Warwickshire Avon - Synchronised and Subterfuge

I stumbled across a rambling gospel of trotting pellets for roach written with the sort of conviction usually reserved for people who’ve just discovered a “secret peg” that everyone else has also been sat on for 20 years. I meant to skim it, but it escalated into full attention somewhere between “this is interesting” and “I now need to try this immediately on the Warwickshire Avon”.

The idea, as far as I can tell, is brutally simple in a way that feels slightly insulting to more complicated tackle boxes. Find a river where pellets are already going in for barbel, and you’ve basically already found the roach it’s just a case of convincing them to behave like roach instead of underwater pensioners ignoring you from a distance. 

Big fish, apparently, are less “rare and mystical” and more “opportunistic and slightly lazy”, which is a theory I can relate to on a personal level. The method hinges on doing one thing properly: presenting a single pellet on the drift so it behaves like a natural, sinking morsel rather than something you’ve lobbed in with hope and denial. 

Light float, just enough shot to control the descent, and a banded 4–6mm pellet that sits neatly on the hook like it belongs there. 

Nothing fancy, nothing clever, just controlled chaos drifting through a feeding lane. Where it gets interesting is the feeding. Not dumping bait like you’re trying to fill a skip, but little and often just enough to keep fish interested and moving up in the water. 

The idea is to create a sort of conveyor belt of pellets, so the roach aren’t rooting around on the deck but actively intercepting stuff as it comes through the swim. In theory, you’re not “fishing a spot” so much as running a tiny underwater production line.

That bit really appealed to me on the Avon, because I’ve seen enough barbel anglers doing their thing there to suspect the roach are already fully enrolled in the pellet lifestyle. There are stretches where you can almost feel that fish are present but not quite engaged, like they’re watching from the side-lines waiting for something to make sense of all the free food. 

Trotting a pellet through that feels like switching the lights on in a room that was already full. The stretch in question to give it a go, I'd seen roach shoals in two swims and some of those roach were pounders easily, so not to be sniffed at certainly.

The key, from what I can gather, is keeping everything moving and natural. Let the float run, control the depth, and resist the urge to turn it into a static bait situation the moment you get bored or too hot. It’s very much a “trust the drift” approach, which is easy to say and immediately forgotten the first time the float hesitates like it’s thinking about being a tench.

On the Avon, the plan is simple enough to be either genius or delusional: light tackle, banded pellet, steady trickle of feed, and a controlled trot through likely glides where I’ve already seen enough suspicious silver flashes to justify the optimism. If it works, I’ll claim watercraft. If it doesn’t, I’ll claim the river was “off”.

Either way, it feels like one of those methods where the fish already know what they’re doing and the angler just turns up to try and look involved. Worst case, I catch endless dace and pretend they were part of the plan. Best case, I finally meet one of those Avon roach that makes you forget every sensible thing you were meant to be doing with your time.

So anyway, the plan was sound, how was the execution ?

Well the weather had finally come to its senses. After what felt like days living inside a giant hairdryer, the heatwave had packed its bags and wandered off elsewhere. At last we were back to proper fishing weather, with cool fresh air replacing that sticky humidity. I could actually step out of the car without feeling like I'd been wrapped in cling film.

An early start was always going to be the order of the day because I had my sights firmly set on the weir peg. Like most favourite swims, if you arrive late, somebody else has usually beaten you to it. Thankfully, the riverbank was deserted, the grass sparkled with dew and there was just enough of a chill to remind you summer hadn't completely taken over. Naturally, I was still wearing a T-shirt because that's what anglers do.

The point swim just below the weir looked absolutely perfect. A nice line of foam drifted steadily downstream, telling me the pace was about right. River anglers have a remarkable ability to stare at floating bubbles for several minutes and convince themselves they're conducting serious scientific research. In reality, we're just watching froth.

With everything assembled, I began introducing mixed 6mm pellets little and often. It sounds wonderfully disciplined until you realise "little and often" usually becomes "another handful won't hurt." Still, the plan seemed sensible enough. The Dave Harrell Speci-Stick settled perfectly on its first run downstream.

