Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.22 (PB Content)

There is reason why this more 'urban' stretch of the canal has been largely off my radar because this isn't one of those stretches where as a solitude seeker I can get my fix.

You see a dawn assault for this session I thought I'd have the banks to myself but a couple of joggers and a dog walker had beaten me to it, and adjacent to the chub swim where I'd fish to start things off a rough sleeper was in earshot despite being cocooned in his sleeping bag. 

Considering the vasty majority of the overly expensive council tax goes to housing benefit I'd be knocking on the council house front door rather loudly if I was him. 

It's walkable from town you see and all with all manner of new builds also close if you want peace and quiet for your fishing this stretch ain't it. To be fair the people that I have spoken to have been really pleasant but maybe dusk is when the weed smokers and waifs and strays start to surface. 

A busy A road is also in the vicinity and also dog walkers and land mines in abundance you need to tread carefully here because certain dog owners basically couldn't car less, but don't worry a well place stick with sort out the ocular toxocariasis. 

But these sort of venues have surprises to be had and after the capture of the chub recently this visit I was back to see what I could be missing.

The Zander sleeper rod was confined to the garage and I decided to fish one rod with simple tactics of a float and bread flake. The Aldi bread was fed to the ducks it was that bad for fishing bait so it was back to the Warburtons Blue at least I had chance of that staying on the hook. 

45 minutes in the tramp swim the chub were nowhere to be seen so I went on the rove before the masses woke from their slumber and decided to join me for their morning walk.

One of the pounds was very low indeed but I'd imagine just about navigable by one of the narrowboats. It's by far the shallowest canal I fish and when you see it revealed in all its muddy glory you realise that fish that reside here must have pulled out that short straw.  

This canal though has only been open since the 1960's after being restored by a huge amount of volunteers and revolutionised attitudes to the future of British waterways.  

Being shallow though every bream burp or carp fart can give the game away to where fish may be holding up and this session was a clear demonstration of that. 

You see after fishing two similar lock mouths similar to where I caught the chub from I decided to retrace my steps and a decent fish topped tight to some far bank reeds.

Bread is such a good bait for coloured canals like this because not only is it a food stuff they are used but being white its visible as it flutters through the water column.

Anyway a large piece of breadflake went on the hook and a short underarm flick the bread was perfectly positioned an inch of the reeds.

I fish the float overdepth and within seconds of the bait settling on the bottom the float moved slowly to the left and then to the right and a bite developed.

It was clearly a fish on the end so a sharp strike I hit a solid fish. Initially I thought it was bream or even a hybrid as it was fighting well and leaving a decent boil on the surface.

When it popped to the top though it was a decent roach and in-fact probably the biggest I'd hooked. The hook hold was clearly good though and shortly after the plump silver fish was in the landing net.

Now my PB roach is only 1lb 4 ounces prior to this having caught that on the River Ise but this was clearly bigger and after wetting the plastic bag and zeroing the scales the indicator went round to 1lb and 8 ounces.

So a roach PB and well worth dragging myself out of bed to go and fish a stretch that is well down my list of local places to fish.

A lovely plump roach and in pretty good condition considering that there are predators here that wouldn't think twice about adding it to their menu for the morning. 

Ok not massive in the scheme of things but for me one of those memorable captures that I'm sure I will look back at the blog post in years to come.

No more bites in that swim I headed back to the car and again as I was watching the water I saw a fish top close to some reeds, this time close to the bank.

A missed bite the bread went back out and five minutes later the float bobbed a couple of times and buried straight under.

Again a solid fish and after it made a mess of the swim a small bream was in the net. What a lovely way to fish this is. Simple tactics and the most basic of bait. I leapfrogged the length of reeds hoping for another fish but that was it. I could have stayed longer I suppose as the footfall wasn't 'that' bad, but I decided to call it a day and head home a happy man with another PB to add to the list.