Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.15

“They Will Kill You” doesn’t so much begin as stagger drunkenly through the fire exit clutching a meat cleaver and screaming obscenities at the concierge. 

Asia Reaves takes what appears to be a straightforward housekeeping job in one of those vast New York apartment blocks where everybody looks fabulously wealthy yet somehow faintly embalmed, as though they’ve all been preserved in artisan vinegar by a Scandinavian undertaker.

Naturally the building turns out to be riddled with disappearances, Satanic shenanigans, homicidal residents and enough occult nonsense to make the average village medium fling her crystals into the canal and take up accountancy instead. 

Before long the entire affair detonates into a glorious cavalcade of axes, katanas, severed limbs and shrieking maniacs hurtling down corridors like middle-aged bargain hunters charging the reduced bakery shelf at Lidl five minutes before closing.

Zazie Beetz storms through the carnage wearing the expression of a woman who’s discovered somebody’s microwaved haddock in the staff kitchen for the third consecutive afternoon and has finally decided murder is a proportionate response. Patricia Arquette appears to be having the time of her life amid the blood geysers and demonic carry-on, while Tom Felton prowls about looking like a man who absolutely knows where several bodies are hidden but is enjoying the suspense too much to say anything. There is also, for reasons best known to the Devil himself, a talking pig’s head on a stick which arrives like something dreamt up after eating suspicious cheese during a thunderstorm.

The whole thing plays like “Kill Bill” after twelve pints of industrial cider, a knock to the temple from a snooker cue and an ill-advised séance conducted in the toilets of a provincial Wetherspoons. It is gloriously excessive, magnificently stupid and sprays claret around with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for Formula One podium celebrations.

Perhaps that explains why, after watching it before bed and drifting happily into thoughts of finally getting back onto the rivers in a fortnight or so rod quiver slung over shoulder, landing net still faintly smelling of last season’s optimism, flask of tea capable of stripping yacht varnish I somehow slept clean through a thunderstorm of Biblical savagery.

The Almighty himself could probably have been hurling wheelie bins through conservatories while roof tiles cartwheeled over the chimney pots like frightened pheasants, and I’d still have been snoring peacefully away dreaming of crease swims, wagtails bobbing along the far bank, damp grass soaking through the knees of me trousers and that first glorious savage yank on the float after far too long away from the water.

Proper Piscatorial Quagswagging bliss.

Anyway enough of that, to the fishing !! Tramp Alley Again

Which is unlike another trip to Tramp Alley where, of late, it’s about the only stretch of canal I’ve managed to locate a few obliging roach that don’t appear to possess the survival instincts of Cold War spies. Everywhere else has been deader than a taxidermist’s workshop after an electrical fire, so naturally I found myself back there again at first light armed with maggots, and the sort of weary resignation normally associated with men queueing at council offices clutching damp paperwork.

The morning itself already had the feel of one of those oppressive summer days where the heat sits on your shoulders and even the pigeons looked exhausted. Still, a maggot approach had worked previously and there seemed little point attempting anything more sophisticated given the fish in this canal generally behave as though they’ve signed a collective non-aggression pact against anglers. A couple of balls of groundbait were introduced with all the hopefulness of a man scattering flower petals onto the M25 in an attempt to improve the scenery.

And then came the waiting.

Not peaceful waiting either. The sort of waiting where you begin by watching the float attentively before gradually descending into a semi-conscious trance of existential collapse, idly wondering whether your knees have finally packed up for good and whether anybody has ever actually enjoyed sitting behind a wheelie bin factory listening to distant scooters and somebody shouting “KEV!” repeatedly across a towpath. It can take 30 minutes for the first bite Mick, "oh yeah I should have remembered that !!"

Truth be told I’ve not really been feeling it lately. The weather simply hasn’t been conducive to fishing now has it. It’s been hotter than Satan’s slow cooker during the week and when you spend all day trapped at work slowly liquefying under overly white LED lighting, the thought of trudging to the canal afterwards versus sitting in the garden beside a barbecue with a cold beer becomes less a difficult decision and more a matter of basic human survival instinct.

There’s only so much enthusiasm a man can muster for staring into murky canal water while perspiration rolls down the crack of his backside like a frightened slug. Particularly when your neighbours are at home flipping sausages, drinking lager and listening to dreadful music from a Bluetooth speaker the size of a tumble dryer. (sorry neighbours) But it's a natural venue with some gems to ne had, always on the canals there are the positives !!

Now it was one of those bright, clear mornings that anglers pretend to enjoy whilst secretly muttering dark things about sunlight. The canal had settled overnight, but there was still a bit of colour in the water, which at least stopped me turning around and going back to bed. A delicate mist clung to the surface, giving the whole place an air of mystery and promise. Naturally, the fish hadn't received the memo.

