Canal Roach - The Sisyphean Task ? Pt.7

Rigid rules have little application to any kind of angling, but experience does indicate that the angler who adopts certain procedures will catch more big roach than the angler who fishes haphazardly for anything that might come along. The guides to catching big canal roach from my limited experience 👀 can be summarised thus:

• Find a secluded spot in which you can fish quietly and alone.
• Stay alert for any visible evidence of big roach.
• Refrain from using fine groundbait, which only serves to attract too many small fish.
• Prebait your chosen swim with the bait you intend to use.
• Persist in the chosen swim if success does not come quickly (and be sure it will not, on most occasions).
• Keep well away from favourite hard-fished, reed-free swims unless you can fish them alone at an early or late hour.
• Find out what times are most favourable to the catching of big roach in your own water.

The last point is of some importance. Roach do not feed for twenty-four hours a day; and although it might be difficult to pinpoint the exact time when feeding is likely to commence, experience indicates that early morning is a great time, especially when the swim has been prebaited and the day promises to be hot and bright.

During the winter months, when the reeds have died away and the water may be very clear, dusk is the best time. One hour of fishing then might be worth all the other hours together, in terms of bites.

Obviously, then, a lot of time can be wasted by playing the waiting game. The angler who times his visit to coincide with what experience has taught him to be the best time to catch big roach can reduce the time spent at the water side to a mere hour or so.

This also means that he will be fishing more alertly, more expectantly. Too much time spent sitting and watching an unmoving float can result in tiredness, both mental and physical, and this is bad. When the chance does come, it may be missed.

A suitable analogy might be found in the case of the game hunter. 

He could spend many exhausting hours seeking his quarry over a wide area of countryside, but if he knew along which routes his game travelled, and at what times they came down to the water to drink, he could achieve his aim in the minimum of time simply by positioning himself at the water-hole when the game were due.

Unfortunately, anglers cannot always see their quarry or keep track of their movements, so it may sometimes be necessary to lure the roach to an appointed spot by careful and thoughtful prebaiting of the swim. Then the bait can be laid out with some degree of expectation that a good roach may soon find it and accept it. 

The fast-water swims below lock gates and the stretches of water immediately downstream are often worth trying during the summer. So are heavily reeded swims. Big roach are seldom far away from reeds during hot weather. A cunningly flicked bait might catch one of them unawares, but it is better to prebait the swim if possible. I often do this if I can be bothered 😅

Now talking about rigid rules, well I decided to something a little different for this session and try a new set-up on the sleeper rod. I'd fish a small inline feeder that would be filled with roach goundbait and then I'd use a short hooklink with a hairstop where I'd bait up with a few small compressed bread disks. 

A bit heathen like you might say, but I was an avid reader of Jeff Hatt and his antics on Idlers Quest where he was using lobworms for roach, it's always good to experiment I say especially when I lost a carp here recently fishing in the track with some bread. So yeah, almost commercial F1 tactics (I'll wash my mouth out later) with slightly beefed up tackle than I'd usually use, just in-case the carp was around and fancy getting in on the act. 

On the main rod It would be my usual centre-pin and insert waggler with either bread or maggots for bait. This time though I'd feed roach groundbait with some hemp rather than the bread just because really. I don't think there are a huge amount of smaller roach to be caught and I was hoping that a single hookbait would be something for a big roach to home in on. 

Anyway enough of the waffle, I better get fishing....

To cut a long story short 🙈 best laid plans and all that, because after arriving at 6.00am where I fished for 3 hours not one single bite FFS !!! I fished two areas and nothing was doing on either rod at all. Not even a sucked maggot or a bobble of the float. The only welcome distraction was the tree above me was determined to shed its leaves right on top of my noggin. 

It was only when to counteract the boredom I went for a rove when the next set of reeds around 100 yards to my right there was fishing spawning, and a decent group of fish too. Hmmm that wouldn't have helped now would it.

The didn't seem like Zander though so maybe bream ? they looked a decent size whatever they were as they were certainly moving the reeds a lot, and almost the whole length of them too. So after seeing that I decided to go and have a nose at an area I've not fished for a while where blog reader Richard Clapp said it was worth a nose.

I have fished up here a few times in years gone by, but I've filmed and also seen otters on this stretch so I've never been that desperate to fish it. I thought I'd go and have a nose though because it might be giving it a go to see if I'm missing anything.

A good distance covered and with the sun out I wanted to see if I could spot some carp and also to scope out some potential wild trout spots and also to see if Severn Trent were dumping effluent in the canal after the rain yesterday.  . 

To be honest I didn't spot much, in-fact I didn't even see many fish top. There was one particular turning bay that looked great for a bite, some nice reed cover but also some bream bubbles right slap bang in the middle of it.

I did feed some nuggets of bread in and amongst the reeds but no carp showed when I watched for a while and they were still there when I returned after heading much further up the stretch. Still what a lovely morning where I covered just shy of 14k steps.

Everything seems to waking up at the minute which is nice to see but with the fish spawning on this stretch I might return in a few days and give it another go. I'm sure no matter what I did today would have brought a bite, but that's canals for you, they after often more miss than hit.

I can luckily get out again tomorrow and also Bank Holiday morning, so I'll take stock and decide what to do later. As I walked back there were a couple just about to sit down with a pint of beer at 11.15am on the canal side pub, that I'm sure would have been the better option I'm sure. !!!

It was that black cat I saw first thing, that certainly wouldn't have helped !!!.