Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.115 (Tramp Alley Roach and Chub ?)

The countdown to the Glorious Sixteenth! Waheee!

It's not only anglers who welcome the first day of the coarse season. Their wives and girlfriends, too, are overjoyed. At last the husbands and boyfriends are out from under their feet and they finally turn over and get some sleep after nights broken by the sound of tackle being checked and assembled, dried crusts being ground and the blender going full blast downstairs as the secret groundbait ingredients are prepared. At last they can tidy up the house without having to step over piles of gear laid out in untouchable mounds.

Many anglers make an early start, getting to the water late on June 15 in an attempt to catch the first fish of the season. On the stroke of midnight the stillness is broken by the swish of thousands of rods, the whirr of thousands of reels and the splash of thousands of baits.

The first hookings of the season are made immediately. They are usually cows, sheep, trees, bridges, passing all-night buses, courting couples, other anglers, and gentlemen of the press incautious enough to attend the gatherings of such raving loonies...

...The tench has long been the symbol of the new season. There's a very special magic about the first tremble of the float on the mist-covered still water of a June morning. If it turns out to be a gudgeon, at least it's a start. The tench will be along in a minute.

The carp is another fish endowed with a strong Summer magic. Just as well, because if the dedicated carp men were sitting up all night and every night in their throes of a hard winter, they'd catch their deaths. 

For the less skilful anglers, Summer is the time of gudgeon. Of bleak and dace, hard fighting minnows and the occasional Tommy ruffe. So what ? They're all fish and after a few pints in a cool pub on a hot summer lunchtime, every one of 'em fought like a tiger.

It's true what they say: there's more to fishing than catching fish, ask any old duffer !!

Then there is Fathers Day to look forward to !! This is the second Sunday after Trinity, which means it generally falls about the time the coarse season opens: a handy time for fishing fathers to receive some appropriate presents. Be nice to the kids for at least three weeks beforehand so that they won't think your changed attitude is merely in the hope of sordid gain.

Drop subtle hints such as, 'Oh dear. That reel of mine's not looking at all good. I'll have to treat myself before the season starts'; or 'Heck! The cat's been in my tackle box again! Chewed best floats and tangled all the lines. It'll have to go..."

You could even try for the big one: 'My best match rod's got a set in the tip. I stand no chance of getting in the A Team now. And this year I'd really set my heart on it...' (The suspicion of a manly tear is not out of place as an accompaniment to a hint of this magnitude.) All you have to do then is sit back and wait for whatever Father's Day brings.

It will bring, as it always does, some socks, a set of handkerchiefs and a gadget for cleaning out your (not crack) pipe.You've got a rackful of ties, enough handkerchiefs to cope with a 'flu epidemic, and at least six gadgets for cleaning out your pipe. Just a float - one measly float would have been welcome.

Still, at least you tried.

Anyway my thoughts are now back on to the river season where hopefully I'm going to get some of the Depth Bomb Mk2's printed as a tweak to the original design that I knocked together back in 2020. They have worked really well to be fair but like any design they need improvement and a few tweaks here hopefully they will work even better.

I just need to find a 3D printing outfit that could do me some of these for a decent price. Since COVID costs have skyrocketed for some reason and to be honest I'll only get them printed if I can justify it. 

They are perfect for holding on paste for chub even though for the start of the season I target the chub differently than I usually do. 

I'm definitely going to trot more for this season and I've tweaked my setup now which on a couple of outings before the season end worked wonders. 

Talking of chub, I fancied a roving session up tramp alley to see if I could trackdown any big roach but also to see if I could bump into any chub that reside here. Having being put on to a stretch I caught a nice one here a couple of years ago but since that capture I've not really fished it much mainly because of the footfall and other 'qwerks' of this stretch that unless you fish it, you'd never know 👀.  

Anyway what a lovely morning !! and after walking past the dumped motorbike it was on to the first swim. It's nice and oxygenated this and when the water temperature is bath water a nice place for the fish to reside.

The overdepth crude pellet waggler was pinged out to find the depth and then a large piece of bread went on the hook, with some sloppy bread mash over the top to attack the fish in. It's such a sensitive set-up this what I didn't expect that mid sup on my tea the float jumped in to life and buried almost straight away. 

You get to know what is the likely culprit because of the fight and I thought it might be a nice roach, and I was correct in my assumption, because after a decent fight and resting in the landing net it was well worth a weigh.

A nice fish of 1lb and 5 ounces, a rather nice canal roach indeed. Anyway with that resting in the landing net I rebaited with some bread and got the float out again. The float didn't settle because I think a fish had taken it on the drop because within seconds of it going out a missed a decent bite, bugger.

So back out again with some more feed, and sure enough another quick bite where this time I struck in to a solid fish. This was pulling back a little more and I thought it was an even bigger roach, but no, when it popped up to the surface it was a hybrid.

I love catching hybrids though because they fight much better than their size suggests. I'm enjoying this !! So again, the bread went out with some more feed where after a few minutes the float popped up and rotated about its axis 180 degrees and flopped back on the surface of the canal.

Then it shot under and I struck in to another fish. This was no roach, well if it was it was a good'un, but after it tried to get in to some cover I knew exactly what it was, yeap one of the chub that reside here. Not the size I wanted mind you, but makes a nice change from the humdrum.

So three fish in less than 15 minutes, this is going well, but this is the canal after all, because yeap you guessed it, the swim went dead, proper dead !!! I gave it a good 20 minutes before deciding to go for a rove to try and drop on to other fish.  

But swim after swim, nada !!!

I even returned to the first swim which was a good hour and a half rest but again, no more bites sadly. By now the foot traffic was increasing so I decided that will do. I needed some more bread so decided to dump my gear in the car and walk the towpath all the way to Tesco's. 

To be honest, I also fancied to try and spot some carp but I didn't see any whatsoever. There wasn't any other anglers either, but then I've said before I rarely see another angler, if I do it's someone I already know. 

An enjoyable morning to be fair, some nice fish and my legs got a stretch 

On to the next one !!!