During the 80's and early 90's I had fallen in love with the Gloucester Canal and got up there as often as my life working away from home would allow, which meant missing some matches, being replaced by pleasure sessions. It's one of the few venues that I enjoy pleasure sessions and probably still will. A Canal with plenty of room for anglers and walkers, not that I saw many. The fishing wasn't affected by boat traffic as such because of the depth. If I was short on time or eager to get fishing I would head to Slimbridge (
pictured right), primarily because it had easy access and a relative short drive. Park by the shop, over the bridge most often turning left and fish 50 yards up. Catching many bags of Bream to 50lb fishing maggot and GB at 13 metres. However, a large pleasure paddle boat would sometimes piss me off parking next to me with it's huge paddle left running lifting my keep net. I sometimes went further up to to miss him but he usually found me, always a sign for a pint.
Most of the matches were fished from Hempstead down, with the famous bend and just before the hotspots. The matches were low weigh affairs, with less than 10 lb winning. I couldn't believe it when fishing my first match on the Gloucester I drew the bend, finding myself next to Kenny Giles - the then Shakespeare match team Captain. The team had developed the Sigma Wand with extremely sensitive tips designed especially for the Canal. I won one of theses rods at a previous match at Arrow Valley Lake and still have it. So the form was to loose feed maggot over the pole line, using either a light 1/8th ounce bomb (or linked shot) on the Wand or the pole on the same line. Roach being the target. However, I had been having some success on the Bristol Avon using a home modified tiny Drennan maggot feeder which I cut down to 12 mm diameter and 12 mm long and would take 6 or so maggots, so gave that a go. I think I weighed 3 lb or so, just beating Kenny. The match was won by Steve Webb just before the bend with I think 8 lb on the pole.
I mostly used the pole during pleasure sessions and developed my own style of fishing. I used either a 1.0 or 1.5 gram float with a long wire stem and fine long plastic tip enabling shotting the tip. I found that laying shot on the bottom was less productive than small styles. My usual shotting - one Olivette 30 inches from the hook leaving about 1/4 gram for the dropper shot comprising a large number of mainly no 7 styles to 8 inches from the hook. I would plumb up and increase the depth until the float just dragged - job done. The 1.5 gram was reserved for when the Canal towed, and boy couldn't it tow at times, in both directions. Some said if the tow changed direction the fish would stop feeding because they had to turn around, not sure about this one!
With the Canal being 16 to 18 foot deep and having a limited number of top 5's for my pole I usually only set up the two rigs. The only other rig I might set up was a very light rig fully shotted with styles to fish short up the inside shelf for Roach - hemp and bronze maggot.
The City of Bristol team were fishing the South West Drennan Super League which had two matches on the Gloucester plus practice matches. The league also allowed Blood worm and Joker. I really like using these baits and always took them to venues where they were permitted. Blood Worm or Joker on a Gamma Green hook were spot on for this type of fishing. I still have the complete range. If the Skimmers were in the area I would add a single red maggot with double Blood Worm. This worked well. The GB mix was always a conundrum, but basically plenty of leam and heavy sieved continental GB's laced with Joker to get it to the bottom in 18 foot of water that might be towing hard.
When the team heard the 5th Division National would be on the Gloucester Canal the following year we enlisted.
City of Bristol Team:
Me
Tony Rixon
Ian Spriggs
Jim Thomas
Alan Oram
Warren Bates
Nigel Wyatt
Steve Robinson
Pete Sivell
Steve Gostlin
Shay Gillman
Steve Hutchinson
We had all fished it enough not to have a team plan - just a bunch of individuals. I must admit that the years have affected my memory for this match. I was drawn peg L28 - Upper Purton. All I remember is fishing 13 metres all match with BandJ catching small fish all day - mainly Ruffe, which was a bugger to unhook especially the females - they just won't open their mouths!
The team did reasonably well in a very tight match coming 12th out of 68 teams with 532 points with 675 winning - another 12 points each would have done it. I weighed 3lb 13 oz for 62 points - 7th in section. But the honors went to matey Ian Spriggs who drew lower Purton weighing 13 lb 8 oz for section win and third overall (second highest weight as there was a tie for first). I bet he sat on the feeder all match, who wouldn't at Purton.
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