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.