I settled into the first swim armed with a simple plan: a couple of maggots on a small hook, some liquidised bread, and a bucket of groundbait slop that looked suspiciously like something excavated from a Victorian drain. Confidence was high. The fish, however, remained unconvinced.

Forty minutes later the float finally twitched. It wasn't so much a bite as a fish breathing heavily in the general direction of the bait. I struck at what was probably one of the tiny fish topping when I arrived, but whatever it was had already made its escape and was no doubt laughing with its mates.

Boredom eventually defeated optimism, so I moved swims. Another forty minutes passed with all the excitement of a tax return. Undeterred, I shifted again, settling halfway between the two previous swims. As I dragged the rig into position a tiny perch hurled itself at the maggots like a starving crocodile. It wasn't exactly specimen fishing, but at least it prevented the dreaded blank. Thank you, little perch. Your services will not be forgotten.

This latest move proved more productive. After only ten minutes the float dipped properly and I connected with a fish that actually intended to stay attached. A spirited scrap followed before a lovely roach emerged from the depths. Not a monster, but a very welcome sight. At last, evidence that the canal contained something larger than my hook.

The float barely settled again before disappearing. I struck and immediately found myself connected to something that felt like a submerged wardrobe. It moved with determination but in a most peculiar manner, seemingly attempting to swim backwards. My first thought was a decent eel. The warm water made it possible and several huge boils erupted on the surface, which only strengthened the theory.

The rod was bent into a shape normally associated with longbows, yet I was slowly gaining line. Then the mystery was solved. A tail broke the surface. Then another bit. Then the whole fish appeared. It was a sizeable bream, foul-hooked firmly in the tail. No wonder the thing had been fighting like it was trying to reverse park a caravan. The poor creature looked as surprised as I did.

I feared I'd ruined the swim, but the fish clearly hadn't read the angling textbooks. Bite followed bite. Roach hybrids, perch and assorted canal residents queued up to inspect the maggots. For a glorious period everything worked exactly as it should. The float danced, fish arrived regularly and I briefly entertained dreams of actually knowing what I was doing.

Then came the distant rumble of doom.

A boat.

Not just any boat, but one descending the flight of locks. Slowly the peaceful canal transformed into a raging torrent. The carefully nurtured swim became a hydraulic experiment. Groundbait headed for the next county and the float began travelling faster than some of the local buses.

Eight o'clock in the morning.

Honestly, don't these people have a bacon sandwich to eat? A jigsaw puzzle to finish? A nice lie-in perhaps? Apparently not. Apparently their mission in life was to steam directly through my swim at precisely the moment things were going well.

Still, such is canal fishing. One minute you're contemplating greatness, the next you're watching your float disappear towards Birmingham. Yet despite the interruptions, the backwards-swimming bream, and the fish that took forty minutes to blink at the bait, it was another thoroughly enjoyable session, especially when the half a pint of maggots were gifted to me by Martyn from Stratford Fishing and Outdoors, top-man. 

Best of all, there wasn't another angler in sight AGAIN !!. Just me, the fish, the mist, and a boat skipper who will probably never know how close he came to becoming the subject of a strongly worded letter.

One final lesson emerged from the morning's adventures. Maggots on an size 18 hook produced far fewer missed bites than previous experiments. Sometimes angling breakthroughs arrive not with fanfare and celebration, but quietly, hidden amongst foul-hooked bream and muttered complaints about boat traffic.

That'll do nicely.

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.14

The alarm went off at some ungodly hour that even foxes would complain about, and there I was once again dragging my carcass towards the cut like a man heading for a medieval punishment rather than a morning’s fishing. Still, that’s canal fishing for you. Nobody ever skips down the towpath whistling like they’re in a toothpaste advert. You stagger there half awake, clutching enough tackle to invade Belgium, all because somewhere in that murky trench there might be a roach willing to ruin your morning slightly less than the others.

Now Mongrel Mile had been kind to me recently if your definition of “kind” includes catching fish that look like they’ve been assembled from spare parts behind a pub. Hard-fighting they were, mind. Proper scrappers. But what I wanted was a roach. A proper roach. Not these suspicious hybrids that look as though two species got drunk at a Christmas disco and made regrettable life choices behind the reed bed. Some of these fish had more mixed heritage than a family tree drawn by a Labrador.

The trouble with canals is they make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Rivers at least pretend to have logic. Lakes occasionally offer clues. Canals though? Total anarchy. One hundred yards can hold nothing but perch and old shopping trolleys, then another twenty yards down you’re suddenly into skimmers, perch and enough hybrids to qualify as a genetic experiment. You could fish one peg for three hours and conclude the canal is dead, then move six feet and discover somebody’s secretly stocked the place overnight.

Fortunately for me, somebody had already done the gardening. I arrived to find not one but two ready-made swims cut into the jungle. Happy days indeed. There’s nothing better than finding a peg someone else has hacked out while you stroll in pretending you’re some hardened pioneer of the waterways. I stood there nodding thoughtfully at the swim as if I’d personally crafted it with a machete and determination, when in reality another poor soul had already sacrificed half his blood supply to nettles three days earlier.

