Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.13

The other evening found me in one of those familiar moods that every angler of a certain persuasion will understand only too well. You know the sort. The kettle had boiled, the tackle had already been checked twice despite not having moved since the previous outing, and yet there I sat staring into the middle distance at some temporary traffic lights wondering where on earth to go. 

Not because there aren’t places to fish mind, but because after enough years wandering canal towpaths and riversides you begin to realise that the venue matters less than the feeling you are searching for. Some evenings demand adventure, others solitude, and some merely ask for a quiet float to slide beneath the surface while the world busies itself elsewhere.

Earlier in the week Sam had stood before his class to give a talk about fishing. Fishing! Imagine that in this modern age where attention spans seem shorter than a size 24 hooklength and most youngsters know more about touchscreens than towpaths. Yet there he was, calmly explaining the virtues of angling to classmates who probably regard sitting beside water in the rain as a form of medieval punishment. 

I must admit I felt immensely proud reading what he had written entirely under his own steam. Not just because he spoke about fishing itself, but because somehow he had already grasped what takes many people years to understand  that fishing is rarely about fish alone.

He had written about peace, patience and observation. About slowing down long enough to notice the world around you. About wildlife and quietness and the strange satisfaction that comes from doing something where success is never guaranteed. In truth, many adults could probably benefit from hearing those lessons. Fishing teaches you to fail gracefully, to persevere quietly and to appreciate moments most people walk straight past without ever seeing.

Perhaps that was why my thoughts drifted toward an old stretch of canal on the way home from work. A modest place really, the sort of waterway most people would drive past without a second glance. No grand scenery, no famous pegs, no tackle shop gossip attached to it. Yet a memory had lodged itself somewhere in the dusty corners of my angling brain. A couple of years earlier, while wandering there in pursuit of zander, I had encountered something so rare it nearly caused me to drop the rod entirely — another angler actually catching fish on the float.

Now canal anglers are a suspicious breed at the best of times. See another fisherman and the immediate assumption is that he must either know something you don’t or be entirely mad. This chap however looked reassuringly ordinary. An old landing net, well-used float rod and that unmistakable look of concentration peculiar to anglers watching a float. More importantly, every now and then he was striking into fish. Not a monster by any means, but enough to convince me there was life present beneath the surface gloom.

The area itself has an interesting little history attached to it. One of the neighbouring properties backs directly onto the canal and the owners clearly possess both affection for the place and respect for its heritage. 

Visible nearby still stands part of the old bridge structure from 1917, once carrying the railway line over the canal in a time when industry ruled these waterways rather than dog walkers and cyclists. The ironwork remains as a reminder of another age, rusting quietly yet stubbornly refusing to disappear altogether. This stretch I've filmed Otters a few times, once two at the same time milling around the lock and then another time when one was eating an eel, were there any fish left ?

The garden attached to the property is immaculate. The sort of lovingly maintained place where every flowerbed appears carefully considered and where even the ducks seem somehow better behaved than usual. More importantly from an angling perspective, the owners feed the ducks regularly and generously. Bread rains upon the water with admirable consistency and where food gathers, fish are rarely too far away. At least that was the theory occupying my mind as I unloaded the tackle.

Theory and practice of course are entirely different matters in fishing.

The evening carried that slightly heavy atmosphere canals often possess in summer. The water dark and sluggish beneath overhanging trees, occasional bubbles rising mysteriously from nowhere, distant traffic humming softly beyond the hedgerow.

Somewhere a moorhen complained noisily while pigeons shuffled about in the bridge girders overhead. It felt fishy, though experienced anglers know that waters often look their absolute best immediately before refusing to produce so much as a sniff. Still, confidence is a strange and valuable thing in angling. Once you convince yourself fish are present, every tiny movement suddenly appears meaningful. The bird song was amazing on this lovely evening and 17 species were recorded via the Merlin app within half an hour, very nice indeed.

Anyway for bait I kept things beautifully simple. Mashed bread mixed with a little groundbait to create a soft cloud of attraction, combined with bread flake on the hook itself. Bread remains one of those timeless canal baits that somehow survives every fashionable trend in modern fishing. While others debate pellets, wafters, flavours and attractors costing more per kilo than decent steak, bread continues quietly catching fish exactly as it always has. Cheap, effective and wonderfully nostalgic.

 There is also something deeply satisfying about fishing simple baits on traditional tackle. No alarms screaming across the cut, no endless gadgets clipped onto rod rests. Just float, line, bait and concentration. Angling reduced to its purest essentials.

I had also decided to tinker slightly with the lift-bite rig arrangement. During previous sessions I’d been plagued by missed bites. Not loads admittedly, but enough to irritate me. 

The float would lift beautifully, hesitation would build, strike… and nothing. Either tiny fish were playing games with me or my arrangement wasn’t converting bites effectively enough.

This time I moved the shot from roughly an inch and a half from the hook to nearer four inches away. Not a dramatic alteration perhaps, but often these tiny refinements separate frustrating evenings from memorable ones. 

Canal fishing especially tends to reward subtle adjustments. Fish in such venues inspect baits carefully and feed with caution born from surviving cormorants, boats and generations of anglers waving dubious concoctions at them.

The float settled nicely after the first cast, cocked perfectly against the dark water. There is immense pleasure in watching a properly shotted float settle. 

It sounds ridiculous explaining it to non-anglers of course. “I spent twenty minutes admiring a tiny coloured stick.” Yet every fisherman understands. The float becomes your connection to an unseen world beneath the surface. Every tremor, dip or lift suddenly carries significance.

The first half hour passed quietly save for occasional trembles that could have been tiny fish or drifting debris. Canal water darkened further until the reflections of nearby foliage blurred into shadowy streaks. A duck wandered suspiciously close, eyeing the bread mash with criminal intent.