I wasn't expecting much from the opening trot, so when the red domed tip vanished almost immediately, I wondered whether I'd imagined it. I hadn't. A lively little chublet was attached to the other end and seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. It wasn't exactly the planned start, but I certainly wasn't complaining.

What followed was one of those magical spells every angler dreams about. Cast, float under, fish. Cast, float under, fish. If only every trip worked like that, tackle shops would have to start selling excuses instead of bait.

The chublets arrived one after another, accompanied by some lovely dace that looked like polished bars of silver. Every now and then a slightly better chub joined the procession to remind the youngsters who really owned the swim. The only species refusing to join the festivities were the roach. They clearly hadn't received the memo.

I slipped a few fish into the extra deep landing net for a quick photograph later. It's amazing how unbelievable a productive session sounds unless you've got a picture to prove it. 

Besides, they were sitting happily in well-oxygenated water while I carried on catching. I suspect they were already comparing notes on where it had all gone wrong.

Sadly, tranquillity on the river never lasts forever. The first narrowboat emerged from the lock, gently ploughing through the swim like a floating bungalow. 

Moments later a couple of enthusiastic dogs decided the bottom of my peg would make an excellent swimming pool. Labradors clearly have many talents, but understanding trotting tactics isn't one of them.

Almost instantly the bites disappeared. The float sailed through untouched time after time without so much as a twitch. I gave it a few more hopeful trots because anglers are naturally optimistic creatures. Eventually reality won the argument.

With another narrowboat heading my way, I decided a change of scenery might be worthwhile. 

I moved only a short distance upstream, practically within spitting distance of the weir itself. Sometimes a move transforms a session. Other times it simply gives you a different place to blank.

The pellets started going in again and the float settled beautifully on its first run. Down it went almost straight away. This time it wasn't a chublet but a lovely roach that glistened in the morning sunshine. Suddenly everything felt very promising indeed.

The swim had completely changed character. Instead of endless little chub, the roach had moved in and were more than happy to sample a banded 6mm pellet. One after another they slipped over the net, all beautifully marked and in cracking condition. It really was one of those mornings where everything seemed to fall into place.

I retained a few more fish for a photograph before slipping them safely back later. They rested quietly in fresh flowing water while I continued fishing. No doubt they were discussing the dangers of greed and the suspicious appearance of small brown pellets. Fish gossip probably isn't much different to ours.

Even a perch fancied joining the party. It hammered the pellet with all the confidence of a fish that hadn't read the rulebook saying perch are supposed to prefer worms or little fish. I wasn't about to argue. If it wanted pellets, pellets it could have.

The odd chublet still sneaked into the catch, but the roach were definitely running the show now. Every run through carried that lovely anticipation that the float could disappear at any second. More often than not, it obliged. It doesn't get much better than that.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was just how effective the 6mm pellets proved to be. The really big roach never made an appearance, but I have a feeling they're still lurking somewhere, watching their smaller relatives make poor life choices. They'll get their turn eventually. Rivers have a habit of keeping a few secrets in reserve.

I packed the gear away with that satisfying feeling only a good morning's fishing can provide. Two hours, plenty of bites, a nice mixed bag and a method that has definitely earned another outing. Sometimes it's not about catching monsters. Sometimes it's simply about enjoying every minute beside the river, and this session certainly ticked every box.

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.16

A friend at work asked me the other day why I still fish canals when I’m not exactly emptying a keepnet after every session. Fair question really. Modern anglers seem to judge success entirely by whether they need a forklift truck to get the fish back into the water, not by completing a quest to catch a stone loach like I did, or how many likes on Instagram they get. Take good mate Nic from Avon Angling for instance who caught a cracking four-pound crucian the other day. Absolute belter. Fish of a lifetime for many anglers. Each to their own though, whatever floats you're boat, and what works for you.

