The fish bite least
Or so the saying goes. Not necessarily so, given this match, but with extremely strong blustery conditions, presentation was always going to be difficult.
Arriving at Wood Lane, my original intention was to peg 50/50 either side of the bridge, secretly wanting to end up on the Common as reports had indicated that this section was more productive and fishing better than the ‘Wood Lane section’.
Problem was that it was blowing a hooly along the cut and the consensus of those members already in tow was that you might find a bit of shelter to the left.
AOK, so off trots myself, Dead Peg and KOD to peg out, leaving MrV in charge of all accountancy duties.
Arriving at the first section break, the wires, we’d got 19 pegs in and I think we all fancied pegs 10 to 14 - slightly less blustery plus that bend is a bit of a renowned area,
with it previously throwing up 25lb and 16lb winning weights on a couple of our previous matches there . 
‘How many pegs do we need?’ asked Dead Peg
’24 theoretically’ I replied, doing the mental arithmetic of who’d took the trouble to confirm and declare their intended absence, plus he few guests expected.
The dilemma at this point was whether we put the additional pegs in the other side of the wires on the wides or not.
‘Let’s get back and see how many are here’ suggested Dead Peg.
‘AOK I thought to myself’, but if we needed more than the 19, there was no way I was going to walk the length of the cut again to drop the extra pegs in………….if I needed another 5 I’d drop them in on the Common Side of the bridge - and face the ‘moans’
But getting back to the gathering throng, a count up of heads revealed, once more, that some members just can’t be bothered to extend the courtesy of a call or email to ‘assist’ those who take the trouble to peg out matches …………..
And surprise attendee of the day was FK, given his operation a few weeks ago.
Short walk pegs sorted (pegs 1 -4), pegs 5 and 6 were declared to be on the scales………and guess what, with TK,KOD and MrV last to draw, still in the bag were 5, 6 and 8.
The gods looked down on MrV as TK and KOD ended up on 5 & 6 respectively.
Ah well, a relatively short walk after all………………..
Arriving at 5 and looking at the peg and prevailing conditions, my latest planned deviation to how I normally fish the canal needed modification as far side lines were going to be a
and the catty might as well stay in the bag.Soon set up I wandered down to take a few snaps of a few happy chappys before wandering back to shout ‘all in’
The off and first look no indication on the punch. Was I in for a grueller or what? But second look on that short line, float buries and a 3oz skimmer is gratefully netted to avoid the dreaded DNW.
Another 5 mins on that line and nowt. So a quick look on the longer punch line. Buries straight away and skimmer no2 graces the net.
Back inside and nowt, across and skimmers 3, 4 & 5 are all netted.
Then nowt again……….time marches on and basically my match was all over after 35 mins, apart from a solitary rudd on caster, a two inch kinver on pinkie and a late late look back on the punch that threw up a couple of small roach.
Less than half way through I sauntered down and learnt that The Hunter, on a run of form reminiscent to AS or Nuddy in the World Champs had snook out a tinca which he reckoned went 3.5lb.
Cotti had got his usual supporter in tow
Millie had got his head down
Zorro on end peg was having one a chuck, long poling up in the water to take rudd after rudd as I watched 4 fish in as many put ins.
I returned to my box and attempted to emulate Zorro but it was hopeless, just couldn’t fish that 11mtr line……..although a 2inch rudd did commit kamikaze and impaled itself on my 22.
Sad thing was, as the match progressed, there were fish topping periodically on that long line.
So decision time………..the track was filled in and I sat with double caster looking to snare a tinca or two…………..
But it never happened as I enjoyed many Mugger Moments in between.
Amusing snap of the day was this visitor near the end who took a liking to KOD’s pellet line and spent 5 mins mopping it up
The all out and onto the tale of the scales as I learnt another couple of ‘decent’ fish had put in an appearance.
KOD had already weighed in Zorro’s net of skimmers and rudd by the time I’d got down there as Millie tipped a good skimmer and bits in the basket.
Apart from Blues4eva’s ‘nice’ rudd, not a lot to report until Dead Peg put a nice kinver knocking the lb mark plus one of the canals smaller tincas, plus some bits to the scales.
Now I knew The Hunter had 4lb odd with his early tinca, but Dead Peg confided in me that Gudgeon Basher, on his debut visit to the cut, had had a decent ‘black slab’
And so it came to pass…………..scrooge, I mean KOD
on the scales who forgets they also weigh in drams, 
couldn’t separate the twoI’d also seen MrV and Cotti the Wharburton king netting a few, but was surprised they’d had a TK Grueller as well.
1 F K DNW
2 BRAMBLES 0.1.0
3 PHIL BROADSTOCK 0.4.10
4 MICK KENN DNW
5 TK 1.9.9
6 KOD 0.1.13
7 COTTI 0.15.15
8 MRV 1.4.13
9 THE HUNTER 4.13.0
10 GUDGEON BASHER 4.13.0
11 DEAD PEG 4.7.0
12 COLIN TRUMAN DNW
13 YAMO 1.2.9
14 BULLAH 0.4.0
15 BLUES4EVA 0.10.7
16 TERRY TURNIP DNW
17 GRANDMASTER FRANCE 0.2.0
18 MILLIE 2.8.0
19 DENNIS JEFFERY 5.6.6
Well, final reflections on the day……….
the birds sang, the sun shone
the section desperately needed a boat through it as it was pretty clear :(
Finally I felt for Mick K who couldn’t hold nail his waggler to any line and in desperation ended up having to chuck the feeder out as that nightmare wind ruined it for nearly all
,Oh ask K O D what the swan was really after in his peg, he told me on the bank in privet 