The canal was flat calm, moody, faint smell of old leaves, dog poo, diesel and broken dreams. The sort of evening where you convince yourself you’re about to outwit a thirty-pound canal carp using a bit of bread and blind optimism. In other words, proper fishing. None of this commercial puddle nonsense where the fish queue up like pensioners outside a garden centre café. No, this was a proper natural venue. A place where mystery lurks beneath every ripple and where disappointment is never more than one strike away.

The first proper bite came as a textbook lift. The float rose beautifully, elegantly, like a ballerina emerging from Swan Lake. I struck immediately with all the confidence of a man who absolutely knew he’d connected with a fish. Naturally, I hit thin air instead. Nothing. Not even a scale. The canal had mugged me off before I’d even settled in.

So out came another lump of bread. Lowered in delicately. Except the float never settled properly this time. 

Something had intercepted it on the drop. “Aha!” I thought. “They’re having it now.” I struck again with the precision of a seasoned matchman and once again connected with absolutely sod all. Outstanding angling. Two bites. Two misses. I was fishing like a man wearing boxing gloves.

Then it happened.

The next bite was different. Proper different. I struck and hit something that felt less like a fish and more like I’d accidentally hooked the Northbound Titanic. 

 It just held there, deep and solid, before slowly plodding off to my right as if late for a dentist appointment. I couldn’t do a thing with it. No head shakes. No panic. Just pure underwater authority. The sort of fish that pays council tax.

At this point my imagination was working overtime. Was it a giant canal carp? One of those old leather-skinned warriors with fins like shovel blades? A prehistoric bream the size of a dustbin lid? Or perhaps a pike that had casually inhaled the bread because it fancied a change from murdering perch all day? Whatever it was, it felt BIG.

Somehow I managed to turn it. The rod finally bent properly and for one glorious second I thought, “This is it. This is the fish.” It started swimming toward me and to my left and then — because canal fishing is essentially organised suffering — the hook pulled.

PING.

The float exploded out of the water like a Polaris missile and flew straight into the tree above me with a crack. I just stood there staring into the branches while my soul quietly left my body. Somewhere in the darkness the mystery fish carried on with its evening, probably laughing.

And then came the true tragedy.

The float returned minus the insert. Not just any insert either. Oh no. This was a discontinued Drennan Glow Tip Antenna. Rarer than honesty in a tackle shop. You can’t buy these anymore. They exist only in old seatbox drawers and whispered legends passed between ageing canal anglers in waterproof trousers. Man down. Float down. Catastrophe. I briefly considered climbing the tree and holding a small memorial service.

Still, the canal gods weren’t quite finished humiliating me.

I reset the tackle and carried on because that’s what anglers do. We suffer endlessly while pretending it’s relaxing. Then, thankfully, another classic lift bite arrived. I struck and this time actually connected with a fish. Admittedly it fought with all the determination of a damp tea towel, but after recent events I’d have accepted a hooked traffic cone.

Sure enough, a canal bream surfaced. Not a monster either. Just your standard issue bronze bin lid with the charisma of wet cardboard and the delightful ability to make your landing net smell like a blocked drain for the next fortnight. Still, a fish is a fish. I nodded respectfully at it as one might acknowledge an elderly drunk outside a pub. 

By now the sun had crept round behind the trees and was blasting directly into my face like an interrogation lamp. The swim died completely. No fizzing. No movement. No signs of life whatsoever apart from a moorhen looking mildly disappointed in me. I was also well past curfew, which meant it was time to pack up before I had to explain myself at home like a teenager sneaking in after midnight.

So what did the session produce? One lost mystery beast. One violated glow-tip float. One small stinky bream. And yet somehow, driving home, I couldn’t stop smiling. Because that’s canal fishing. It’s weird. It’s frustrating. It’s mysterious. Every swim feels like it might hold either the fish of your dreams or an abandoned bicycle. Sometimes both. 

And honestly? That’s exactly why natural venues will always beat commercials for me. On a canal, anything can happen. Usually something disastrous, admittedly, but still… anything.

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.12

Freeman’s down the road used to be the sort of butcher’s shop where the floor was permanently damp, the counter stained with thirty years of honest graft and somebody always seemed to be carrying half a cow through the doorway. 

It had character. Proper character. Sadly, character these days apparently means selling artisan chutney at the price of a small mortgage payment, so the whole place after the owners sold the land has transformed into a fashionable farm shop with reclaimed wood, hanging baskets and customers who discuss olives as if they’re trading fine wines.

I wandered round it carefully, frightened to touch anything in case it added twelve quid to the bill. 

One sausage roll looked like it ought to come with finance options. The café was packed with people paying the thick end of a tenner for a pork bap, which felt wrong on both a financial and spiritual level. 

I gave that a miss entirely and headed for safer ground at the butcher’s counter and cheese section, where sanity still just about survives.

To be fair, the Cumberland and Welsh Dragon sausages were absolute belters. They went down on the barbecue with the sort of sizzling confidence usually reserved for bank managers retiring early. Even the neighbours started sniffing the air hopefully. By the time they were done there was barely enough left for a photograph, never mind leftovers.

After that I sat sorting the tackle out for a dabble in the morning, pleasantly full and smelling faintly of smoke and sausage grease. Leads untangled, hooks checked, rigs inspected with all the seriousness of a bomb disposal unit. There’s something reassuring about preparing fishing gear at the end of the evening while the rest of the world worries about important things. Somewhere out there the fish were probably making similar preparations to avoid me.

Now there are two types of canal roach in this world: the honest countryside roach, lean as a tax inspector and twice as nervous… and the town roach, which resembles a silver dinner plate with fins and the confidence of a pigeon outside Greggs. You can keep your misty rural cuttings and your kingfisher postcards. Come November, the real canal aristocracy has already abandoned the hedgerows and relocated itself beneath the shopping precinct, directly opposite a vape shop and a kebab establishment called “Marmaris Mega Kebab & Continental Flooring.”

