Hall lane fishery

Sept 24th , peg 4 on Gwens canal

peg 4 , gwens canal

Day two of my week off and the fishing destination today was to be Gwens canal at Hall lane fishery , i choose to fish here because i haven’t been here for over a year and as i have got a match coming up on here soon . I managed to get here a bit early today despite the longish drive from my house and on arrival at 830 am their was surprisingly a few people already present , word must have got out just how well the complex was fishing and the recent open match on Bessies was won with 180 lb .

I had wanted to fish in the middle stretch of the canal but their was already some people fishing it and also some one down the more prolific bottom end which was a long walk , i became a bit stumped on where exactly i should pick to fish today and finally settled on peg 4 in what i thought was a poorer area but on the plus side the wind was blowing this way , so maybe that would make it a bit better .

It was still a bit cold and the wind was a bit gusty so i decided not to fish tight across to the far bank just yet and settled on a more comfortable 13 m , where it was 4 foot deep and i could also use this rig for my top four line later in the session this cut down on my setting up time and i managed to get fishing for 9 am ,

RIG 

I plumbed up to find 4ft on both shelf’s and used a malmans speedy 4×14 float with a spread 1 inch bulk , 0.12 main line to a 0.10 hook length with a size 18 garbo pellet and paste hook , elastic was matrix size 10 orange .

My bait was the usual ;

1 pint maggots

1/2 pint micros

1/2 pint crushed expander ground bait

I potted in some micro and crushed expander with a medium sized kinder pot and then went over the top with an expander , it took only ten minutes of lifting and dropping before i was into a 1 lb carp , a few more followed quickly but i then began getting little indications on the float which turned out to be small f1s – crucians about 4 oz a piece . They were nice looking fish and they was coming thick and fast , at one point i had six red colored koi carp one after the other which wouldn’t have looked out of place in my fish tank .

                                                                             

I had been loose feeding maggots on my four meter line for an hour so decided to give that a go and yet again i had a quick run of carp up to 3 lb before the small crucians – f1s returned , which seemed a bit strange to me because i always thought that the big fish should bully the small ones and not the other way around , maybe it was down to my feeding pattern or that their was just too many 4 oz fish in my peg who knows ?

I did go back onto my 13 m line but the fish had moved on , so i decided to have some thing to eat while i pondered on my next step , i plumbed up a new swim at 6 m for in the channel and hopped that the bigger carp would be their .

RIG

Plumbed up in the channel to find 6 ft deep and used a 4×16 malmans speedy float with a bulk and two droppers , 0.12 main line to a 0.10 hook length with a size 18 gamma pellet hook , i had size 10 orange matrix elastic .

I started off by feeding a ball of micro-ground bait squeezed quite hard to get it to the bottom in the deeper water and the same thing happened like in the last two swims , i had half a dozen decent carp and then the small f1s – crucians returned in numbers . I decided to see just how quick i could catch them and managed twenty in thirty minutes for about 5lb , in fact they were coming so fast i couldn’t get my pellet to the bottom and had to resort to using my 4 ft rig to keep the fish coming which was 2 ft off the deck , so maybe it could be practical in a match situation and i did also have a few bonus 1 lb fish mixed in with them .

The wind had dropped a little and the sun had come out to warm the shallow water along the far bank , so i made the decision to give this ago for my last hour .

RIG

plumbed up to find 1,5 ft deep and used a 0.2 matrix float with a spread bulk , 0.12 garbo line to a size 18 gamma pellet hook , elastic was matrix orange elastic .

I began by catapulting maggots in at 16 m and laid my rig in on the drop style and my first fish was also the biggest fish off the day which was a 3 lb mirror carp , i also began catching some chub – golden orfe  p to the 1 lb mark . I changed my feeding to using a medium kinder pot with 3/4 full of maggots and 1/4 of micros , this seemed to concentrate the fish into one area of the swim and i proceeded to have a run of carp around the 1 lb mark .

When the bites began to slow down i re fed with the catty again which brought the fish back and by the end of the session every time i shipped out a chub or orfe took the double maggot before i could even empty my kinder pot !!! At 2 pm i had to call an end to the day which was a shame because i was enjoying my self but i had to pick my lad up fro school , i ended the day with 24 carp between 1 lb and 3 lb and at least sixty silvers for a total weight of around 50 lb in five hours .

A lot to think about after today’s session and although a have got my first autumn – winter league on here in October and unless it stays un seasonally warm then i am not to sure how good the practice will prove to be , but at least their is lots of small fish present which should guarantee plenty bites on the day .

Old Hough Fishery

Peg 3 , Lucky dip . 8th Sept

Lucky dip canal

A new venue for me to try today , although i had been to the complex before but never seen these canals or fished on a match here . I had been invited to fish with Hindley Labor club and an early start was in order for me to get to the fishery for eight , although it was a pretty easy to get their and probably takes less time to get here than some places we fish , i don’t think our club will ever have a match on here which is a shame because it looks like a really well maintained and only hope it fishes as it can , as the match on here the day before was won with 40lb and plenty of 20lb back up weights . But with the recent drop in temperature and rain all week , i wasn’t that confident but we will see .

With sixteen fishing today and us having both lucky dip and prospect canals to put in the draw bag , they decided to put eight on each and pay out the top two on both with the over all winner picking up a bonus and it was a novel way of doing things but i was fishing with a different club so i was interested to see how they ran their matches and see if they had as much moaning as in our club .

