Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.16

A nice greeting wasn't it for this next canal session where some kind dog owner decided to proudly display their mutts rather large discharge for all to see just left on the start of the bridge wall that leads to the canal. 

Now this wasn't one of those where the owner would collect it on their return because the area was dead when I got there early doors and when I left there were walkers, but walkers without leads in their hand.

Luckily the day got a bit better from the initial (OH FFS !!!)  with some fish being caught in the session and then a walk out in to Stratford-Upon-Avon later and a bit of a bargain purchase !!!!

Now I love a good bargain and this leg of lamb was hard to pass up when it was £2.50.

Yes £2.50 !!!!

With the day to day living costs sky rocketing everyone is looking for a bargain these days, and wow I cannot complain especially as I walked in after a tip off from my Sister that Aldi were offering some lamb bargain and the girl was replacing the 30% off stickers with 75% ones, jobs a good un !!!!

To be fair we rarely have lamb for a Sunday roast because if I'm honest we do prefer Beef or Pork, but some slow roasted lamb with garlic and rosemary the crispy roast potatoes swimming in mint sauce is something to look forward to I must admit.

But Mick you need to reign it in a bit because I was out yesterday evening with a mate for a curry and a couple of pints and after popadoms and a tiger prawn puri it was washed down with a really rich lamb curry with garlic naan and onion fried rice. 

It's surprising how quickly adding those few extra pounds happens and when you're nearly fifty like me you need to keep on top of it otherwise the 

But then I've taken a few extra days off work and for an extended easter bread and my average daily steps have exceeded 14k every single day. 

The problem I faced in the morning though was the intended long walk down to the hallowed was curtailed because my mate Phippo who was at the curry kindly donated a few bottles of Delph Strong Ale which as a McEwans Champion fan went down rather well indeed.

So a change of plan for this session as feeling rather bloated a local trip was probably the way to go and maybe not the amount of walking I usually do.

So yes I actually took a seat with me and fancied some more chilled out fishing rather than the roving sessions I usually do.

Luckily a nice section of canal was a 10 minute walk and here there is everything to go at. I've spotted carp here in the past and also caught Zander as well as roach, bream and the odd hybrid.

It was a roach bream hybrid I fancied to be honest though and in the Newey household Sam still hold the PB record where he caught a cracking fish from Centre Parcs at Elvedon.

Although I've not caught any of the big hybrids that reside here I remember a session that Nic from Avon Angling had they had turned up and gave Nic a right run around.

They do fight surprisingly well these canal hybrids and they are definitely worth catching in these turbid waters. Talking of which I do seem to have the canals to myself these days. 

Where the heck are the other anglers, especially when walking up to the spot a bream rolled near some reeds which meant it showed me where to park ones backside.

I love using the lift method when fishing canals and combined with a centre pin and a 11ft 1.5TC rod an ideal combination.

Naturally I had zander rod out but that zander rod was untouched whilst I was there for around two and a half hours.

Simple tactics some groundbait and maggots as bait. In around 45 minutes I managed 4 bream all of a similar size and all lifted the float nicely from a pimple to being 3 or 4 inches erect in a split second.

I don't know why bream get such a bad rap from certainly angling quarters because I don't mind catching them especially on light tackle.

Now sadly a boater who decided that it would be a great idea to plough through my swim full throttle put a kibosh to proceedings. 

At 6.50am 😐 !!!!

No bacon sandwiches to make, or coffee to drink ?

The problem is you see the canal here is very shallow indeed with the draft of the boat probably only a foot from the bottom so all the debris on the deck is churned up and stirred up big time and it can as I found out to my detriment mean that you're scratching around for bites from the initial thumbs up.

Eventually after the boat went through and the water settled after flowing like a river and then bouncing between locks a bite came out of nowhere and a fish was on.

I knew what it was straight away a Nick Duffy (blog reader ) delight well in around 50 years anyway as it was a small eel that again succumbed to the maggots. And that was my lot, 3 boats in around half an hour I'd be wasting my time and it was time for the off. Still an enjoyable session though, I don't fish this way nearly enough.