Friday evening, canal matches,

A few lads had decided to have a series of not to serious canal matches on a stretch
that was once famed but is now rarely fished. Close to Leixlip so local enough for me with a bankside
drat at 18.00 hrs. The stretch is 15 mins from my house so I was delighted to be asked if I wanted to be involved. The plan is to fish it every Friday for the Summer months and by then we'd get a good idea of what, if anything, was still there.
I drew an end peg, no 48 on the stretch so was happy as I headed to the peg. It's a really nice stretch
and from the minute I arrived atmy peg I though I'd be OK. What I didnlt know was that peg 49
was getting fished very regularly by one of the competitors and within minutes of the all in at 19.00 hrs
it was obvious there were fish sitting there. Eoin Schweppe had landed right on them and had a great first hour, I on the other hand was geting a few fish but nothing to keep me in touch with him.
We're fishing 3 hour matches so theres not much time to catch up or make serious changes so I kept plugging away with my initial 3 lines.
At the end of the 3 hours, Eoin had easily won it but would my small bag register. As it turned out it
did and I was 3rd overall after Eoin (1st) and Bob Hume (2nd).
The weights wern't great, I had 11 fish for 1.5lb (ish) but with only a couple of dry nets it seems there
are still fsh there and we'll therfore continue to give it a go over the next few weeks,