Trosa was my visit of fishing opportunity today as the weather looked favourable with plenty of cloud and some sun. I chose a place away from the mooring boats and the possibility of boats mooring up during the day, so i thought.
Having set up a 6.5 m whip with the latest Whip bagging float , 'the One' made by EXNER of Hungary under METMASK design guidance. Also a 4BB Stick float to close faced reel 502 ABU . Also a MATRIX Feeder rod XF with a MATRIX 3500 reel
To my left with those expensive boats
Great view across the water to BOHMANS hotel
Looking out to Sea
First hour very slow just like the flow in the river , very slow ! Later as i applied more ground bait with dead maggot and corn the fish responded and after 5 hours fishing i amassed 93 fish of size not counting the Bleak i dropped in the net.
Decent catch and i estimate 12-15 kilos with mostly Bjorkna , Skimmer , Roach , Rudd , Ide and Perch.
The 'One ' .....designed for Bagging and for strength
Best friend for 60 years Michael Carr had quite an experience fishing the CHARNWOOD Teams of 4 league on the Loughborough Canal Series.
He started rather well putting 5 fish in the net in 5 short casts at 3m but then the water environment started to change , for the worse as over the course of the competition his peg became saturated in floating Pennywart this evasive weed that is a huge blight on many river courses in the UK. It kept moving left to right and back again as changing winds blotted his feed lines so almost impossible to feed and fish above it .
Insane weed problem and Mick had it all ....unlucky buddy
Is this floating weed a worse hinderance than what David Mellors suffered years ago on a canal match , do you remember the floating Mattress ?
Nice and clear at the start so he was able to plumb the pegs and get an idea of his feeding areas
Before the floating weed problem the boats came through and most likely made the weed problem even worse . Strange that the boats were moving at all! as all locks were to be closed as the UK has a drought caused by the exceptional hot dry weather so they did not want problems with water level changes.
Further videos ....The calm before the weed suffocation that was to descend on Mick
Hjalmere Canal probably the best fishing match length for me as its so diverse with good shoals of Rudd to at least 1.5 kilo , Tench to at least 4 kilos , Good size Bream to about 1.5 kilos , Perch , Roach , skimmer and Bjorkna also of plenty. The canal itself at deepest is about 4.0m with a great far shelf of weed and lilee pads . On average it is 18-22m wide and has 22 places to fish ( more could be engineered but it needs a good work party , maybe next seasons project? )
Young Elias Klum from Karlstad helped and supported by Mum and Dad with Rhodesian Dog (Thank you Mrs Klum for the morning cakes and coffee ) ..........this young man is what we need in Swedish match angling and i hope many more also come through to the match scene.
SATURDAY 9th
Peg 11 on the B section for me
I must say the whole match length has fished not to its usual standard as many struggled to get the fish to feed . Many anglers did better with small Bolo on far side as well as small feeder with short hook length. I did much better in last hour when 'bottle-top' skimmers started to show in numbers with some better specimens.
Come weigh in time and end peg Tomas dominated A section with best weight of the match with 5875 from peg A1.........Has he got his hands on the Crown ? Lets see what tomorrow brings ?
A2 Thomas Larsson (King of Arboga) with large Tench and two others for 4850 and second in section.
Ivan the Terrible on B section peg B10 with 2850
Me on peg B11 with 2900
Jesper to my right , my nemesis with 3550 from peg B12
Kjell on B13 with 2050
Janne (Mr. STATS man ) , a great help with organising and also a top angler with 4175 from peg B14
Young MATRIX man Elias performed well against the seniors with 1250 from B15
Stefan taking 2650 from peg B16
SUNDAY 10TH
Peg A5 for me and only 350gr came of it the day before !!
To my left is Russ
To my right its my nemesis again ......Jesper !!
A6 is a good peg as three Tench came of it the day before
Meet Family Klum .........massive support for their son Elias
My Pre-bait on pole line (10m all i can fish due to lack of pole equipment due to the steeling of my number 1 MATRIX case containing ;
Assortment of Corn , caster , maggot , few worms , float maggots
Catapult line to bottom of far shelf for feeder
Well ! that was a stuggle for me as i watched in the end Jesper connect with some decent fish at 13m TAP and he could have lost at least 3 kilos plus we estimate .
On A1 was the man , the Kjell with 3275
On A2 with 2650 was Stefan
On A3 Janne took 6 kilos (100 fish) mostly on Bolo what i could see
Me with 2600 .......no bonus !
Jesper on A6 with 6950
A7 - Elias with 1400 , he will get better and soon climb the table and competing against the seniors
A8 - Ivan with 4950 (with 3 Tench)
B section and Tomas takes the section win and top weight of the day with 9100 and is crowned the....................kungen !
Better day for Per of peg B11 with 6850 with Tench
Esa on B12 with 6300 and Tench !
B13 and Patrick with 3900
Nils with 4650 of B14
B15 Benga with 3275
B16 was Thomas with 3950
So the end of an eventful weekend but i would say the lowest weights ever on this canal as years gone by many have caught double figures with up to 25 kilos , but that is fishing !
However this bunch of lads are great company and we all have a laugh and help with each other .
- Thanks to Janne for all his work with the statistics
- Thanks to Jamie with recording the weights
- Thanks to Tomas U with helping clearing up the paper plate peg numbers on B section.
- Thanks to everyone who helped share the weighing and passing on the weigh net .
I hope we continue to not allow Bleak as its intensive fishing and weights could be huge of them as some decent Sardines were coming out over the weekend.
It is the last METSMASK matches of the year and i hope you all enjoyed them at Nykoping , Arboga and Hjalmere Canal. If you have ideas for more of them this year and next year then please let us know.
Sponsor of the weekends matches
Apologies to everyone .......... ?
In June we ran the Hjalmere canal 2 dayer and i pegged out the match length using plastic A4 wallets with number of peg on paper inside and i mostly secured them by nailing to trees ........later i find out this is wrong and not allowed , apparently.
To convert to English , it states ;
In Sweden we don't drive nails - into other people's trees
or ?
Read more about the common law nature conservation agency
oooops !
(The picture of the man nailed to the tree by his head is a little provocative and obnoxious)
