Down to earth with a bang!!!

Angling Times (4th Round)

• 2lb 9oz (needed 1 more oz to get another point)
• 2 points out of 7
• Crofton (Competition Pound)
•  Team won (4 points behind winning team)

I was a little disappointed when I discovered that there were 21 pegs in competition pound.  This section was going to be challenging as it was, yet alone with the extra pegging.  To make matters worse the canal is very clear, due to the lack of boat traffic, actually no boat traffic as the lock is broken at Brimslade.

I draw in the middle of the pound, by a sunken old work boat, so this gave me more room (extra peg really).  Now I fancied this, because the match was going to be hard and with the extra room, it is going to be worth it's weight in gold.  Wrong!!!!  I caught 4 roach in the first hour, then fell asleep for the next 3 hours, well might as well as.  In them 3 hours I caught 5 perch and 2 dace, not a single roach.  I worked hard with rotation of rigs and lines to try and catch........ but couldn't.  All I could do is watch the guys to my left catch, the guy next to me was bagging (Stu Dabbs, who went on to win the section with 6lb 2oz).

In the last 50 minutes the water began to move, not sure why but did, and like a light switch I begin to catch roach.  Not lining up, but a reasonably size.  But the issue is that i'm too far behind.  I tried to attack it, to see if I could really bag!  But didn't, I only managed to catch 1lb 8oz in the last 50 minutes, which was about 25 fish.  Gutted.

Where did I go wrong?

I never like to blame the peg, but I honestly don't believe there weren't many roach there, I few to start with (4) and then at the end there were a big shoal....  Looking at the section, the guys that caught had a lot of far bank vegetation, whereas I had none, not sure if the fish were hiding underneath it.  Joe Thompson next to me was the other side of the boat had 15oz (but he was in D section, whereas I was in C).  There was no fish topping infront of me, whereas to my left they were...  Also Bob Davies (2 pegs up) had a pike issues, which would make me think the pike have shoaled up the fish.

I think I shouldn't of loose feed any squatts, and fished out the balls of groundbait in hope of a skimmer.  But there weren't any caught in section, so maybe not.....

Never caught on bread.

Tried a line 14.5 meters down the swim, loose feeding only squatts (caught a 4oz perch, biggest fish), so that didn't work

Fished 13 meters up the peg towards the guy next to me, caught nothing, and then even throw in 5 small balls of ground bait, trying to draw some fish, and no suprise that didn't work.

WELCOME TO ANY SUGGESTIONS