How's that peg picture as a departure from the usual! About two months ago I had a text message from a mate asking me if I wanted to fish the Division 2 National on the Keadby Canal as the local team (Cambridge FPAS)were short. I did point out they must have been a touch desperate given that the last match I fished on a natural venue was in early 2006, but agreed anyway! It wasn't such an alien venue as some people may have thought mind, as I did grow-up fishing on the local rivers Cam and the Old West for silvers long before I moved on to commercial-style venues. Ten-twelve years ago I went for months at a time without catching a carp, believe it or not!
The information we had was that a kilo a man would be a good result, and having not got a chance to even walk the venue, let along fish it meant that e-mail's from a couple of locals were all we had to go on. The expense of a two hour plus trip to fish an open before-hand was a big no-no, so it was a case of going armed with a those e-mails alongside the pint of squatt's, half a pint of pinkies, maggots and casters and a sprinkling of hemp.
We made very good time to the venue, pulling up in Scunthorpe United's football ground two hours to the minute after leaving my house at 5.15am. While it was my first ever national, and I'm aware they're much smaller events than in the past (I've seen two much bigger nationals on my local rivers Cam and the Ouse in years past), having 300+ anglers at the draw was an experience to say the least, even compared to the 90+ anglers in the bigger matches I've fished in the past at the Glebe/Mallory park complex.
Peg F5 was the peg I was given from the captain, which I'll have to admit meant nothing to me! It wasn't too far from the draw venue, and soon I was setting eye's on the venue for the first time, not only only my first match on a natural venue in six years, but the first time I'd ever gone to fish a canal also.
One of the first things I'd noticed was that much of my section had lush far-bank rushes, me? well, I had some grass! Oh well! The canal is about twenty meters wide and to be honest, looked much nicer than I thought it would. Coupled with decent access, not far to walk and a nice level wooden stage to fish from, and with even the footpath behind only having a very occasional walker along it in the whole time I was there it was pretty pleasant. Very different as to my local river Cam which I stopped fishing due to the amount of cyclist's, walkers, and rowing/pleasure boats. Not to mention the dog poo.....
My first port of call was to set up my nearside squatt rigs as per the info. Fishing at about 9m took me not too far past the marginal weed and here I had about 7ft of water. I had two rigs for here, each plumbed individually to ensure they were marked correctly. The first was a 4x16 Colmic jolly, this was on .09 line to a .06 hook-link and a size 24 B511 hook. It was initially set up with a spread bulk and three no11 droppers. The second was a smaller 4x14 jolly on the same set-up for when things got a little harder, and both were matched to no3 elastic. I also had a lighter 4x12 rig using an original 4x12 Drennan Squatt float with strung no12 shot, but the rather keen left to right wind made me feel it wouldn't be a viable option. My next rig was to fish for skimmers at 14.5m, about a meter up where the bottom started to slope up again, Depth was about the same as the closer line, but the float on here was a much more stable wire stemmed Tubertini Delta in a 4x16 size. Line was .125 to a .10 hook-link and a size 18 B560, with the lakky being no6. Last up was an "ugly rig"! Trying to fish this at 16m was a no-no due to the wind so it was plumbed up at 6m in a hole in the near-side weed. It was a strong rig but one I didn't intend using unless I was desperate and felt the need to go for an eel or two. As it happened, I never picked it up. Lastly, I set up a 10ft bomb rod to chuck to the edge of the weed on the far slope, probably at about 17m. This had a small crumb feeder on coupled with a 3ft .10 hook-link and a size 20 B611.
On the whistle I fed four balls of crumb on the squatt line, a mixture of Van den Eynde Supermatch, Supercup, natural Super Roach with some damp leam added to give it weight. I put a good sprinkling of hemp and squatt's in too. The long line got a decent helping of chopped worm and caster, with a decent amount of soil in to give it weight. I started the match with two drops on the small crumb feeder across without a sign so came in on the squatt. The angler to my right had already had a skimmer of about 500gr off his squatt line (or just over a pound, but the final weight is in kilo's, so I'll have to do it that way!)
My first drop in was on a pinkie at dead depth, and when the float went it was met with a decent amount of no3 lakky. I had my own bonus skimmer, albeit about half the size of the next pegs! The first half hour was steady after that and I was more than keeping pace with the anglers around me on that line. By regular loose-feeding of squatt I was putting a few dumpy roach in the net including one of about 100gr (4oz). Then disaster struck, as the next decent roach was taken by a pike! And the next one after that... Damn it.
I tightened up the elastic a bit in a bid to get the fish out quicker, but the pike was still chasing everything I hooked, leaping clear of the water twice in a bid to get fish I was lifting. In the end I was having to lift the fish clear of the water and ship back with the fish hanging, unorthodox to say the least, but anything that wasn't lifted clear was taken by ol' esox and resulted in a lost hook! I stepped up to a 22 hook, and actually it made no difference to my bites, but made it less liable anything would drop off!
Despite the best efforts of my toothy enemy, I was still getting regular bites, normally in runs of three fish, albeit smaller than the ones at the start. The pike was still munching the bigger fish! On the hour the pegs around me all went to their long lines, but didn't catch initially, so I just topped that line up and plugged away closer. The wind was beginning to get awkward now and was hampering my presentation. I could get far more bites laying my rig in to the left (the direction of what little water movement there was), but often the wind wouldn't allow it.
On the ninety minute mark the anglers either side of me started to get odd quality skimmers over their long lines, so that was the signal for me to feed a small ball of crumb on the now slightly fading squatt line and have a look. A segment of worm bought me no bites so I tried a single red maggot which got me a bite that I missed. My excitement was tempered when the exact same kind of dithery bite next drop got me a milk bottle-top skimmer! And no more bites followed it either, so I topped it up again and left it.