The average towpath rambler imagines fish crave tranquillity. Absolute nonsense. Roach adore civilisation. If they had hands, they’d queue for discounted pastries and complain about parking permits. Take water temperature for starters. In the countryside, winter arrives like an unpaid gas bill. The canal turns icy, bleak and about as welcoming as a magistrate. Out in the sticks, a roach has to flap about all day merely to remain alive.

Meanwhile, in town centres, the water enjoys the comforting warmth generated by buses, chip-fat extraction fans, concrete retaining walls, and eighteen thousand people panic-walking to Primark. The canal acquires the pleasant temperature of weak tea. Naturally the roach pile in by the thousand like shoppers at a Boxing Day sofa sale. Then there’s the food situation. Rural roach survive on the occasional bloodworm and whatever drifts past looking unfortunate. Urban roach, however, dine like minor royalty.

A single Saturday afternoon beside a town canal produces:

Half a baguette.
Three chips.
Two unidentified orange items.
One complete sausage roll.
And, mysteriously, a floating kiwi fruit.

You could trot maggots through there if you wished, but the fish are probably discussing focaccia.

Predators also present fewer concerns in town. A cormorant likes open water and solitude. It does not enjoy dodging mobility scooters beneath railway bridges while being shouted at by a man carrying lager before midday. Consequently, the roach feel perfectly secure. They wedge themselves beneath lock gates, under shopping trolleys, alongside abandoned bicycles and occasionally inside traffic cones. If architecture could produce scales, every municipal drainage pipe in Britain would qualify as a fish refuge.

The great joy for the angler is that winter shoals in urban canals become outrageously concentrated. You spend six fruitless hours on a picturesque rural stretch catching one perch the size of a cough sweet… then arrive in town and accidentally hook fifteen roach before you’ve unfolded your chair properly.

Of course, town-centre fishing possesses its own atmosphere.

There is always a elderly gentleman with nothing to do asking whether you’ve caught any.

There is always a terrier attempting suicide via keepnet.
And there is invariably a teenage scrote on an electric scooter who appears silently behind you like an ambush predator from the future.

Still, the fish remain gloriously unconcerned. The urban canal roach has evolved beyond stress. Sirens, buses, nightclub basslines, heated arguments over chicken shops none of it troubles them.

These fish have seen things.

So next time somebody tells you the “proper” canal experience lies among silent fields and romantic reed beds, smile politely and continue assembling your tackle beneath the ring road flyover. Because somewhere under that bridge, amid the flickering reflections of takeaway signs and the gentle aroma of battered cod, lives a shoal of roach so fat and content they probably pay council tax.

Anyway to the fishing, the cut was flatter than a pub pint left out overnight, not a ripple on it apart from the occasional suspicious swirl from something either fishy or gastrointestinal.

I’d dropped into the crane swim armed with optimism, a loaf of medium sliced, and approximately three teaspoons of actual confidence. 

Bread was the plan this morning. Sensible, reliable, traditional. Maggots sat in reserve like emergency rations in a war film, waiting for the inevitable collapse of morale.

A decent roach would’ve done me nicely. Nothing heroic. I wasn’t after one of those mythical canal perch that only exist in blurry photographs held by blokes named Kev who smell faintly of woodbines and resentment. 

Just a tidy red-finned roach to remind me I still vaguely knew what I was doing. Ever since that tench turned up last week completely uninvited, the canals have felt all wrong. It’s like the fishing equivalent of accidentally seeing your dentist in Tesco buying Wham Sourz's and Haribo Sparks. The whole balance of the universe goes a bit peculiar.

Truth be told, the canals aren’t doing it for me lately. No rhythm whatsoever. One session you can’t stop catching tiny gudgeon with ambition far beyond their station, then the next it’s deader than a vegan barbecue at a cattle market. Every peg looks perfect until you sit on it for three hours and begin questioning all your life choices. I spent twenty minutes staring at a single bubble trail convincing myself it was feeding fish when in reality it was probably a submerged bicycle quietly rusting to death.

Still, there’s always hope on an early Sunday morning. That magical window before the reprobates arrive. Before somebody starts power-washing a transit van nearby or a cyclist in fluorescent lycra screams “MORNING” directly into your soul at forty miles an hour. Canal dawn has a fragile beauty to it. Moorhens pottering about. Mist lifting off the water. The faint aroma of damp earth mixed with lager and urban regret.

Down on the old cut at Bankside, yours truly arrived at what can only be described as “an hour fit for sensible folk and milkmen.” The canal looked proper fishy too — you know the sort of look, a few dimples on the surface, a suspicious swirl under the far bank and just enough confidence to make a man ignore the fact he’d forgotten his flask. 

Naturally I went into full panic mode and got set-up quick sharpish like a contestant on a timed game show. Out went a bit of mashed bread mixed with groundbait, bread on the hook, float cocked perfectly and suddenly I was fishing. Proper fishing too, not just staring moodily at water pretending to understand nature.

Five minutes later a decent fish launched itself clear of the canal right beside the float like a hairy-arsed salmon auditioning for Countryfile. “Here we go,” I muttered confidently, already mentally photographing myself with a four-pound redfin and composing exaggerated Facebook captions. Naturally the float then sat there like a pensioner at a bus stop. Not a tremble. Not a dip. Absolute naff all. Thirty minutes later I finally had a bite and struck into something solid, only for it to come off after a few seconds. Buggeration of the highest order. The sort of moment where you stare accusingly at the hook as if it personally betrayed you.

Still, there were fish in the swim and that alone was enough to keep hope alive. Two more missed bites followed, each one delivered with all the precision timing of me trying to clap along at a concert after four pints. Then at last — wallop. I struck into a proper fish and the thing tore around the swim like it owed money to dangerous people. At first I thought I’d connected with some colossal canal roach, the sort old blokes lie about in tackle shops, but when it finally surfaced looking thoroughly offended with life it turned out to be a roach-bream hybrid. A lovely fish too, going 2lb 8oz on the scales. Not exactly British record territory, but after recent blanks it may as well have been a marlin from the Amazon.

