Trust Bailiff had strimmed out all the pegs, 26 of them.
At the draw it was the same social distancing rules as before but improved slightly. Andy drew a name out of the bucket instead of a peg number meaning that the first name to be drawn would go to peg 26 and therefore everyone could leave the draw in turn without crossing each other on the tow path ...except...Andy pulled his name out first and he would have to pass by everyone else!

Given the way it was pegged I was hoping to be allocated around 9 or 10, not far off I had to go to 6. Chris was on 16.

The peg was nice and wide but no lilies or trees across just some vegetation. 2 feeder lines and one pole rig at 11 metres. Same approach as the previous Sunday and my other sessions on the Glossy this year.

After 90 minutes on the tip with just a small rattle I went on the pole and had a 2 oz perch and that was it. No other indications at all.

A couple of walkers part the way through the match informed me that the ends were catching. I still can't believe that going along the tow path would herd the fish down the end of the match length i.e. 26 pegs.

Any way here's the results, very grim except the end pegs but better weights than last week.

Andy Richings just missed out from peg ground 0 as it was top 2 then 4 sections of 5 and 1 of 6.

Winner Andy Jane

2nd Jerry Wigget

Staverton Open on Wednesday.