Wyrley and Essington

#1

Had a day off tues decided and to go Wood lane with the intention of fishing top end of common.
well arrived bout 8.30 and suprise suprise its blowing a gale straight up the canal

(is it ever calm up there?

). A quick walk up the other way to the power lines and decided this was the best bet.
Started to set up in last peg before power lines (think this was yamo's peg in the match) almost ready when some bloke starts telling me the best pegs are the other side of the power lines "they all catch well there in the sunday matches" he tells me

so mistake number one i up and move further up.

10.00 am start fishing starts off a bit slow just a few minute roach then a skimmer follwed by some of the smallest skimmers i've ever seen.
time to change from punch to maggot and suddenly a better stamp of roach all ready to spawn.
Just as things were looking up a lot off noise from the left got me attention

A BL***Y BARGE

and if that wasn't bad enough he beached the Bl***y thing right in my peg

Unbelievable, the whole canal and only me fishing an this t**t gets stuck in front of me.

It took over an hour to restart the swim only to have the t**t to come back up half an hour later and wreck it again:'( after another hour gave up totally p**sed off no sign of any decent fish.

sorry MGB but i'm afraid when i got home the jar of vaseline went back in the tackle box

#2

Your name rings true

Least you had a few anyway

#3

You said it SS – that’s part of the reason he was christened KOD

Hi KOD – good to hear that you’ve been out practising that punch

– shame the curse kicked in once you started having a few better ones on the wriggling things.

Was it a ‘tourist’ or the working barge me and Cotti saw down there?

Also looks like a trip down to suss out these ‘Sunday matches’ and collect a few peg fees – although I’ve never clocked one before on my jaunts. Mind I hear allsorts of verbal diarrhoea from the supposed ‘expert’ locals when I’m fishing down sometimes

The W& E has been susceptible to a floating weed growth over the last couple of years that forms a ‘carpet’ in places on the canal network where there is little surface skim/movement, rendering fishing totally out of the question.

That was one of the considerations when embarking on the canal lease……..there’s generally always some movement on the common length, given its nature so that the weed blows through to sheltered bends making it fishable 99.99999% of the time.

Take another weather check on another day and you’ll cop it right

We’ve dropped unlucky on the last couple of visits on the common with gale force winds. It’s also been a tad unusual (I think) to have the strong easterly winds we’ve experienced this far inland during May over the last week or so.

#4

Was it a ‘tourist’ or the working barge me and Cotti saw down there

tourists, Dutch so i was later told by one of the locals

Biggest mistake i made was listening to so called "local expert" instead of trusting my first instincts ::)

#5

follwed by some of the smallest skimmers i've ever seen.

Cummon me babies.........get noshing for next season

And steer clear of them Essox Lucius things