Now I told Nic straight afterwards his next move should be buying a lottery ticket because luck like that only comes round once every Halley’s Comet, well unless you're Nic, because it does seem to happen quite a lot for him.

Problem is, now the venue which was busy anyway now resembles the evacuation scene from Dunkirk. Word gets around, doesn’t it? One decent fish appears on Facebook, YouTube or the dreaded Instagram and suddenly every “specimen hunter” within a fifty-mile radius arrives armed like they’re invading a small country. Pot hunters and all that. 

Rod pods, bite alarms, three-rod set-ups, buckets of pellets and more electronic equipment than NASA had during the moon landing. You can practically hear the crucians underwater. “Oh no. Not those method feeders again.” The poor fish must feel like they’re trapped in a never-ending episode of Groundhog Day. Every five minutes another golf-ball-sized lump of fishmeal crashes into the lake bed while some bloke in camouflage mutters about “building a swim”.

Building a swim? It’s a fishing peg, not an extension on a semi-detached in Wolverhampton. But Nic  and this is where experience matters ignored all that fashionable nonsense. Didn’t sit there behind two motionless rods staring at bobbing'less bobbins like a pensioner waiting for the kettle to boil.

No, he fished properly. A float. A couple of maggots. Watching the water. Old school. And the crucians probably thought, “Hang on lads, this one’s feeding us actual food instead of compressed hedgehog pellets.” Then one of them wandered over all curious-like. “Ooh look Barry, two lovely red maggots.” Five seconds later: “Barry… I’ve made a terrible mistake, damn it !!”

That’s the thing with modern fishing. Everyone follows trends like frightened sheep in waterproofs. One bloke catches on a feeder and suddenly nobody under the age of forty remembers floats exist. I'm guilty of it from time to time, and to be honest there is no getting away from it.

I'm tempted to turn up with a centrepin reel however the other anglers would likely report me to the Angling Trust as some sort of historical reenactor.

Which brings me neatly to canals. I moan about canals as you know, but there are positives because most anglers avoid them like tax audits and family karaoke nights. There’s peace from other rod wavers on the canals. Solitude. Proper atmosphere. 

Often just me, the towpath, a few suspicious ducks and occasionally a dog walker, jogger, biker or gongoozler looking at my landing net resting a fish as though I’m illegally farming minnows. I don’t want anglers either side of me. I don’t want four blokes opposite discussing politics at the volume of an RAF flypast. I don’t want bite alarms sounding every eleven seconds like a reversing lorry convention. And I definitely don’t want to hear somebody explain cryptocurrency while spodding half a tonne of hemp into a lake.

Apparently this makes me a misanthrope, because I probably am. Now that word gets thrown around a lot these days. People assume a misanthrope hates humanity. Not true at all. I don’t hate people, I'm one of those ravers to the grave after all (Next gig in two weeks is Leftfield). Hate takes energy and frankly most people aren’t worth the calories. I simply prefer avoiding humanity where possible. 😁 (I Jest !!)

I’m perfectly polite. I’ll help somebody if they’re struggling. I’ll say hello. I’ll even untangle someone’s disastrous bird’s nest of line while silently judging every life decision that led them there. A professor once described misanthropy beautifully: “To a misanthrope, most people are about as interesting as a really good sandwich.”

 You know the sort. Bloke turns up. “Any out?” No mate, the fish collectively decided to observe Ramadan. Then there’s the tactical genius who asks what bait you’re using immediately after you catch one. 

As if revealing “double maggot” unlocks some ancient mystical code hidden by the Knights Templar. No, Bob. The bait isn’t the issue. 

The issue is you’ve cast twelve times in four minutes and frightened everything except the shopping trolley in the margins. Still, perhaps I’m what you’d call an optimistic misanthrope.

I like people best when they’re over there somewhere. Ideally several postcodes away.

Which is why canals suit me in the closed season I suppose. No bivvies. No glowing tents. No twenty-four-hour carp syndicate veterans discussing bait protein levels like sports scientists. 

