Having recently visited one of my local cuts and managed a customary blank the drawing board was visited again, I have done a large amount of research on some waters and today I was hoping to quench my thirst for a canal fish this season, my target initially was to spin for some Pike and Perch but after a couple of hours I drew a blank, so I had a bag of made up ground-bait for the Bream and Skimmers, with this in mind I found a couple of likely looking swims and laid out a decent bed of crumb whilst fishing bread punch over the top.
I made the journey back on the bike from North London to the "souf of the Thames" to drop off my coarse gear and planned a short foray out with the fly rod in search of a Trout, this lark is more what I'm good at but it's never easy as I found out, two hours of fishing and one half hearted rise but as the sun was disappearing and the evening sky was cast with a warm orange glow the Trout felt obliged to feed as I had three Trout in very quick succession. all were taken on the dry fly and I lost a really good brownie too as a fish of 4lb or so slurped my daddy long legs off the surface but as I struck the 3lb tippet brushed it's teeth and cut itself free.
These were the lucky candidates selected for today's blog.
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| Immaculate little piece of perfection. |
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| The largest of the evening at 2lb 10oz, a strong fight too on such light gear. |
Good on ya for keep trying James! Some canals can be bloody rough - we've got it cushty down here. You could find something really amazing though, most likely a carp or big perch I reckon. Bread punch or chopped worm are usually good places to start though, just over the first shelf, for a bite. Orrrr.... Get the train to Taunton and we'll go catch some tench for the day :)
ReplyDeleteLooking at your post I was only just thinking about a mammoth trip down to your manor, looks great and although it may not be for a while I do fancy a trip down, as for my canal it's not easy and never has been in my living memory but there are fish there I know that, pinning them down in a featureless concrete waterway covered in diesel slick doesn't make life any easier, today I'm going to have a fling down the docklands and see if I can find some predators.
DeleteI never fish through a slick of fuel. Convinced the bait picks up a coating on the way through. They can cover long distances though, and very little is needed to create a big one, is it? I think many are created by boaters pumping their bilges straight into the cut. Filthy habit...
DeleteMy advice would be to roughly mash one slice of bread, chuck it in to the point where the boat track begins to slope up to to the far shelf, then mark the spot. Do this again three or four times in successive pegs and then start fishing the first spot. Up here, and George Burton will concur, bread can take up to an hour to start working when the water's cold. If you drop into the second peg after half an hour and then keep going you should find fish over at least a couple of the spots you've baited. If they are there and have been feeding for a time then you'll know very quickly. If not then you have a very tough canal in front of you, James!
ReplyDeleteIt certainly makes sense Jeff, when it warms up a little I will certainly adopt a tactic like that and allow them to locate the feed whilst I try my luck elsewhere, divide and conquer, I'm not looking for big ones because I know they aren't there but a hat full would nice, in fact it would be bloody brilliant seeming how difficult they have been to catch, Bream?, difficult to catch sounds funny as on the Thames 20-25 in a day is a bad day! And they average 4-6lb, but some skimmers and Roach would be good, planned Marsh Famr today but the weather last night wasn't great down here so I may try tomorrow, who knows what will happen, but my cuts are tough so I'm under no illusion, just have to keep trying.
DeleteIt'll help you locate where they shoal up. That's for sure. Up here shoals of large bream are found in very localised areas especially in Wintertime. A coventry Canal winter league match was won a few years back with a big bag of them, the anglers in the pegs either side of him came second and third. The rest of the field scratched what they could. I think he won with over forty pounds...
ReplyDeleteThat's how localised they can be.
The problem is that the canals are hardly fished and I think I will wait for the water temperature to improve and they will show themselves and feed a bit better, I will build up some more background knowledge of them to give me a better idea in how to approach.
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