we moved up the road back to The Extension.Unloading the cars, the talk before the off was whether ‘white or red’ would prevail.
It looked encouraging for the white stuff as firstly Blues4eva confided he’d popped down the day before right by the roadside and had plenty of fish on the punch. 
This was reiterated by punch crack The Hunter who also confessed he’d popped down a couple of days earlier and had ’70 or 80’ decent roach So much so that The Hunter introduced new grullerite ‘The Knobster’ into today’s fray, with The Knobster also owning up to having a productive session a week or two back.
The signs looked good then,
Also only a week earlier, a new permit holder, wishing to get into canal fishing, had also had a debut visit and had ‘caught loads of roach’ and skimmers - we were finally going to have a few at last. 
So could Blues4eva, who’d got some Russian, stave off a concerted bread attack from the likes of The Hunter whose record read ‘fished two gruellers, won two’? Or given his practise the day before, would Blues4eva be following suit?
There was one slight change to things though - it had been mild all week, but last night had gone really cold. How would this impact on the match, if at all?
Not fancying a long walk, and with a couple of late declared casualties, 13 pegs were put in. There were 9 in the pound between the new road bridge and the ‘broken bridge’ with 4 on the kennels section.
I secretly fancied peg 2 or 10 to 13 in the kennels section and as the draw out of Phil B’s cap neared conclusion and I was last to dip in, The Knobster had snared peg 2 but pegs 10, 12 & 13 still remained in the bag…………..along with peg 9
But yep you’ve guessed it…………….peg 9 stuck to my sweaty palm
…………….leaving Yamo ‘all alone’ in that section.Now peg 9 looks ‘very fishy’, with a fair few features, but carries a bit of indifferent form.
I’d fished it once previously and managed to snare some skimmers from down a slopping shelf across. I’d also seen Big Baz latch into some late caster roach from the tree to the left. Not forgetting Dead Peg coming with a late run on the punch after he’d struggled for bits on the red stuff…………..so it could throw up a few. Plus The Hunter had won off the peg ‘in between’ me and Heinzer on 8. So I had some idea how to approach it……….or so I thought.
(Click on pickies to blow em up)
I was soon set up so had a bit of a wander with the camera………..
Yamo on his jack jones in the distance to my left
Heinzer and co to the right
Tricast62 - now without giving too much away, he ‘sussed it out’ late on this match adopting a method from yesteryear. Must at this stage also add a big thanks Tricast62 for those brilo seat covers and the rocket launcher you kindly gave me - ta
Next door was Zorro
The Hunter - surely the form horse and the man to beat today
The Knobster must have also secretly fancied his chances…………
And end peg Blues4eva
Back to base and the off......
Two main punch lines were fed, with a long back up one. GB hard across against the sedges and a few castles to be firtled regularly to that bush for a few hours before I plundered it ‘late on’
Punch line 1 and the float failed to budge - disaster
Punch line 2 was tried after 5 mins and again that float wouldn’t budge.
Man I was in trouble - I really expected to have some from the off on these two lines 
Meanwhile Heinzer was starting to string a few fish together whilst I was still dry
After 15 mins or so a look on back up line 3………………..and I was away, but had a bit of catching up to do.
Around the hour mark and I was probably level with Heinzer.
Yamo was out of view but news filtered that Zorro was putting a few fish together
As time progressed there were no bank walkers, so all must be having a few I thought.
Now contrary to what I posted elsewhere, I didn’t actually end up fishing 14.5mtrs to hand up the arm…………..despite watching fish top all day up there. That was a bit of a jackanory if you hadn’t guessed already.
However there could be a canal grey flicked up there next time though if I ever draw the peg again. 
Time rolled on and shortly before the end Mick Garbett came along and reported that a tinca had put in an appearance down the other end. Could that be Josh? Had he snared one of those bonus fish he’s so adept at catching?
Meanwhile, for the last hour or so Tricast62 was like a ninja in full flow and had adopted the ‘stalking heron’ stance
- I realised what he was doing - but was it paying off for him? Must be……….surely he wouldn’t have continued with it for so long if it wasn’t.The whistle went and time to pack up. Josh wandered up with the scales - and I must say at this point, given his first outing on them he was pretty accomplished with them.
But I digress…………’Who’s had a tinca down your end?’ I asked him
‘Nobody’
‘I heard somebody down your end had had a 3-4lb tinca?’
‘No - the guy next to me had a carrier bag’
Hum I thought to myself, so no tinca after all - I wonder how the 24 roach and 2 perch I’d snared would fare against those lower pegs?
With mounting excitement………………………
Lets have a drum roll……………………………
Here’s the tale of the scales………..in order of how they were weighed in
PEG
13
12
11 YAMO 0.15.11
10
9 TK 0.11.4
8 HEINZER 0.6.4
7 TRICAST62 1.9.7
6 ZORRO 0.14.8
5 THE HUNTER 0.6.5
4 PHIL B 0.2.2
3 JOSH DNW
2 THE KNOBSTER DNW
1 BLUES4EVA 4.3.0
Here’s Blues4eva with his match winning tinca - taken on single joker on a 24
So the fish fest hadn’t materialised after all.
Nothing changes - It had turned out to be just another grueller. 
The only saving grace is that I note that far more accomplished cut anglers fared just as poorly on a few canal matches in the region this weekend.Why? Answers on a postcard please…………
. Poor old Yamo being exiled in another County 