The rest had bought a few fish back to the squatt line, but now the roach were all small, and with the odd bottle top skimmer in there too, and the pike was still performing acrobatics in an attempt to get my fish! The one better fish I did have on again it took, and I very nearly got it to the net before it bit me off! It wouldn't have counted, but I'm sure landing it and handling it would have subdued it somewhat!
I could see a few skimmers getting caught, and the peg next to me then managed a tench (later weighed at 1kg 300gr I think from memory) which gave up ever so quick as a small amount of weed had covered it's eyes. My return to the far line caught me.... another bottle-top skimmer! And no more bites after. The wind was making a pain of it's self now, and I had to change the far rig to a 1gr float to hold it still, but it made no difference.
I came back on the squatt line, which I largely had to myself now as everybody had seemed to go long looking for skimmers, but not everybody was on them. I was still nabbing odd small fish on the squatt, having moved my bulk up again and fishing with an extra dropper down and holding the rig tight. They were small fish now, a mixture of tiny roach, those pesky skimmers and an odd rudd. I also managed a perch of about 50gr which the pike nabbed, but let go off! It was the only fish and hook I got back from the pesky jack, which had nabbed a lot considering it was hardly more than a foot long!
I'd tried the lighter squatt rigs, but in the wind I just had no control over them, and at times could barely hold the heavier one. I'm sure given the conditions they would have nicked me a few extra fish given how I was getting the odd one, but the weather just didn't allow me!
With the squatt line pretty much faded away by the third hour I topped it up with some crumb again and went long. The wind was a pain and in the end I had to add some line above the float and fish with three backshot to get decent presentation but the float would just sit there! I wasn't doing anything radically different to those either side who were still getting those odd big skimmers, but my only bites were from those bottle-tops if I put double pinkie on.
Eventually I had a very slow, lazy bite on the worm long and was very happy to see a few feet of yellow no6 elastic coming out. At last! The fish kited round much like a big bream before waking up a little as it neared the marginal weed. The extra fight made me wonder if I'd managed a rouge tench too, especially as it came to the surface easily when a small bit of weed covered it's eyes. It broke the surface and revealed it's self to be...... Another bloody pike! This one much bigger at about 6lb, and with my worm clearly visible hanging from it's gob. It woke up again and I played it for a few minutes before it weeded me just out of reach of my landing net, and then it bit me off! I rather turned the air blue...
I was just about to top up again with worm when a boat came through (the only one during the match) and that seemed to spell an end to every ones skimmer fishing as it had passed right over that line. The trouble was, the pike disturbance had killed the squatt line for me too. The next hour was pretty dire, and all I managed was a small roach on the squatt, and a small skimmer and tiny perch on maggot long, but nobody I could see was catching now.
With half an hour to go the peg to my right had another skimmer, so with nothing to lose I put two balls of my roach groundbait out long, laced with pinkies, squatt's and casters. I had a few biteless minutes on the squatt before deciding to spend the rest of the match out long. I bit the size 18 hook off and put a smaller 20 on, and sat over the top on single red maggot. My first bite came pretty quick from a small bottle top skimmer, and with ten minutes to go I had another bite. A nice, slow bream-like one. And it was! well, a big skimmer anyway, as a fish of about 500gr plodded it's way in to the net. Bingo, just about three hours too late! I had a proper liner not long after dropping back in, but didn't have enough time to get a proper bite.
It took the scales a while to reach us, and chatting it was apparent according to bank runners that I was the only person to have had pike trouble! Gits! I always used to get that on the Cam too. Interestingly, the angler to my left had fed his worm neat, while the one to my right had put it in groundbait. Both different ways but with the same results.
When the scales eventually got to us just over 10kg was winning my section, with a few decent weights behind it. It hadn't been that good for everyone though as it looked like the skimmers were in pockets, and there were more weights about the 1.2k mark, and even some under the kilo. The peg to my left had 4kg something, while I had a bit more than I'd thought with 1kg 830gr. From what I could make from a quick glance at the weigh board that may have got me as high as seventh or eighth at a guess (I couldn't get a good look) but three of the last four to weigh all beat me too, pushing me further down.
In all honesty I'd actually really enjoyed the day, and considering I'd never seen the venue and not fished for silvers for a long while I felt like it was pretty respectable. I'd be lying if I said I couldn't have done better, but I was a bit rusty to say the least, and fishing it again I'd do better, but as I said earlier, it was just too far (and expensive) to go fish a practice match. I wouldn't change how I approached the squatt line, in fact I was pleased I held my own on that line. As for the long line? Well, I'd have done that very different, but that's easy to say now! I wish I'd taken a skimmer-based groundbait (just Supercup and brown crumb would have done, perhaps with a bit of leam for weight) I'd like to have fed that with six or so balls with casters, dead pinkies and dead maggots, with perhaps only a small amount of choppy. Much like how I used to fish for skimmers on the Cam. Heck, I may have even balled it rather than cupped it too! I also thought I'd never say it, but a bump-bar would have been very useful too in the wind, but I'd always thought they'd get in the way while on my usual commercial venues, so I don't own one! It would have helped in the strong wind we had at times for sure, and may have got be an extra bite or two long. Still, we're all better with hindsight, and it's those who know at the time who are the ones to beat! As for the pike? well, it probably had the best part of 400/500gr of fish off me, but that can't be helped really. It's just a shame they happened to be in my peg!
Anyway, the day fished better than I'd thought. As a team I don't yet know where we finished, but I do know we weren't in the top 15. We had one bad weight we knew of, plus one angler never came back to the presentation, which is never a good sign! Perhaps I may allow myself to get talked in to doing it again, but for the time being it's back to my usual stomping ground!
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