Sunday 20/12/2020 - Westerleigh Winter League - Round One - Shipp's Canal and Taylors Pool

First round of eight rounds of the Westerleigh Winter League well run by Bri Shanks. I was drawn with matey Martin McMahon in the pairs, happy with this, as he's been doing well on this venue of late. Two sections of ten, but concerned that ten on each lake might be too many, but as results show it was about right.

I was drawn on Shipp's Canal and would subsequently rotate ponds. Peg disc's were laid out and I ended up selecting peg 11. The right end but wrong side at the moment. A really good angler DNW'd on it last week in practice, so knew it would be a bit of a scratching match. Got to the peg and found "Paddington" next to me on peg 12 - pictured right.

Peg 11 is between two island and both islands can be reached with 14.5 metres by double unshipping. I selected to only set up 10 metres - 5 barrels. A stiff wind was blowing through the gap and in anticipation of the sun putting in an appearance carefully planned the lines to avoid both the direct sun and the glistening from the ripple. So two lines out in front, middle of gap - one at two barrels, the other at five barrels - red tipped 4x13 Silverfox MR Winter. One at 5 barrels towards the now non-productive RH island (apparently since the tree has been removed), one at 5 barrels at 10 o'clock which would come into play in the last two hours once the early sun had moved - both with white natural tipped 4x13 Silverfox MR Winter. All the lines were at a similar depth of five foot.

Just to explain about my floats - I have been using Malman Winter floats but it appear they no longer have them in stock. So Martin Rayet made some up for me, the are as good if not better than the Malman's plus a lot cheaper!

Whilst the wind was slight I started in front at two barrels fishing double Pinkie over a nub of neat GB. Bite first try and a run of small Skimmers and Ronnie's, but was soon playing a 7 lb Carp which I played for some time before cutting the hook length on the stone shelf which is about 1.5 metres out from the bank - bugger. The line died so went out in front at 5 barrels where I had fed a nub of GB laced with Pinkie and as expected another run of small Ronnie's and micro Perch. I then hooked another Carp which caught me by surprise and went into the LH island with shedding the hook, coming back with a load of debris. - double bugger! Line died so went to the RH island and again a run of small Silvers and some 3 oz Crucians. The sun had now moved and the wind picked up making fishing the gap impossible. So decided to spend the rest of the match to my LH line at five barrels feeding GB laced with Pinkie and double Pinkie on the hook and had a few more Crucians and a 8 oz Mirror Carp, followed by decent run of Silvers plus two bonus Perch. During the last knockings I felt there were some bigger Carp about but didn't hook any more.

My Silvers weighed 5 lb 2 oz which was enough for the Silvers win and with my six small Carp took my total weight to 7 lb 12 oz which surprisingly got me third in the section - would have settled for this at the start. Martin did very well again winning Taylor's Pool section, so a good start for both.

My section was won by Tony (pictured upper right with the Silvers winner) from inform peg 4 with 41 lb 1 oz. Tony started on maggot, but found it slow so switched to bread off bottom at 13 metres and didn't look back catching some decent Carp.

Taylors Pool was won by Martin McMahon (pictured with the Silvers winner) with 39 lb 2 oz from peg 26. Martin caught over to the island in three foot of water using double maggot over kindered combo of maggot/GB/micro.

The Silvers was won by Ricky Mills with mainly one Bream weighing 3 lb 10 oz from peg 16.

Taylors Pool certainly fished well with plenty of double figure weights.

Weigh Sheet: