I always try to look for silver fish matches at this time of year as they tend to be fairer and rule out the "aquatic bingo" factor encountered in some carp matches. The Maldon Canal is a venue I have fished since I was a junior, on and off for the past ten years and gave me a chance to practice my bloodworm canal skills ahead of our Winter League semi final practice at Pewsey a week later.
The match was to be pegged from the start of the factory's through to the middle of the Tescos section by the walk over bridge. To be quite honest I didn't know where I wanted to draw as there are not really out and out fliers, although an end peg would have been my preference. The Maldon Canal is slightly strange because when it gets really cold you don't tend to catch many roach on worm and joker, they seem to prefer the punch. However, in the warmer months and early winter b & j normally out fishes the punch.
Bait for the match
1/2 kilo joker
bloodworm hookers
liquidised bread
bread for hook
1/2 pint Castors
50 lobs
few maggots and pinkies for the hook.
damp leam
grey leam
After drawing I found myself at Tescos just to the right of the trees. When I got to my peg I found I was on the same peg that I had a won a small match from a few years ago with double figures of roach and dace on castor and bread. The clarity of the water gave me a feeling it would not be a day for double figures though - 5-7 lb was to be my target weight.
For company to my right I had my Wickford team mate Steve Joy who was quick to point out that my joker was dead! I picked mine up on the morning of the match and I riddled it the best I could with a pinkie riddle and got about a quarter of a kilo of live stuff. Steve generously gave me some of his freshly scraped hookers though. On my other side was match legend Bob Cheeseman, who I believe has gained England caps in his time??
Plan Of Attack
I decided to fish two joker lines, two bread lines, a lob worm line and a castor line. At 6 metres I had two lines, one at 10 o'clock and one at 2 o'clock. On the ten o'clock line I fed a large ball of liquidised bread and the 2 o'clock line 50ml's of joker in three large balls of double leam. At 11 metres again I fed two lines at 10 and 2, but this time it was roles reversed with the leam at 10 and the bread at two. At about 4.5 foot the depths were identical on both lines. In went 6 lobs and some castors at 13 metres to my left, down the canal in the deepest water and I also cupped in 30 castors at 13metres just off the far bank. I didn't expect this to work, but as I had caught well this way the last time I fished the peg I had to feed it.
My basic theory was that I was likely to catch roach on the bread and perch and odd roach on the b&J. I set up 4x12 and 4x14 Milo floats for the b&J. The 4x12 with no 12 droppers and the 4x14 with no 11's. The floats are old favourites and feature a wire stem, a tear drop black body and a fine fibre bristle and fish really well. I don't what pattern they are, but I would love to be able to buy some more but nowhere seems to stock them. My punch rigs featured a 4x12 Image cut and a 4x14 Colmic Jolly with an Olivette, in case I was bagging or needed a more positive rig to bomb through the "eyeballs".
I started off on the bread at 6metres and after 10 minutes had not had a response, the story was the same on the 11 metre bread line. Past experience had told me this was a really bad sign and was likely to mean no roach in the area. Quite often you can tell what sort of day you are going to have on a canal in the first 5 minutes. Now I moved onto the lobworm line and again an almost instant bite was expected if there was something there ....... 5 minutes later the float had not moved. Joy boy next to me had caught a couple of "fry" on bread and Bob was like me biteless.
I lowered my rig onto my 6 metre joker line with a small bloodworm on the hook and the float kept going, as I lifted into the fish a reasonable amount of no 2 elastic came out, the fish kept deep and I knew it was a Perch, at about 3 ozs it was worth catching. I caught 4 more in the next 4 drops, not having to wait more than 10 seconds for a bite. The swim then went quiet. I have found this many times with perch on canals if you get one bite you will quite often get another straight away, they obviously hunt in little packs.
Time to try my 11 metre joker line and I was confident the float would go straight under after my success at 6 metres, however after 10 minutes nothing had happened, leaving me scratching my head. An hour had gone now and things were looking grim, looking up and down the canal most people were motionless. Time to change lines again and it was back on the lobby. This time as soon as the float settled it shot away and I counted to three (in my head, not out loud!) before a hard strike was met with some reasonable resistance. I shipped back to the top three playing the fish hard and was pleased to net a perch of about 8 ounces. I have lost 2 or 3 big perch this winter and have come to the conclusion that sometimes they just come off and there is nothing you can do if your hook strikes a really boney part of its mouth. No other bites were forthcoming on this line, so it was time for a refeed and rest.
Back to the 6 metre joker line and with no more signs I refed and moved round all of my other lines in search of a response. I found I could nick an odd Perch on the 11 metre joker line with double joker on the hook and with an hour and a half to go I had a roach of 2 ounces first drop on my long bread after a rest. Frustratingly no other bites materialised. After a ten minute rest I went back on the bread to be rewarded with another reasonable roach, but again couldn't tempt another bite. By this point Joy Boy had packed up and Bob was struggling with just two fish.
I felt I needed a run of fish, so with 3/4 of an hour remaining I topped up both bread lines with half a pot of bread, however neither line really fired and I could still only nick odd fish on the 11 metre line, although they were all of a fair stamp. Interestingly the 6 metre joker line which I refed after catching on initially did not yield any further fish.
At the whistle I was disapointed that I had not been able to obtain regular bites throughout the day and felt I would be way short with my 12 Perch and 9 Roach, which weighed 3lbs 8ounces. However, it had been a desperate day for many with the top weight being Danny Masons 3lb 12 ozs of eyeballs, relegating me to second place which was much more than I was expecting and goes to show sometimes you can never really tell how a venue is fishing.
Canals are not just about the Fishing!
As is the usual case with a canal match there are all sorts of distractions and for me they came in the form of kids pushing shopping trolleys into the cut by the Tescos road bridge. However, things turned out slightly more sinister for my travelling partner Danny Grimsey. Danny had drawn his usual end peg, which was peg 1 at the factorys, but it didn't turn into the day that Danny was predicting.
There is now a council estate on the opposing side of the canal which meant the kids didn't have to go far from home to pealt Danny and neighbouring angler Bob Davis with stones, this continued on and off throughout the day. Danny managed to restrain himself from tearing into the youths after Bob told him it would only make things worse if he retaliated.
The straw that broke the camels back came when one of the munkees came running towards the canal and lobbed a yellow plastic bank into the Grimbo's peg, Danny let rip at the scallywag, who in turn gave as good as he got, before pulling out a GUN from his jacket and aiming it towards Danny. Luckily Danny is still here to tell the tale and no shots were fired. Although it was lucky he had a spare pair of pants in his box!
The plot thickened when the police turned up a few minutes later and promptly nicked the lad. It turns out that he had broken into a car and the yellow bag which he chucked in to the cut was his bounty. Danny has since had to give a statement to the police.
Thats why most people fish commercials these days!
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