It's been a while since I fished with the MDers - I think the last time was at Bannisters last May. I don't know many of the lads who have been fishing these matches, but when I got wind of a match on the Rufford Canal and there were spaces available, I decided to have a go. There were a few bleary-eyed combatants who arrived at the back of the Rufford Arms this morning - the arrival of BST at 1:00am this morning can't have helped matters either.
One of the few people I knew was Ray (Wokkie), who was there not long after me and after a brief chat, off he went towards Sollom - pegging out.
There were a few people missing from the provisional list on the MD website, but it didn't make much difference to me as I managed to draw the end peg (1) which, although a good peg, I reckoned wouldn't do as well as the other end, up towards the back of Ashcrofts.
We all staggered off to the other side of the bridge where some elected to take several trips up & down the death-trap flight of steps on one side of the bridge. I (along with a few others) chose to slalom down the slippery-slidy slope - there's no denying it, the access to the towpath at Sparks Bridge is bloody atrocious & needs sorting out ASAP.
Once down to the pegs, we set-about fishing & to be honest, once I'd setup and got ny swims plumbed I wasn't as inspired as I had been. The canal is a distinct 'U' shape down there - there aren't any appreciable slopes, so you're pretty much stuck with a couple of depths for everything. I setup 4 rigs - a caster and bread down the track, a worm rig and a squatt rig for right across where it was clear right across to the tins.
We were all-in at 9:15 and it took a good 15-20 minutes before the first bite. A small roach succombed to the punch down the track, followed by another couple, but the action was far from fast & furious. A small skimmer came next, before I had a dabble on the shell, which resulted in another small roach. Fearing a scratting session for bits, I decided to stick with the shell for a while and eventually managed a few more skimmers, losing one around a pound at the net. A boat came through very cautiously & missed my swim down the track by coming across the nearside. I found out later that it'd killed a few pegs further up by chugging down the far side, before switching as it neared the bridge.
I managed to keep catching while the rest of them were scratching their heads, and I managed a few more small skimmers. The next boat did mess it up though. It was a wide-beam rascal of a thing that came through towards Rufford, then a boat moved off the moorings at Sparks Bridge coming the other way and they cross right next to me. As I'd been fishing to my left, this buggered things up good & proper.
I then had to go across way too early for my liking and although I managed a few small roach & a couple of skimmers on the squatt & pinkie, i couldn't keep that swim going for very long. I fed a new line across to my far left under a tree and it provided a few more small fish until a jack-pike smartly stepped-in and sent everything diving in every direction. Back down the track I went, feeding very lightly. I managed a couple more skimmers on the punch as well as a little billy from my worm line down the nearside to my left.
Those boats did come through at a bit of a crucial stage of the match. & those who fish the Rufford Canal these days will confirm that the fish won't tolerate a lot of boat traffic at the best of times, so there's not much you can do if they scatter before they're got their feeding heads on. I was reasonably happy with the end result of my labours, although I was left a bit befuddled by the number of fish I lost midway through the match - time & again I lost what I thought were well-hooked skimmers; maybe I wasn't as diligent as I should've been with the sharpness of the hook...
The scales came down from the top end amid rumours of skimmers being caught up there. As I suspected before the draw, the winning weight came from the other end peg (4lb 14oz) and apart from a 2lb weight not far from that end, I was the next best with 3lb 3oz.
The boats sort-of knackered it, but the sun was out, the wind was light and the fishing wasn't too bad at all. A good day to be on the bank.
As an aside, congratulations to Jimmy Jeffers who won the overall Individual title again in the Taskers Top Team league run by LDAA. That's back-to-back titles for Jimmy after he won it last year too. Maybe he'll be back at Sollom next Sunday to continue with the brown envelopes there too...
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