Taking commercial tactics onto our canals is nothing new, but for me on the Stainforth canal at Thorne, its something that I have not really considered before because Bloodworm & Joker have always dominated my tactics on the venue. Due to adverse weather conditions on the continent Bloodworm & Joker have been in short supply so the match at the weekend banned the bait so it was fair for everyone taking part. This was whole new ball game for me and after drawing 161 at Wickwell bridge where there’s a good head of skimmers, I really fancied my chances to make the frame if I could get my tactics right. For company on the end peg of the match was rising star Cameron Hughes, so I knew I was going to have to fish a good match to compete with him.
I elected to fish just two spots, one at 13metres and the other at 16meters, the shorter line being 3meters diagonally towards Cam as I didn’t want to play fish from the long line through the shorter line and also the bottom was flatter at this point. On the shorter line I fed just two balls of Dynamite frenzied hemp groundbait via a 250ml Drennan pot loaded with dead red maggots and casters, on the longer line I potted half a pot of 50/50 dead maggots and casters neat. This gave me the option to decide which would be the best: groundbait or neat bait.
I started on on the short line fishing a 0.5g float with strung out shot to a 0.09 Drennan Fluoro carbon hook length with a sixteen Kamasan B511 and double dead maggot. I caught 5 skimmers in the first hour, topping up constantly with a small cad pot on the pole, just like you would when fishing a commercial fishery with a mix of groundbait chopped worms, casters and dead maggots. This was to be the key to catching the Skimmers as I believed the skimmers were off the deck on the day and were following the bait down to the bottom. I knew this was happening as every bite from a skimmer was a lift bite, and I could mentally picture the skimmers picking up the hook bait and rising off the bottom.
Because the Groundbait line had worked well I also added a ball on the 16 metre line, then by swapping between the lines and feeding regularly I kept odd fish coming all match, it was never hectic but enough to keep you busy. Changing to single caster when it was slow kept an odd small Roach and Perch going in the net to keep me ticking over.
On the next peg Cam seemed to struggle and was almost dead and buried after a couple of hours, but he’s a class act and a change to hemp changed all that. He started to feed hemp and in the last hour and a half made a strong finish with some quality Roach. At the weigh in, Cam’s Roach went 13lb 2oz for fourth place and my Skimmers pulled the scales down to 13lb 13oz for third. The 70 peg match was won by Sean Ashby with 14lb 7oz.
Alan Scotthorne
