Fished club match on the GUC Slough Arm at Langley Boats. A bit of a frustrating day as the canal switched right off for most people after about three hours (earlier in some cases) for no obvious reason.
Drew opposite the sheds which is where until this season the bigger skimmers would usually show among the roach but the dredging work this spring seems to have moved them and we haven't relocated them yet...
Fed five lines at the start for punch at 5m, groundbait and squatt/pinkie at 8m in front and also a bit off to the left , a pot of chop and caster down the track and well off to the right and pinged a few maggots tight to the boat, again well to the right.
Started on punch, two fish first two put ins then nothing. Gave it ten minutes more, refed a bit and went over on pinkie and started picking up ounce to 2 oz roach and hand sized skimmers and hybrids. Put a big maggot on and got a better roach, things slowed down , refed, came back in on punch, nothing, waggler down the boat, one little roach, and that was the pattern set for the first three hours, needed to switch lines regularly but most fish out at 8m with a few more better (relatively) roach. Gave up on the punch line, nothing over it on squatt either, and fed tight to the boat in two places but for some reason couldn't catch there apart from the odd little roach.
Our chairman on the end peg to my left was catching steadily as well, more fish than me but mostly smaller so thought I was about level or just behind at this point. And then it was as if the proverbial switch had been flicked. Two fish in the last two hours, one of which was a 5 oz perch on the "need a bonus" half worm down the track line- only bite I had on it all day. Derek's switch off lasted only about half an hour though and for the last hour and a half he was catching small roach very steadily tight to the boat after feeding a big pot of frozen joker and fishing a pinkie over the top. Score in the last two hours was I think 47 fish to 2 !
Derek weighed 10-2 (106 fish) for an easy win. I had 5-1 (40 odd) and surprisingly this was enough for second . 3-11 was third from the other side of me (thought he'd done me as well but his fish were a lot smaller) and then 3-10 a couple of pegs further along.; then the weights dropped off steadily with the Mansion Lane end, more often than not the better one , being a bit of a struggle with 3-2 off the end peg then an assortment of 2s and 1s with a three in a line in the middle of the matchlength only with ounces.
Nice day until the breeze got up- dont really expect to be sat in sweatshirt over T shirt on the last day of November
