Last weekend I fished the Basingstoke canal league at Ash Vale, just down the road from Gold Valley and very close to Willow Park, it was the first time I fished this stretch of canal and it was very good.

I drew peg 43 on the day, near the wides in Ash vale, it looked very nice, with plenty of cover on both banks from the trees, and with a strong wind blowing my stretch was very sheltered.

After plumbing up I decided to fish punch at top 6, chopped worm down the middle and feed 2 joker lines across. When the whistle blew I started on the punch and it was brilliant, I caught a small roach every chuck for the first 2 hours before things started to slow up, a quick look on the lobworm with no bites and then back on the punch, I tried the bloodworm across, but the punch was so much better.

By the end of the match I had caught approx 200 roach for 10lb 5ozs a lovely days fishing, I finished third in the match, beaten by 2 skimmer weights and our team won on the day.

Sunday, it was another early start, and off to Gold valley for the open match, which used to be the Rushmoor league. 8am draws mean a 6am start for us bristol boys.
The draw bag was kind to me and I drew old peg 45. This time of the year the fishing is pretty straight forward, its either pva bag or method feeder and try to catch carp, I chucked a pva bag to the steps in front of the club house and caught 4 carp in the first hour and finished up with 19 carp for a total weight of 96lb and third again, Bungalow lake fished well and my team captain Steve Sanders won the match from a corner peg with a brilliant weight of 145lb, my dad also fished and he won his section and finished 6th overall with 52lb, that was his first match for 7 years, so all in all it was a good weekend.