The funny thing with hybrids is they fight with all the confusion of a fish that doesn’t entirely know what it wants to be. This one lunged about magnificently while I conducted my usual bankside ballet of stumbling backwards, muttering nonsense and praying the hook hold would stay put. Mercifully it did. Another three hybrids followed over the session, one even nudging 2lb 9oz and scrapping like an angry Staffie on espresso, and the next biggest 2lb 8oz which I thought was the same fish at first. Ridiculous fun on light gear and exactly the sort of fishing that keeps you coming back despite all evidence suggesting you should perhaps pursue quieter hobbies like gardening or tax accounting.

At one stage I swapped to maggots hoping for a bonus fish, but all I got was a succession of perch that looked like they’d been assembled from leftover parts. Nice enough little fish, but hardly the stamp of stripey warrior that gets the pulse racing. Still, bites are bites and canal anglers are not proud people. We celebrate almost everything short of catching old shopping trolleys, though admittedly even that sometimes earns a photograph if it’s particularly impressive.

The biggest battle of the morning, however, wasn’t with the fish. Oh no. It was with the tow, the wind and the endless parade of floating canal crud that insisted on dragging the float about like a drunken Labrador on a lead. Presenting bait cleanly became less an act of angling and more a test of emotional resilience with enough debris to start a compost heap. Bits of weed, leaves, mysterious slime and what may once have been somebody’s Greggs wrapper all joined forces against me.

Then, just as things were ticking along nicely, a boat came through at 9:20am with all the subtlety of the German navy entering Warsaw. The swim churned up, the tow increased and the fish disappeared quicker than free bacon sandwiches at a match lake open. Still, all in all it had been a cracking little session. A few proper fish, plenty of action, no blank and best of all — the bailiff never appeared to relieve me of my hard-earned pounds. That alone counts as a result these days.

I’ll definitely be back though. There’s something brewing down there amongst the bread mash, hybrids and canal chaos. Either that or I’m slowly losing my mind beside urban waterways, which admittedly is also very possible.

Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.149 (Canal Zander)

It was one of those damp, drizzly afternoons on the Warwickshire canals that make a man's whiskers sag and his bait box feel heavier than a sack of spuds. Old Bert, a lock-keeper with more stories than teeth, swore blind this was how the first zander slipped into our sleepy network. Not by some stuffy scientist or bored angler with a bucket, mind. 

No, this was proper Piscatorial Quagswagging at its finest. Bert reckoned it all started when a narrowboat called The Flying Dutchman (though the captain was from Solihull and about as Dutch as a pork pie) came chugging through the Hatton flight one moonless night. 

The fella had been over in Holland, doing whatever it is narrowboaters do when they get ideas above their station. Brought back a couple of "exotic pike" in a big plastic tub, didn't he? Claimed they were for his cousin's garden pond. 

Garden pond my backside. Well, as luck and strong ale would have it, the boat got wedged solid in a lock. Tempers flared, language turned industrial, and in the ensuing kerfuffle the tub went arse-over-tit. Two dozen confused zander, all teeth and attitude, went sloshing straight into the cut with a splash that sounded suspiciously like laughter. 

The captain apparently just shrugged, lit his pipe, and carried on towards Birmingham, whistling as innocent as you like. By morning the zander had already started eyeing up the local perch like they were tomorrow's breakfast. 

Within weeks they were spreading through the Warwickshire ring faster than gossip at a match night. Proper canal pirates, they were. Slimey, stripey, and always hungry. Bert says if you sit quiet by the bank at dusk you can still hear the ghost of that Dutchman (or Solihullman) chuckling every time a big zander grabs a lure, or eats that deadbait. 

Anyway enough of that !! it was one of those damp Midlands evenings where the canal looked less like a place to fish and more like the sort of watery ditch a sensible person would throw shopping trolleys into and avoid altogether. 

The drizzle had settled in properly not proper rain mind you, just that miserable floating wetness that seeps into your cuffs, your sandwich bag and eventually your very soul. The sort of weather that makes moorhens look annoyed at life. Still, there I was, wobbling down the towpath after work with all the optimism of a man who has learned absolutely nothing from previous sessions.

Now canal zander are funny creatures. Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha. One day you’d swear there were more zander than actual water in the canal. You could lower a lure in and practically bounce it off their foreheads. They’d be stacked up in the margins like stripy little nightclub bouncers waiting for trouble.

Then two days later?

Nothing.

Not a knock. Not a swirl. Not even the courtesy of a missed take. You start questioning whether fish ever existed in the first place or whether you’ve imagined the entire species after eating dodgy service station Cornish pasties. That’s the thing with canal zander. They’re transient. Wandering hooligans. Aquatic gypsies with bad attitudes and excellent eyesight. One minute they’re terrorising a stretch like tiny underwater gangsters and the next they’ve vanished entirely, probably halfway to Coventry chasing romance and roach fry.

And romance, I suspect, is usually to blame.

Because if there’s one thing more unpredictable than a male zander, it’s a female zander in breeding condition. The males follow them about with all the dignity of pub blokes outside a kebab shop at midnight. I imagine the big female zander leading them around the canal like some spikey dorsal-finned pied piper in a greyhound skirt, with half a dozen lovestruck males wobbling after her through the coloured water.

No wonder you can’t locate the beggars.

One minute your hotspot is alive with fish. The next it’s emptier than a politician’s promise.

This late afternoons trip was at least more convenient than last week’s expedition into deepest Warwickshire misery. Tonight’s chosen stretch sat only a few miles from home and crucially on the route back from work, meaning I could disappoint myself far more efficiently than usual. The hotspot itself is one of those classic canal areas that always looks fishy. Bit of depth. Bit of cover. Slightly murky water with enough shopping trolley architecture beneath the surface to shelter a medium-sized submarine. The kind of place where you fully expect either a double-figure zander or a stolen bicycle to grab your lure.

Hit and miss, mind.

Mostly miss.

But when they’re there, they are THERE.