It was soon time for the draw and as on most canals you really want an end peg , but for once my draw hand let me down probably rusty after not having to use it all season . I ended up on peg three in the middle of the straight not great but i did have a bit of room to draw fish from , i had a reed lined margin with a few lily pads and it was 14m across to the far bank where their was more reeds and lily pads , their was also areas of these cut back to the mud line but i couldn’t fish too mine because their was a branch in the water blocking that area and to be honest i didn’t fancy that distance with the gusty wind forecast .

My peg for the day number 3

I planned on fishing along both slopes near and far , i had heard that it was all f1 and small carp but on the day of the match i got told that it was only silvers coming out recently , maybe they were trying to pull a fast one but we will see how things un fold .

Swims

4m plumbed up to find 3ft deep which was at the top of the slope ,preston chianti float with a  0.10 garbo line direct to a size 20 gamma hook and elastic was size 10 orange matrix .

13m used this to fish at the bottom of the slope were it was 4ft deep , i used a 0.4 scone pencil float with 0.12 garbo line and a 0.10 hook length with a size 18 gamma hook and elastic was size 10 orange matrix .

Shallow 0.4 matrix float set 1ft deep to fish along the far bank , with 0.12 main line to a 0.10 hook length and a size 18 gamma pellet hook , elastic was size 10 orange matrix

Bait

1 pint red maggots

0.5 pint soaked micro

0.5 pint crushed expander ground bait

4mm expanders

My bait table

As the all in sounded i went on to my 4m swim first and began by feeding a medium cad pot full of micros and an expander  on the hook being careful not to over feed in the conditions . I expected a slow start and wasn’t disappointed but by re feeding every five minutes i began putting the odd fish in the net , but i was struggling to get my float to settle properly because i wanted the expander to register on the float tip which it did occasionally , maybe the bottom was un even and better plumbing is required on my part .

The bites on the pellet where slight dinks and it took me a while to sort out which ones to hit and which to leave , but i got it right in the end with a few big skimmers , tench and the odd crucian coming to the net . No carp though so far although a few were getting caught tight across on the end pegs ,it wasn’t long before one of those little dips that i lifted into resulted in hooking some thing bigger which after a short fight it snagged me up not far from where i hooked it on an under water obstruction . I hastily put on a new hook length and went back out but some thing had been dislodged under the water preventing me from fishing this area .

So a change of swim was in order and i went out to 13m using the same rig , but the wind was a bit of a night mare making presentation with pellet bad , so a change to maggot resulted in a few small roach and i made the bold decision to big pot in some maggots with micros on this line which seemed to do the trick and my next bite resulted in a flying skimmer which took me through the pads and this resulted in a broken hook length !!!!!

The wind was getting stronger and stronger , after struggling with my pole for a while i decided to set up a new swim was in order and i had been feeding my right hand 4m margin with maggots while i had been fishing long . So i had been expecting an instant response which is what i got but only 8oz silvers came my way , a few tiny fish got in on the act too before i had a chub of about 1lb which spewed up lots of maggots . Some nice golden tench came my way also but the tiny silvers were getting on my nerves taking my double maggot hook bait on the drop , even with a bulk six inch from the hook , so i decided to change back to a pellet and i also began feeding micros through a kinder pot , this produced some more nice bream .

I didn’t think that i was catching fast enough because i would catch two decent fish then nothing for twenty minutes , so i decided to set up a new swim at 5m to my left in slightly deeper water away from the under water obstruction and here i would only feed with pellets and continue loose feeding the right hand side with maggots so i could alternate the two swims to see which worked best . I began picking up some nice bream again and would switch swims after every couple of decent fish , this was working well until approaching the last hour when the heavens opened and every thing switched off for forty minutes until it had stopped , in the remaining minutes of the match the sun came out and this coincided with me catching my only two carp of the day .

When the all out sounded i was a bit unsure of my weight but didn’t think i would be troubling the leaders today , after packing up i went round to follow the weigh in and it soon became apparent how hard it had actually fished , with lots of low weights on Prospect and that canal was won with only 23lb . Over on lucky dip where i was fishing it was the same again with 10lb winning until i put 20lb on the scales but un fortunately the next two weights both beat me to knock me out of the money and i ended up third on my lake , fifth overall and it was the same old story of lost fish costing me at least second and if i had put more effort in to fishing long maybe i could have added the extra fish to challenge the winner .

Prospect

1st 23lb 10oz

2nd 23lb

3rd 13lb

Lucky Dip

1st 34lb

2nd 24lb

3rd 20lb

Lots of things to ponder about today ;

Although every thing looked perfect , i could never get settled in my peg , don’t feel up for match fishing at the moment not sure why ?

Could never get my float to settle correctly and need to find a float i am confident with , its a problem i always tend to suffer with in the wind .

Need to spend more time plumbing up and also marking my pole where my swims are , getting my self confused .

Stop taking the easy option and fish where the fish want to be .

Rushing during the match costs you fish in the end , if it doesn’t look right change it , regarding hook lengths as it only takes seconds .

My feeding wasn’t right today because couldn’t keep them settled in one swim .

Well that’s another match over with on a new venue , think a trip back to sycamore or partridge could be in order and try to get my fishing back on track , keep coming back to see how i get on .