A pounding !!!!!

It's a canal swim like no other, largely hidden from view, unaffected by towpath dawdlers and boats. It's a 'pound', a stretch of level water impounded by two locks. In order to accommodate traders with heavy cargos of coal, sugar, tea and spices up the flight, the locks at this stretch of the Grand Union were widened to 14 feet allowing navigation by industrial boats or two single narrowboats. For the canal angler it's a backwater haven.

I decided to try and catch something other than a predator, a roach would be nice, even a bream or two. Not having fished the canal that many times,liquidised bread as feed with maggot on the hook. To hedge my bets and to use some lobworms I had left over I also had a sleeper rod out. Before setting up I fed the swim with a couple of handfuls of bread and a few maggots. Plumbing the depth I found it far shallower than I thought it would be, 3 and half foot or so.

A pole would have been ideal here,a far sensitive set-up with far better bait positioning and feeding accuracy. I fished a 13ft float rod with a  Drennan Glow Tip Antenna and a 2lb hook length with a size 18 hook. I always thought about investing in a pole but it wouldn't get used, especially when the flowing water is back on the agenda. Within 10 minutes or so I had a few pulls on the sleeper rod but it didn't amount to anything, the float remained motionless, in-fact for nearly 4 hours, I couldn't even muster up a bite. Bugg*er. Maybe I need to be shown how it's done.

A change of tactics was in order and with the lure rod already set-up (11cm) I switched from the Roach to it's nightmare, the Zander. With an hour of fishing left before I had to leave to go to Warwick Races I packed up got back in the spam chariot and returned to my Zander banker swim.

The overlow area of the swim produced some decent Perch recently too so I also set-up the sleeper rod to maximise my blank avoidance. I'm glad I made the change because in an hour I managed 3 Zander the biggest 1lb 15oz, 3 half decent Perch (2 on the lure one and the worm) and also a 3lb Carp that looked it had escaped from Tunnel Barn. By the way this sessions moonlighting was a load of electrical cable.

Have I the canal bug ?, the cult of the cut, quite possibly.