Twenty teams of three braved the cold for the second round of the Hankat Teams Of Three Winter League run by Lee Woodhouse, and for some reason the areas that fished best last time – notably the Dixon street length – was right off form with several dry nets.
That opened things right up and opened the door for Coventry canal ace Jon Arthur, who put a winning 13-7-0 of small roach on the scales despite having to break the ice and fish for five hours with a cracked rib!
I nearly didn’t fish as I managed to bread a rub in a ‘play fight’ with match organiser Lee Woodhouse last weekend,” said Jon. “It took me so long to break the ice I only had time to set up one rig, but luckily I caught all day.
I drew Peg 135 at Coseley. I was told it was not a particularly good peg but for some reason the fish were obviously shoaled up in front of me.
“I caught 150-plus roach; 30 on bread punch with the rest on joker. It could have been more but we all suffered with the ice holes freezing over all day long!

Picture: Coventry’s John Arthur braved a cracked rib to put together this 13-7-0 bag from the Birmingham Mainline Canal in the Hankat Team of Three Winter League.