Canal Roach - The Sisyphean Task ? Pt.9

The deluge of rain the weekend during some thunder and lightning showed up my hatred of DIY and the like, you see ones gutters were full to the brim and were spilling over the side nearly tainting next door neighbour David's ornamental bush. A bush that I'm sure will be in his will someway or another.

The only thing for it was to get the ladders out, unroll the hosepipe and actually get down to some the neglected maintenance whilst the weather was nice.

What I didn't expect was a whole bucket full of gunk was retrieved from the gutters that must have been under some considerable strain judging just how heavy it was. The front gutters gunk had almost knitted itself together where a foot long weed was growing out of it to raise the red flag and the cul-de-sac covenant pointers at the Newey's lack of 'keeping the house in good order'.

 

A quick test of the gutters draining post clearing showed that it was working effectively and should suffice for another 5 years or so (joke), well until there was another risk to David's bush buddy, we wouldn't want that to happen now would we.

Anyway with some roach to catch I decided to go for a couple of hours down the canal where my best roach to date is 1lb and 12 ounces. 

I'm sure I've lot a bigger one as well that came off 10 seconds or so in to the fight, and it certainly felt like a roach on the end of the line.

I've been concentrating on bread as it tends to bring the bigger fish but maggots will be used from time to time for a more conventional approach.

A lovely evening indeed where the water actually felt warm when I had a dropped run on the deadbait within 5 minutes and felt the deadbait.

Yes of course I had a sleeper rod out as well because there are Zander here to be caught, so a roach went out over at the far side tight to some reeds.

Anyway a quick water temperature check it was 17.3 degrees 🌞 so positively tropical and the swim was like fish soup. 

I've never seen such activity on the canal before a proper eyeopener it was. The first to show where rolling bream and as the evening progressed some small fish were jumping out and also some roach I assume were breaching the surface, presumingly to feast on the insects that were in huge numbers skimming the water.

The amount of activity really was quite ridiculous but wow what a session of ultimate frustration, I just couldn't connect to any of the bites on the float set-up I used effectively the weekend. They shot under really fast, or that classic lift bite would play out in 3x the usual motion where I'd connect in to nothing.

At least the Zander were playing ball, I caught a tiny schoolie but also missed a couple of bites and also had one that looked about 4lb that dropped off in the fight.

I fished for a couple of hours until I couldn't see the float and left with my tail between one's legs because I left fishless on the main float attack. I dread to think how many bites I failed to connect to, I can only assume they were small fish that and I'm a rubbish angler.

We all have those sessions from time to time though I suppose but I was kicking myself I didn't bring any maggots because I'm sure that would have been the answer to connecting to some of these fish. Oh well at least I know for next time. There wasn't one boat either because of a lock gate having to be replaced above here limiting movement, hopefully that will stay till the closed season ends, because it was rather nice I must admit. 

Update:// Nic went the following morning and cleaned up on maggots !!