An Autumn Gem.

 It's clear by now that I have taken to this canal fishing and it has certainly enchanted me, it's definitely not the scenery either but the fish that do call it home, as I have said in previous posts there are very little stocks and catching them isn't easy as there is plenty of water to hide, so this morning I set off for a short trip as the BBC weather app showed that a day of poor weather was on it's way, so I arrived at around 8am and set about searching the water with the polaroid's at a quicker than usual pace, I knew I had roughly an hour available before the rain was to arrive and break up the water hence making stalking almost impossible, so I set up before starting instead of setting up when I've spotted fish as I have missed a couple of opportunities because of this.

 The tactic I use now is simply a size 8 barbless hook and a no1 shot an inch from the hook baited with a piece of flake, no freebees, no nothing. I found that using a float put the Bream and Carp on edge as it represented something "alien" which I'm certain put the fish off from feeding on my would be tasty offering, it took around 45 minutes to locate fish and when I did a shoal of lovely Bream where hovering over a gravel patch in roughly 6ft of water, I squeezed out the excess water from the bread flake and sent it on it's way down, it didn't even touch the bottom when one Bream around 7-8lb sucked in the bait and I missed it, totally amazed at how I never connected but it happens.

 But it's not the first time I've cocked up on a guilt-edged chance so I continued as planned and as I had found fish I continued to hang around the shoal of Bream, after 5-10 fruitless minutes of angling the bread in the paths of awaiting mouths I didn't manage to get another fish to commit then I spotted a large frame on the bottom move, all the time I was in that patch I never thought it was a fish but the large shape turned out to be a really lovely Carp, oh it was just what I wanted to find, so now the heart rate was cranked up a few notches I had to keep my cool, I flicked the bread about ten-foot past the Carp into the main track and slowly drew it back as it sank towards the bottom, as it got around a foot from the bottom the Carp turned straight for it and as that happened an even larger Carp came out of know where and sucked in the bait, being able to see the bread disappear was brilliant and my heart rate really went through the roof, exhilarating stuff I can tell you, the fight was rip-roaring, lunge after lunge and the runs were so bloody powerful I feared my 8lb line wouldn't stand up to the task.

 Nearly 10 minutes had passed before I got a netting opportunity and when I did she still didn't want to know and charged straight back out before I could scoop her in, it was not in a forgiving mood, but to that point nor was I, I wanted her more than she wanted to escape and after playing her with a degree of caution towards the end I bagged myself an extremely stunning Autumn Common Carp which spun the dial comfortably past 20lb and settled on 23lb 9oz, get in there my son!!!!.

After quite a few blanks it was most certainly worth it!, what do you think?.

The heart rate took a little while to drop but I finally got there just as the heavens opened and I watched my catch swim strongly out of the net back into anonymity, what a fish from a canal.