I’ve seen sessions on this stretch where the canal seemed positively possessed. Zander slashing through fry. Perch scattering like panicked confetti. Tiny fish spraying out the water as though being pursued by underwater tax inspectors. Then other nights it resembles a decorative drainage feature outside an industrial estate.

Still, that’s canal fishing.

If certainty is what you want, buy a goldfish, so anyway, how did it go ?

The tow had a nasty pull on it from the off, the sort that drags hope downstream quicker than a forgotten landing net. Still, after spending half the day dodging showers and squinting at weather apps like a man trying to decipher ancient runes, I eventually hot-footed it to the cut with dreams of a canal zander rattling about in the old loaf. 

One rod carried a smelt, the other a modest little roach, and both looked full of promise beneath a stretch illuminated by a watery burst of sunshine. Trouble was, the canal itself resembled builder’s tea after a hard stir, heavily coloured and pushing through with enough tow to make presentation awkward at best. Add in the usual wind tunnelling down the cut and it became one of those sessions more about persistence than pleasure.

I leapfrogged several likely looking areas, with overdepth float rigs tight to cover and dropping baits where any self-respecting predator ought to have been sulking. 

Not a tremble. Not a flicker. The kind of silence that has you checking whether you’ve accidentally forgotten the hooks entirely. Yet anglers are funny creatures; we endure conditions sensible folk would avoid simply because somewhere deep down we need that fix of uncertainty and anticipation, even when the odds look about as favourable as dry socks in November.

In the end the answer came not from pressing onward, but from retracing old footsteps. I dropped back to an overhanging tangle (the banker) that had looked fishy from the start and slipped the smelt beneath the cover .Five minutes later the float jabbed and a spirited little schoolie tried burying itself straight into the thick stuff. Thankfully it was stopped in its tracks before matters became too agricultural, and after a brief but satisfying tussle the blank was avoided. 

With black clouds rolling in like unpaid bills and the first hints of fresh rain on the wind, discretion won the day. One fish, a damp walk home, and chaos waiting on the other side of the front door. 

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.11

There comes a point in every angler’s life when he realises two things. Firstly, his knees now make the same noise as a keepnet pole being assembled in January, and secondly, the little lad he once carried down the towpath clutching a net bigger than himself is suddenly fifteen years old and asking if you’ve got Wi-Fi in the Jimny.

Fifteen!

I still remember taking Sam fishing for the very first time, eleven years ago, when he believed catching gudgeon was comparable to wrestling crocodiles on the Zambezi. Back then he’d sit there in oversized wellies, chucking maggots into the margins while asking questions every fourteen seconds. “Why do fish like worms?” “Do perch have ears?” “Can pike eat ducks?” “Would a shark survive in the canal?”

Now he just grunts at me like a teenage badger unless the conversation involves trainers that cost more than my centrepin reel collection. Mind you, there’s hope yet. He still loves the River Wye. 

Mention wading chest-deep after barbel or stalking summer chub with floating bread and suddenly the lad reappears from beneath the hormonal fog. 

There’s something reassuring about that. Rivers still beat Playstations. Nature still beats TikTok. Bread still beats £14.99 wonder-baits endorsed by a man called Darren wearing mirrored sunglasses indoors.

So with renewed optimism I stopped off at The Case is Altered on the way home from work.

Now there’s a pub.

Over four hundred years old and still stubbornly refusing to modernise itself into a gastropub called “The Rustic Spoon” selling deconstructed pies on roof tiles. No televisions. No neon lager signs. 

No artisan hummus. Just beams blackened by centuries of smoke, a proper pub, and enough atmosphere to make you expect a highwayman to emerge from the shadows asking if you’ve seen his horse. Use your mobile you’re fined a quid and it goes to charity, and I’m not joking. 

Apparently it was originally called “The Case” because the building was tiny, which is fair enough because if you swing a cat in there you’ll hit three pensioners and a packet of pork scratchings. Somewhere along the line when it was extended it became “The Case Is Altered,” which sounds less like a pub and more like something a medieval solicitor muttered before charging somebody six groats an hour.

Ben Jonson used the phrase. Shakespeare used it. Tudor playwrights used it. Nowadays it’s mostly used by anglers after dropping a net pole into deep water. Anyway, after a pint and a moment of deep reflection involving crisps, I decided against all available evidence and basic common sense to return to Tramp Alley.

Now most sane men, having previously endured a session involving missed bites, tangled rigs and enough incompetence to qualify for a government grant, would probably choose another peg. Not me. Oh no. I approached it with the confidence of a man who has watched three YouTube videos and now considers himself tactically elite. This time there would be changes. Serious changes. Tactical changes. The sort of changes football managers describe before losing 4–0 away at Rotherham.

Out went the lift method.

Out went the overcomplicated rig that looked like it had been designed by NASA during a power cut.

In came Sensas 3000 Gros Gardons groundbait with a suspiciously technical “nadger” of liquidised bread. Angling has become wonderfully scientific these days. Thirty years ago my grandad used bread mashed in an old ice-cream tub and occasionally caught fish so large they altered local geography. Now every bag of groundbait sounds like a Formula One component.

Then came the float.

The Dave Harrell SENSITIP WAGGLER.

A float so sensitive, according to the description and Nic from Avon Angling (who is on cloud 9 having caught a 4lb crucian recently), that fish merely thinking about the bait should register as a bite. Crosshead insert. Ultra-low resistance. Enhanced visibility. Adjustable tip. It sounded less like tackle and more like something used by heart surgeons. Naturally I spent twenty minutes adjusting it by microscopic amounts before eventually convincing myself that the red tip was psychologically intimidating the roach.

The rig itself was wonderfully simple. small float, centrepin reel, Maggots. Straight-through 2lb line. Proper old-school fishing. The sort of set-up that whispers, “I’ve stopped trying to impress everybody.”

Of course, simplicity in fishing lasts approximately four minutes before chaos resumes.