The weather, however, can get in the bin.

Yesterday upstairs in the house felt like sleeping inside an air fryer. Unbearable despite a few gins taking the edge off. I spent most of the night rotating like a distressed rotisserie chicken trying to locate a cool patch on the bedsheet that no longer existed. Whoever says they enjoy thirty-degree heat wants investigating. Mid twenties is plenty for me. Once temperatures creep higher than that I begin to wilt like reduced-price coriander.

This morning though? Perfection.

Six o’clock on the towpath in just a t-shirt. No blazing sun yet. No cyclists shouting “MORNING!” with terrifying enthusiasm. Just still water, bird song and the distant mechanical grumble of somebody starting a narrowboat engine badly. That’s proper fishing weather. The sort that convinces you life is actually rather wonderful until twenty minutes later when a mosquito lands directly inside your ear.

Anyway, enough romantic nonsense. Time to fish.

Out came the lift float set-up centrepin and 14ft float rod . Simple gear. Piece of bread on the hook and some liquidised bread slop fed into the swim. Lovely stuff, bread. Fish absolutely adore it and it also has the added advantage of making your hands smell like a damp bakery all day. Canal fishing with bread always feels gloriously old school as though at any moment some bloke in flared trousers and sideburns might appear beside you carrying a keepnet the size of a submarine.

Now anybody who fishes canals knows patience is crucial. Fish don’t exactly queue up like shoppers at a supermarket opening. Often it takes half an hour before anything arrives. You sit there staring at a float while your brain slowly starts inventing ridiculous theories.

“Maybe the fish have moved.”

“Maybe there are no fish.”

“Maybe I’ve accidentally lowered the float into another dimension.”

Then at last — a bite.

Missed it completely.

Naturally.

Second bite resulted in briefly hooking something before it charged off like it owed money and vanished. Standard canal nonsense. Third time though, finally, I connected properly and in came the first fish of the morning.

A hybrid.

Of course it was.

Not even a glamorous hybrid either. This thing looked rough. One eye missing, scales wonky, and smelling so bad I nearly checked whether something had died underneath my seat box. Honestly, if canal fish could smoke twenty Benson & Hedges a day and survive entirely on kebab meat, this would be the result.

Still, fish is fish.

No blank.

And once that first one arrives your optimism returns immediately. Suddenly you’re convinced the swim contains twenty roach of a pound each and possibly a forgotten canal record. Fishing does this to people. It turns otherwise rational adults into delusional gamblers with bait boxes.

In the end I managed four fish altogether. Not exactly the sort of haul requiring a commemorative plaque, but enough to keep things interesting. A couple fought well too, darting about under the rod tip as if auditioning for River Monsters despite barely being bigger than a digestive biscuit.

Then came disaster.

Mr Heron.

You always hear them before you see them. That prehistoric flapping sound like somebody shaking an old bedsheet aggressively. Down it came gliding across the canal with all the grace of a tax inspector entering a pub. The fish instantly vanished. Gone. Finished. Might as well have lowered a hand grenade into the swim.

As if that wasn’t enough, he then opened the lock above me and sent half the canal charging downstream. Wonderful. The float began travelling sideways at thirty miles an hour while bits of weed, twigs and what looked suspiciously like a traffic cone floated past.

That’s canal fishing for you. One minute tranquillity, next minute the entire ecosystem has been reorganised by a retired couple named Keith and Sandra steering seventy feet of floating cottage toward Birmingham.

I decided on a change of scenery after that and headed back towards the swim from last weekend where I’d managed one fish and a missed bite. Canal anglers are strange creatures because we’ll happily revisit a peg based entirely on vague emotional memories.

“Yes I only caught one fish there…”

“But it felt fishy.”

What does that even mean?

Nobody knows.

The morning still felt lovely though so I wandered off afterwards for a reconnaissance mission at another stretch I fancied trying. A few weeks ago it had been emptier than my bank account after visiting a tackle shop, but thankfully there was now water in it again which is usually considered beneficial for fishing.

Beautiful looking stretch too.

Quiet.

Reedy.

Proper atmosphere.

Of course being May half term there were also holiday boats everywhere. Nothing destroys the illusion of wilderness quite like hearing somebody on a hire boat shouting:

“DON’T PANIC DEREK JUST TURN THE WHEEL!”

followed by a loud crunching noise.

Still, that’s the charm of canals really. They’re chaotic, unpredictable and occasionally smell faintly of old soup, but there’s nowhere quite like them. One morning you blank completely and question your life choices. The next you’re sat watching a float tremble in perfect dawn light convinced there’s nowhere else on Earth you’d rather be.

Even if the fish do look slightly inbred.

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.