2024 - JULY 4TH - SODERTALJE CANAL - MATS LARSSON WITH FEEDER PRACTICE

With July 4th being special as my latest granddaughter came into the world and i was looking after my next youngest for a few days while Mum and Dad brought happiness into the family circle .💕😍

Also in UK its election day and i expect the Conservatives to get wiped out and Labour climb to the top however with the expected Woke tactics UK will be worse for the next 5 years or more.👎

Only REFORM party can form some kind of opposition .....anyway back to the best politics , fishing !!! 👍

View from the expected Peg 1

Mats Larsson practicing feeder

Bream no5 arriving

Nice about a kilo fish , lost one 5 minutes earlier a lot larger 

2024 - JUNE 29TH / 30TH (SUMMER LEAGUE 5+6) HJALMERE CANAL

Hjalmere canal ! a magical place for many Tench , Golden bar Rudd and plenty of skimmers . Saturday the 29th the METMASK Summer League 5 unfortunately with a near gale force wind affecting all using a pole .

The match of 10 anglers was divided into 2 sections (A+B) Each section competing for a 1st prize of 750SEK (£58) and a 2nd prize of 500SEK (£39) .

 

Okay now for my Bad News yet again of my fishing performances . I started with potting in 5 balls of SONUBAITS Chocolate laced with caster / deads and then potted 2 balls of chop worm. I placed 4 chucks on feeder line short of far side lily pads .

I started ok with 3 see-through skimmers but Stefan Holst to my right took three decent size skimmers in first 20 minutes on light /small hook tactics which i soon changed to so i took off my 14/12's hooks and was soon on 18/16's . It did not really improve my fishing on the pole by much so i started to interchange to feeder far side which brought me 1 rudd in 15 minutes .

By the end of the match i amassed just over 2 kilos being beaten both sides again ! Beaten again with winner next peg , so many times this has happened this year at Nykoping and Arboga. Where has my form gone since returning from UK ? ..............NEVER GIVE UP , I SHALL RETURN !!

Anyway , less depressing news .....the weigh in ....Stefan Holst on Peg 1 6425 and section winner.
 

Tomas peg 3 with 3328

Patrik with 5382 on peg 4 and 2nd place 

Jari with 2070 of peg 5 

SECTION B ......Kjell on peg 6 with 2235

80's Porn star Russell 'North' Hopkins with 3777 on 'pegged' 8

1st place for Janne of Peg 9 with 7895 and a fine Tench

Esa in 2nd place with 6527 of Peg 10

DAY 2 June 30th 

SECTION A weigh in time and the rain was very upsetting !!!

Esa on peg 1 with 7154 

Kjell 2nd place with 7779 on peg 3 

The days King , the competition King winning his section both days , outstanding performance 

...........Janne 1st place with 13700 with three Tench (one on first cast ! ) 

SECTION B 

1st place was Jari on peg 7 with 13060  (Big Bream and a Tench) 

Tomas on Peg 10 with 4127

On peg 9 Patrick with 6784

2nd place was Stefan Holst with 8574 

I did not weigh in and at 13:30 i decided to tip my fish back (2 kilos) and get my car ready to get away for the England match (they were so lucky!)

A MESSAGE TO ALL THE COMPETITORS AND MATCH ANGLERS 

This match length has a capacity to hold at least 25 pegs with two other section elsewhere giving a potential further 20 pegs .

If it was possible , next year could we meet up on a Saturday or Sunday or both and bring various cutting tools and get these great match stretches in good condition ready for a series of matches . (After the work run a match)

I envisage apart from the summer matches that early and late in the year matches could be organised and create a really good league . We could have an elite and beginners if required and also you could have team and pairs matches. You could easily run a river and canal series / teams ??

It would take just several hours for at least 10 guys to create better parking , cut down small trees and make the bank side good for boxes . 

We can create all this as we have the absolute permission to fish there in a INTERNATIONAL WAY as TRADITIONAL FISHING is banned there and we have the trust of the owners . Perfect !  

DONT FORGET TO BOOK ON THE METMASK SUMMER LEAGUE 7+8 ON AUGUST 10TH AND 11TH 

2024 - JUNE 25TH - HJALMERE CANAL - BANKS SIDE PREPARATION AND A LITTLE FISHING

I decided to visit the canal in readiness for the weekends event over the two days . 

The days position for me .......

METMASK Products 

Brand new whip floats ....'MM1' ........2,3,4,5,6gr

Arrival and started to clear some pegs of obstacles and grasses but on the weekend please bring your own cutters if you have , not that you really need them as all pegs are mostly clear. 

I counted the pegs from the first car park and we must be looking at 15/16 pegs with potentially another 5-7 pegs at the far end (if we require ?) 

On Saturday morning we can all walk the bank and decide for ourselves what positions to try. On the day who ever has peg 1 and peg 11 they can use their cars to block any arrivals . We have total permission to fish this whole length of water for the 4 days we have booked (June 29/30 and August 10/11) .

My place for the day

I set up;

- Float rod

- Feeder rod

- 7m whip

- 3m whip

- TAP T5 

- TAP T4

Soon the sun swung round so i was prepared with my Australian style hat and plenty of sun cream 30-50

Beautiful place to fish

Having arrived at 07:30am and spent 2 hours walking the bank and preparing the pegs i then took another 1.5 hours setting up . It was about 11:00am when i started my 5 hour stint.

I pre-baited the pole line and a line close in down to my right. I then placed 5 feeder full's in on far side where i expected the Tench mostly to be as well as the Rudd . Unfortunately in the 1st hour i only had small Rudd . After i played with the whips and caught see-through skimmers . I then went on the pole line and first 'put-in' and i caught the biggest Bream of the day  (estimated 1.8/2.0k) It was a shock as i thought originally i had stuck on the bottom but the fish shot over the other side with my 6-8 elastic at full stretch ! .......landed it , great start and it continued like that off and on . In the end i had 2 more good size Bream (1.3-1.5k) size with three Tench (1.5-2k) (and lost one ) ........i had my T4 setup with 10-12 elastic. 

Boats started to come through and stir the colour a bit but never really upset the fishing

Crayfish

The fish continued to blow late into the day 

Days catch ....just 50gram under 14 kilos 

BIG ADVISE FOR THE WEEKEND - BRING PLENTY OF FLUIDS , SUN HATS , SUN CREAM 

2024 - June 23rd - Södertälje Canal - Feeder fishing with friends

Decided to fish my local canal for some practice as there is a Team Feeder match here on 17th/18th August. Ivan and Borko and friend also joined me . 

Weather coolish in the morning with no sun so hopefully the Big Bream will come out to play ?

I set up the two rods on 21 and 28 turns . The 21 turns was settling in approx.12 seconds and the 28 turns took 15 seconds ! ummm quite deep however my choice of feeder might have slowed it down so i expect a good weighted window feeder would get there a little quicker , i speculate.

 

Borko to my right  and a small boat passes by

Ivan settled in as it his first time to visit the place

 

So we completed a 4 hour stint and Borko and friend go away earlier as they had a BBQ to go to .

Later i came in closer t about 15 turns dropping in 7-8 seconds and i had 5 fish very quickly however i had heightened my feeder arm as i was snagging on something and consequently i lost two feeders in 5 minutes !! Bad end of the day but i managed to scrape together about 3.5 to 4 kilos of mostly skimmer , roach with Bjorkna and Perch