Match 4, BAC Winter League, Boyle Canal

Boyle Canal is a one of those venues that can turn on you in a heartbeat, you will either have a nice steady day catching small Roach, you can have a day scratching for very small fish but still getting bites or you can totally blank. Today for me was a scratching day on small fish.

We all met at the large carpark adjacent to the Boyle River near the green bridge, looking at the power in the river it was a safe bet that the 1km canal stretch that leads up to the marina would be full of fish taking a break from the strong currents of the river.

The draw bag was good to me again and giving me peg 1 which is just on the bend heading into the long straight

Thats me, the red dot :-)

Boyle canal has a unique feature in that its banks are lined with chicken wire, this can claim many hooks and plummets if you are not made aware of it and spans about 3m from both near and far bank. Depths in the middle along the stretch vary between 3.5 and 4m deep give or take a bit each way and not knowing how it was going to fish means a few different rigs will needed to cover all possibilities.

Bait

• 1lt Caster
• 1lt Hemp
• 0.5lt Red Maggot
• 0.5lt Pinkie

I mixed two different groundbait mixes up for today one inert the other active.
Mix 1-Active

• 1kg Champion Choice Etang
• 1kg Champion Choice Gardons
• 0.5kg VDE Dynamic Feeder
• Coriander and Sweetener to taste....
• Black Dye

Mix 2-Inert

• 1kg VDE Damp Leam
• 2kg Top Soil
• 0.5kg Champion Choice Canal 
• Black Dye

Plan

• Feed one positive line at 10m 
• Feed one negative line at 13m to my right
• Feed one loose feed only line 13m to my left

 On the all in I cupped in 3 fairly particle rich balls of the active mix at 10m, 2 balls of the inert soil mix with a few casters, some hemp and a pinch of dead pinkie to my right and dumped a cup full (250ml) of hemp and caster to my left.
 The first line to try was the 10m line I kinda figured if it was going to be solid it wouldn't take them long to zone in on the fizzing groundbait on the bottom, no bites yet. A move over to the soil line saw my first fish fall to single pinkie under a 0.6g Sensas Eric on 0.08mm mainline, size 22 hook on 0.06mm hooklength! It turned out this was the only rig and swim I would catch on all day, the float bearly moved when a bite registered and when your swinging fish on a single 3 elastic you know there small.. 

 It was pretty simple fishing from there on in, topping up with a golf ball size ball of soil with a few offerings.when it went quiet, then while the fish settled back check the other lines for a bonus fish.

 None of the other 2 lines produced fish at all, I wasted to much time trying to make them work in the last hour as I had heard Tomaz was bagging at the other end of my section, i should have tipped away at the tiddlers and not paid any attention to what was going on around me, a valuable lesson learned! I missed out on a section win by 80g, i weighed in at 1.960kg and Tomaz 2.040kg 

Bugger...