Old as the Hills.

 There's Bream fishing and then there's stalking Bream, this is something that I have started to really enjoy when I've got the chance to and most of the trips at first are born out of the lack of Carp spotted whilst walking the miles of canals, as I've said previously the stocks are very low through most of the network around London, through many many hours of walking in all conditions and seasons I have painted a picture of roughly what each section of each canal has to offer, although I don't pretend to know everything I know enough to be moderately successful.

 The other morning I headed out for one of these exploratory missions and the Carp as usual were very elusive with only one spotted after two or three miles of walking, the Bream however were fairly visible and clearly feeding as half a dozen were ploughing through the bottom, I felt it would be unsporting to not try, three casts it took me to get it into the right spot, when it got there the flake disappeared. Slimer on!, shame the fight wasn't very good, within 20-30 seconds it was nestled in the net. She weighed 7lb 10oz and this fish must be as old as God's dog, never seen a Bream so black it looked ancient, such awesome colour.

 The Bream were true to form though and became very wary once one of their gathering was hooked, time to move again....more walking and alot more baron water, it took well over twenty minutes before I found more fish, again these were Bream, a little more obliging than their friends downstream as two came out in quick succession, neither were as big (5.15 & 4.10) but happy with the technique catching fish. The Carp continued to be elusive until I reached one specific area, it looked good for them and it didn't take me long to clap eyes on a monster, easily a high twenty pounder, possibly even a thirty! it wasn't the only one, joined by another three fish I only had designs on the monster, short story I didn't manage to tempt her although I will get back out for them, if I can find them again of course, canal fish are notoriously nomadic which makes my task just that bit harder. I will keep at it though with the chance of bagging a real corker.