There are fishing sessions that fill a man with confidence, pride and dreams of becoming the next Richard Walker. Then there are sessions like this one, where you spend four hours staring at a float harder than a pensioner stares at a self-service checkout while questioning every life decision that led you to sitting next to a canal known locally as “Tramp Alley”.

The day started with optimism. Foolish optimism. The kind of optimism only anglers and people who buy scratchcards possess. Armed with the Angling Direct float rod, which has all the subtle finesse of a Victorian lamp post, I settled in convinced the roach would be queuing up to fling themselves at my maggots like drunk blokes outside a kebab shop at 2am.

After approximately three geological eras, the float finally buried and I struck into what felt like a decent fish. The rod reacted with all the sensitivity of a scaffold pole, the fish came off after a couple of seconds, and I was left staring into the middle distance muttering words that would have got me excommunicated in medieval times. Thankfully it didn’t feel massive because losing a proper lump this early in the session would probably have resulted in me throwing the centrepin directly into the canal and taking up bowls.

Naturally I assumed this first bite meant the swim had switched on. It had not. In fact the canal immediately died harder than Woolworths. There were the occasional signs of life: a tiny fish topping here and there, and at one point a skimmer launched itself completely clear of the water while being chased by something nasty underneath. It looked like a silver frisbee being hurled by Satan himself. This at least confirmed there was more life in the canal than there was in my swim.

It seemed like hours passed (it was 2). My backside had fused permanently to the chair then, just as I’d mentally started planning my next hobby, the float slid purposefully toward the reeds opposite. I struck and all hell broke loose. The fish bolted sideways like it had seen HMRC approaching. The centrepin screamed, my thumb instantly became an emergency braking system, and for a few moments I genuinely believed I’d hooked either a giant hybrid or an escaped Labrador.

The fight was glorious. Proper lunges, savage runs, the rod bent over magnificently despite possessing all the refinement of industrial plumbing equipment. Eventually the fish surfaced and I nearly fell off the chair.

A tench.

A BLOODY TENCH.

I honestly stared at it like I’d just hooked a crocodile in the South Stratford. Beautiful olive green flanks, little red eyes glaring at me as if annoyed I’d interrupted its afternoon. Turns out I’d actually caught one here years ago (2014) according to the blog archives, though I’d assumed Barry the Otter had long since converted the local tench population into compost. Suddenly the whole grim session felt worthwhile. Isn’t fishing ridiculous? You can spend 2 hours fishless and questioning your own sanity, then one surprise tinca turns up and suddenly you’re driving home grinning like an escaped lunatic.

Mind you, one thing did become painfully obvious while taking the photos in the gloom: the iPhone 11 front camera is now about as sharp as a mashed potato sandwich. Time for an upgrade I think. As for the roach… where have they all gone? Have they emigrated? Joined witness protection? Been entirely consumed by Barry and his extended family? Nobody knows. But one thing is certain: Tramp Alley can absolutely do one for a while.

Next trip, new venue.

Probably still disappointment.

Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.148 (Canal Zander)

There comes a point in every working man’s life when retirement stops being some distant fantasy involving garden centres, sensible cardigans and a mild interest in bird tables. It becomes something far more important. A target. A finish line. A desperate crawl toward freedom whilst sat in a design studio pretending that I'm enjoying working on rugged Indian SUV's. 

By half three my brain had liquified somewhere between a client email and a discussion about steering wheel ride-down conflict to the CAS surfaces, so naturally the only sensible course of action was to head for the canal and attempt to catch zander. Because if there’s one thing anglers excel at, it’s replacing one form of disappointment with another.

Now this particular stretch had been ridiculously good for zander over the last couple of years.  Of course, as happens with all good fishing spots, word spread quicker than a scandal in a village pub. You only have to casually mention “had a few zander” within earshot of another angler and suddenly there’s more blokes in camouflage hanging around than a surplus army warehouse. 

Nic from Avon Angling soon decided to get involved after hearing about my recent captures, only by then the fish had vanished into thin air. Typical canal zander behaviour. One day they’re stacked up in numbers like shoppers outside Aldi at Christmas, the next day the place resembles an abandoned bathtub. Poor Nic blanked completely, which is the fishing equivalent of turning up to a birthday party after everyone’s gone home and the balloons are being deflated.

Still, despite all available evidence suggesting otherwise, I fancied my chances this evening. Anglers possess the memory retention of goldfish when it comes to bad sessions. We conveniently remember the magical evenings whilst mentally deleting the six-hour blanks in sideways rain where we considered selling all our tackle and taking up bowls. 

Before reaching the canal I stopped off at Sainsbury’s Local for supplies and immediately experienced the modern British condition of laughing bitterly at the price of basic bread. Warburtons now sits on the shelf like some luxury artisan product for hedge fund managers and Premier League footballers. I picked up a loaf, checked the price and genuinely considered whether I’d need finance options.

Fortunately salvation appeared in the reduced section in the form of toastie loafs marked down to forty pence. Forty pence! I nearly applauded. At that price I considered buying the entire basket and opening a small independent bakery out the back of my car. Perfect for river season too because chub absolutely adore floating bread. 

Frankly, some of those river chub probably eat better than most families now. Somewhere under an overhanging willow there’s a six-pound fish refusing budget crusts like some sort of underwater food critic. “Hmm yes… disappointing texture… insufficient fermentation on the crumb…” Cheap bread in hand and optimism restored, I headed toward the canal feeling oddly victorious despite technically celebrating discounted carbohydrates.

Conditions looked absolutely spot on when I arrived. Slight tinge of colour in the water, warm evening, low light and that lovely stillness canals get where everything feels fishy even when it absolutely isn’t. The kind of atmosphere that convinces you every cast could produce a personal best or at the very least justify ignoring responsibilities at home. 

I started at the exact stretch where I’d caught before, already mentally rehearsing how I’d casually describe my captures later as though this sort of thing happened all the time. First cast, nothing. Second cast, nothing. Third cast resulted in snagging what I believe was either a submerged bicycle or the last remaining fragments of British manufacturing.

