After a well-earned holiday, Alan Scotthorne has returned to the UK in match-winning form! Here’s his account of an impressive win on his local Stainforth & Keadby Canal:

I always take a short break in January overseas for a few days and stepping off the plane at Manchester airport to be greeted by four inches of snow was not the return I was hoping for!

I had only missed one weekend’s fishing but reports were that the cold conditions had taken its toll on both turnouts and results. I was still eager to get back fishing on my local ‘Stainy’ for the Teams Of Three Winter League the coming weekend, as this canal seems to hold up well even though the daytime temperatures are around 2ºC. With bloodworm and joker allowed plenty of bites are still on the cards.

Even though I have framed on a number of matches I have not actually won a match on this canal for two years, such is the strength of the opposition. When I pulled out Peg 170 at Wykewell I honestly thought the only thing I was fishing for was a section place and of course a backing weight for our team, as the team match is run on weight.

Undeterred, you still have to be ultra-positive, as this canal can be very unpredictable at times, so all the normal preparation was done as if I was on a good peg. The area I was in can produce the odd skimmer and bream, but would they feed in such cold conditions? I thought not and so roach would still be my main target.

Combating The Winds

Normally the wind is off the back on this stretch but today we had a strong wind from left to right and in the face slightly. That made the wind chill even colder and made it really difficult to hold a long pole. I still wanted to fish quite long, so I decided to use my Acolyte Carp pole for strength but with my match tops fitted. As the Acolyte Carp is slightly softer than my normal Acolyte pole, so I could really hold on without fear in the violent winds. That would hopefully give me a chance to catch an odd bigger fish at 13 metres – a distance I knew a lot of people daren’t fish on the day!

The Plan

I set up six rigs from 0.4g up to o.8g to cover two lines; an 8m swim with six sections plus a dolly butt and one at 13 metres. Both these lines were at a 1o o’clock angle slightly with the wind to give me better presentation and hopefully help when holding the long pole in the strong wind.

With things expected to be hard I cut out the groundbait altogether and just fed molehill soil and Sensas Terre de River with Sensas grey leam. Adding around 800g of joker at the start, I fed just three balls on each of my selected lines.

A Great Start

Starting right at the side of my keepnet with a small 0.1g rig and a size 22 Kamasan B590 hook baited with a single joker I started to winkle out a few small perch while I let my other lines settle. After catching five or six small samples and dripping in a tiny amount of joker I hooked something more substantial. I don’t know who was more surprised, me or the 1lb perch that was safely in my landing net!

I caught 26 perch in total for around 2lb and at this point I already felt it was going to be a good day. With 10lb being the expected winning weight, getting 2lb in the first 30 minutes was a great start!

Moving Out

I then moved out to my 8m line with a 0.6g rig set two inches off bottom and started to catch roach. However, these fish were small and I felt the wind was affecting my presentation off the bottom.

I made a change to a heavier 0.8g rig and fishing two jokers on a Kamasan B590 size 22 an inch on the bottom improved my catch rate slightly. I also caught a slightly better stamp of fish, which seemed to come better after potting in another top-up ball of my initial mix.

For company on the next peg I had Cameron Hughes who was also catching well on this short line, but due to the wind he had not fed longer. This prompted me to have a look on this line to see if I could up the catch rate or, better still, select a few bigger fish.

Bream Bonus

Although it was hard to hold the pole I caught roach here for a good spell before it died completely. I was just thinking to myself that maybe there was an odd bigger fish unsettling the roach when the float buried and I was connected to something much more sizeable!

A bream around 3lb had picked up the hook bait and after a tense few minutes it was safely in the net – with my bum cheeks nipping!

I fished this swim on the bottom with three jokers on the hook, again on a 0.8g rig and a size 22 Kamasan B590 to a 0.07mm Drennan Fluorocarbon hooklength.

Fishing this line for the rest of the match and topping up regularly I caught another bream and a 1lb skimmer, plus around 120 roach to finish with 15lb. This also turned out to be a comfortable match win, with 9lb second in the match, and a nice weight for our team on the day to bring us up to 3rd in the league.

One thing for sure is that there are always some surprises when fishing and I would have never predicted that odd bream and skimmers would feed in such low temperatures. With one match left in the league we have an outside chance to come 2nd if we all fish well. Bring it on!