with a colder week and a chocolate colour help with a bitter wind would it fish or not was the question of the day 
with 54 anglers on the bank and with some making the journey from London 
i had a feeling i might want to slip out the pub quietly later on 
after the draw i'd drawn between bicko and Harold the German with Godfrey lurking about 4 pegs away just out of ear shot 
;)the game play for me was to feed raw as the part of the canal we were fishing was about 4ft deep i put a pot down the track with some casters in and a smaller pot at about 10m about a metre off the boats as they were quiet active with boaters coming and goingi noticed Darren was using leam to put his joker in so i thought this would be a good test skimmers can play a big part in this section so G/B was a option but with putting some caster in as well as a good helping of joker is would be my attack line
well after the couple of hours Darren had netted 11 roach
Scott geenes was the other side he hadn't had a bite and neither had i 
just what i wanted another bashing bye a rentmen not only a bashing with fish also a right ear bashing 
banter was flying left right and center after another half a hour scott had heard enough and called it a day even darren had stopped catching and gone for a walk but as scott stud behind me my float suddenly went under and a roach slipped into the waiting net straight in again and the float buried again by this time Darren had sat down again and we noticed for about 5 pegs everyone was getting bites this went on for a while before as quick as they came they were disappearing and you really had to work at your bites Darren had slowed down on the banter and was looking a worried man Harold the Germain had caught a few but had never shut up all match 
:Di don't know what was worse harold or godfrey telling me there's no fish in the canal 
at the weigh in darren put 4lb15oz on the scales :-/i thought it might be close but anything can happen with trentmen on the scales
and when i put my fish on the scale s it went 4lb dead i couldn't believe it darrens first couple of hours had cost me but yet again great company plenty of banter and a few beers 
bugger i've left the result sheets at home
i'l put them up tomorrow 
and made no mistakes in finding the fish Dave had 8 skimmers and 2 proper bream with a few roach and perch for 19lb 9oz 2nd was his travelling partner SIMON WILSMORE OF DORKING who drew on glebe street and not a fancied peg really and ended up with 7lb 15oz over leam and joker 3rd was KIRAN WARDEL STARLETS 7LB 12OZ