An hour later I’d worked every inch of that fifty-yard stretch with absolutely nothing to show for it. No follows, no knocks, not even a tiny perch stupid enough to save my dignity. You know things are getting desperate when you begin convincing yourself that random twitches in the line are bites. Every tiny tap suddenly becomes evidence the fish are “just being finicky tonight.”

No Mick, they aren’t being finicky. There simply aren’t any fish there. I stood staring into the canal trying to project confidence whilst internally unravelling like a pension fund during a market crash. Eventually boredom overcame stubbornness and I decided to move up toward the proper hotspot where the fish had been stacked previously.

Now this is where the dangerous optimism kicks back in. Every angler knows the feeling. The second you approach an area with previous form, your confidence returns despite overwhelming historical proof that fish operate entirely outside the laws of logic. I started fan-casting every likely feature. Lock mouths, reed lines, dark shadows beneath moored boats where shopping trolleys and human ambition go to die. Everything looked absolutely textbook. 

The sort of spots magazine articles point at with arrows and captions saying “prime predator holding area.” Yet once again, absolutely nothing happened. It was deader than a town centre on a Monday morning. Even the ducks looked bored.

Then a boat came through and churned the canal bottom up beautifully. Normally that’s prime time. Zander often switch on after disturbance and begin hunting in the coloured water, so naturally my confidence shot through the roof again for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I stood there clutching the rod with renewed anticipation, already imagining that float off at any moment. 

But no. Not a sniff. The only thing that came alive after the boat passed was my lower back and a sudden awareness that I’m no longer physically designed for standing on uneven towpaths for four consecutive hours. At one point I made a noise getting up off my tackle bag that sounded like somebody slowly crushing a packet of crisps.

Eventually I admitted defeat and decided to call it a day. Sometimes canal fishing feels less like a hobby and more like a prolonged psychological experiment designed to test how much rejection one human can tolerate before taking up gardening instead. 

Yet weirdly, despite the blank, despite the disappearing fish and despite the increasing certainty that retirement cannot come soon enough, I still enjoyed it. For a few hours I forgot about politics, taxes, inflation and the general depressing circus that modern life has become. I wasn’t thinking about energy bills, work emails or whether I can justify buying branded bread anymore. It was just me, the canal and several thousand pounds worth of fish completely ignoring my existence in peaceful silence.

And honestly, that’s probably why we keep going back. It isn’t entirely about catching fish, although obviously that helps enormously. It’s the escape from all the nonsense. The quiet wander along the towpath . The ridiculous optimism that maybe this session will be the night everything comes together again. Of course next time I’ll probably blank once more and spend the drive home muttering darkly about deadbaits and boat traffic like some unhinged conspiracy theorist. But I’ll still return. Because somewhere in that murky canal there’s a zander waiting to completely ruin my evening in exactly the right way.

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.10

The alarm went off at an hour normally reserved for milkmen, insomniacs, and people who have made deeply questionable life choices the night before. Naturally, I sprang into action with all the urgency of a damp sponge, eventually peeling myself from the duvet and setting off for Tramp Alley Canal with the kind of optimism that only a fisherman—or a fool—can truly muster. 

The sky, bless it, was a perfect overcast grey, the sort of sky that whispers, “Today, my friend, you will either catch a fish… or develop character.” I packed light, confident, and—crucially—maggotless. Because today was not a day for wriggling protein. No. Today was bread day. A full-scale, no-holds-barred, gluten-fuelled assault.

The plan, inspired by the legendary George Burton method (a man who I suspect once bullied a roach into submission using nothing but a crust and a stern glance), was simple in theory and ludicrous in practice. 

Two slices of bread sacrificed themselves heroically, mashed into what can only be described as a stodgy, beige soup of destiny. The idea being that the smaller fish—those finned freeloaders—would gorge themselves senseless, waddling off in bloated defeat, leaving the larger, more distinguished roach to saunter in like aristocrats at a buffet. It was a beautiful theory. Nobel Prize-worthy, even. Unfortunately, fish have not yet read the same textbooks.

Upon arrival, I was greeted not by serenity, but by betrayal. A boat. Not just any boat, mind you, but one moored precisely where I had mentally placed myself catching a personal best. It sat there smugly, like it knew. I considered knocking on it and politely asking it to move along for the sake of destiny, but thought better of it. Instead, I trudged further down the canal, settling opposite a stretch of reeds that looked vaguely fishy, or at least less offensively boat-shaped.

Out came the gear, and with it, the pièce de résistance: the lift bite setup, complete with a Drennan glow-tip antenna float. A float so rare and precious it might as well have been forged in Mordor. I handled it with the reverence usually reserved for fine china or last biscuits. For added luxury, I even brought a seat this time. Yes, a seat. I sat upon it like a king surveying his watery kingdom, albeit a king who had just mashed bread into soup and was about to throw it into a canal.

The first bite came after 25 minutes with all the subtlety of a firework display. The float didn’t just lift—it launched. I’m fairly certain it achieved temporary orbit. Reflexes engaged! Strike! Nothing. Not a sausage. Not even a sniff of a fin. “Ah,” I thought, “just a tester.” A reconnaissance nibble. The fish equivalent of knocking on the door and running away. But then it happened again. And again. And again. Seven times in total. Seven glorious, dramatic, heart-stopping lift bites… and seven complete and utter failures to connect.

At one point, the float shot up with such enthusiasm I’m convinced it could have been spotted from low Earth orbit. Somewhere, an astronaut probably turned to his colleague and said, “What in the name of Neptune was that?” Meanwhile, I was on the bank, striking like a man swatting invisible flies. 

Was it small fish? Was it line bites? Was it me reacting with the speed and precision of a tranquilised sloth? The answer, as always, was probably “yes.”

I adjusted. Oh, how I adjusted. I scaled the bread down, from “hearty breakfast” to “polite canapé.” I moved spots like a restless ghost, trying two additional swims that offered all the excitement of a damp sock. Not a bite. 

Not even a suspicious ripple. Meanwhile, fish were topping mockingly in the distance, breaking the surface like they were auditioning for a nature documentary titled “Look What You’re Not Catching.”

Time ticked on. Three hours passed in a blur of anticipation, disappointment, and increasingly creative internal monologues. My landing net remained tragically dry, its mesh unstained by victory. 

It looked at me, I swear it did, with a kind of quiet judgment. “You had one job,” it seemed to say. And I, in return, could only shrug and mumble something about bread soup and orbital floats.

In the end, I packed up with all the dignity of a man who has just been thoroughly outwitted by creatures with brains the size of a garden pea. No fish. No glory. Just memories, mild humiliation, and the lingering suspicion that somewhere beneath that canal surface, a particularly smug roach was recounting the morning’s events to its mates, complete with impressions.

But fear not. This is not the end. Oh no. This is merely Chapter One in what will undoubtedly become a gripping saga of persistence, questionable tactics, and bread-based optimism. Because one day—mark my words—a 2lb roach will grace my net. It will happen. It must happen. And when it does, I shall nod knowingly, as if it was all part of the plan.

Until then… watch this space.

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.9

After a rather nice impromptu late lunch with Mrs Newey with some thai nibbles in the beer garden of a local pub I got back and wondered what the hell I'm going to fish for the following morning. But then there are moments in angling that feel less like fishing and more like stumbling into a watery conspiracy.  One minute you’re minding your own business, unhooking what can only be described as a canal mud sifter with delusions of grandeur, and the next—bang—the surface erupts like someone’s dropped a family-sized bath bomb into the cut. 

Not subtle, not polite, not the sort of thing a well-mannered roach would RSVP to. No, this was a full-on aquatic kerfuffle. Now, I’ve seen my fair share of surface signs. The gentle sip of a roach, like a librarian quietly judging your choice of bait. 

The confident swirl of a rudd, all swagger and no apology. But this? This was neither tea nor coffee—it was a full English breakfast of disturbance. Boils, swirls, the odd flick that suggested something down there had either found religion or lost its temper.

And here’s the thing—this wasn’t gin-clear, aquarium-style water where you can name the fish and ask after their families. This was proper coloured canal water. The sort that looks like it’s been steeped in builder’s tea and regret. Normally, you’re fishing blind in conditions like this, relying on instinct, experience, and the vague hope that something with fins shares your optimism. Yet here were signs. Actual, undeniable signs. Fishy graffiti on the surface saying, “We’re here, mate. But good luck guessing who we are.”

Naturally, this triggered the ancient angler’s reflex: curiosity mixed with mild delusion. Only one way to find out, I thought, which is usually the prelude to either brilliance or embarrassment. Sometimes both. So for this session, out came the lift float—my old, faithful conspirator in all things roachy—paired with a bit of groundbait and maggots, because if there’s one thing roach love, it’s a free buffet with questionable hygiene standards. 

The morning itself was one of those rare gems. Quiet. Still. The sort of calm that makes you feel like you’ve accidentally walked into a postcard. Birds chirping, the occasional ripple, and at one point what I can only assume was a lamb expressing itself in a deeply personal way. Nature, as ever, keeping it classy. 

I'd only a few hours with a busy ahead as with family stuff in the afternoon I was heading to a DJ gig in Brum with Lloyd Barwood one of progressive houses brightest new talents being both a producer and DJ and a lovely fella he is too, this picture taken before the gig started and a nice chat about him living his dream. 

I'd seen him in Liverpool not long back warming up for Sasha before he went b2b with his hero, but this time the Hare and Hounds a venue where UB40 performed their first gig was ideal to showcase his banging beats of repetitiveness. 

In contrast to quiet fishing with only bird song or a lamb trumping the solitude but variety is the spice of life you know. Anyway, beneath this serene surface, there was mischief. You could feel it. Every now and then, another swirl. Another hint. Like the canal was winking at me, saying, “You’re close… but not that close.” The float behaved itself for the most part—lifting here and there with just enough suggestion to keep the brain ticking. Classic roach behaviour. Delicate. Thoughtful. The sort of bite that says, “I’ll take it… but I’m not happy about it.”

But then !!

The canal, in its infinite wisdom (and questionable hygiene), decided that today was not a day for heroes but for mongrels those suspicious, vaguely fish-shaped entities that look as though they were assembled from leftover parts in a damp shed. Out they came to play, nudging at liquidised bread like pensioners at a reduced bakery shelf, while my maggots dangled with all the dignity of a soggy chandelier. 

I fished one swim, then another, then another—like a man searching for a lost remote in increasingly unlikely places—only to discover that the fish had the collective enthusiasm of a committee meeting.

What did I catch? Ah yes—creatures. Not fish in the proud, silver-flanked sense, but… beings. Tatty little customers, each looking like it had lost a bar fight with a shopping trolley. Not one of them particularly large, mind you, though each carried itself with the baffling confidence of something that believes it ought to be bigger. Canal fishing, as ever, served up its daily special: unpredictability with a side of mild disappointment. You turn up expecting a story; you leave with a shrug and a faint smell of skimmer regret.

Still, there were bites little taps of encouragement, like the canal whispering, “Go on, keep trying, this might improve.” It did not improve. And where, pray tell, were the roach? Not a single one. Vanished. Evaporated. Possibly attending a conference elsewhere on more agreeable waters. It’s the sort of mystery that keeps anglers awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if the fish are unionising.

And so, with spirits neither lifted nor entirely crushed just gently sat upon I packed up. Another session concluded, another tale added to the ever-growing anthology of “well, that happened.” Onwards to the next outing, where expectations will once again be inflated beyond reason, only to be expertly punctured by a canal that knows exactly what it’s doing and refuses to explain itself.

Back to the full-on bread attack, I think—this isn’t going too well.