Just quiet water and small fish with proper manners. And truth be told, there’s something wonderfully honest about canal roach fishing. 

No glamour. No sponsorship deals. Nobody making dramatic YouTube thumbnails with their mouth hanging open like they’ve just witnessed the Second Coming. Just manky mongrels in the main with the odd gem, delicate floats and occasional existential despair.

Perfect really. So yes, this optimistic misanthrope fancies some fishing again. The canal awaits. Roach are once more on the agenda. Somewhere out there beneath the murky water swims a fish roughly the size of a digestive biscuit that’s about to ruin my entire afternoon. I'd been watching the weather forecast like a bookmaker watches a favourite in the last furlong. 

With the tackle still in the car after the weekend's outing and a handful of maggots left over, I was desperately hoping the rain would give me a couple of hours on the stretch after work where I'd recently lost what I still claim was a carp. Mind you, anglers have been promoting lost fish ever since the first one got away, so it may well have been a particularly ambitious bream.

The last session had been one of those maddening affairs where bites came thick and fast but fish seemed determined to avoid any formal introduction. Fishing large pieces of bread, I had enough float movements to keep my hopes alive, but precious little attached to the end of the line when I struck. 

This time I had maggots. Not many, but enough to convince myself that they were the missing piece of the puzzle. Anglers are wonderfully optimistic creatures. Give us half a pint of maggots and we'll happily overlook the fact that the fish ignored us completely only three days earlier.

Would the maggots do better than the bread? I had no idea. But they couldn't do much worse, unless they climbed off the hook and swam away themselves.

Now there was rain predicted on the drive home from work. "Light rain," they said. A mere inconvenience. A gentle shower. A slight moistening of the atmosphere. Well, a few miles from the spot that "light rain" transformed itself into the sort of biblical downpour that had old blokes checking for pairs of animals walking past. The windscreen wipers were waving the white flag and visibility had reduced to approximately three inches. Damn it.

Naturally, being a man of sound judgement and impeccable decision-making, I carried on regardless. Arriving at the canal, I sat in the car waiting for the rain to ease and ventured out for a quick gander. At that precise moment a boat emerged from nowhere and ploughed straight through the swim I'd planned to fish. Not content with that, it was already heading for the next lock. It was 5pm after all. What did you expect, Mick? A deserted canal and fish queuing up to jump into the landing net?

Thankfully the rain eased off, so I got set up. Maggots, liquidised bread and a bit of groundbait were introduced to proceedings while I plonked the float in the middle track where the canal is all of three feet deep. 

To my astonishment, within ten minutes the float lifted in a manner that screamed "strike now, you fool!" Naturally, I missed it. Fortunately the fish were feeling charitable and another bite followed shortly afterwards. This time the float slid away to the left and I connected with a fish. A small perch emerged from water the colour of builder's tea. Quite how it saw the bait remains one of life's great mysteries.

The float went back out and soon disappeared again. This fish put up a proper scrap and I convinced myself I'd hooked a decent hybrid. As usual, I was wrong. It was a slab of a bream, fully equipped with enough slime to lubricate a medium-sized tractor. The landing net may never recover.

Then disaster struck. The unmistakable sound of a lock being opened somewhere up the cut signalled the arrival of every canal angler's favourite event. Within minutes the canal transformed from a peaceful waterway into the lower reaches of the River Amazon. The float was charging downstream like it had somewhere important to be and, right on cue, a boat appeared. It thundered through the swim without so much as lifting the throttle. Cheers mate. Much appreciated.

Plan B was required. I fed a margin swim to my left which remained vaguely fishable while the rest of the canal resembled a flood relief channel. Twenty minutes passed waiting for the lock to shut and the water to calm down. Unsurprisingly the main line was now deader than my hopes of an uninterrupted evening's fishing.

With curfew approaching and two hours gone, I dropped the float into the margin as a last throw of the dice. Instantly a bite on the drop. Naturally I missed it, although I did manage to briefly inconvenience the fish with the hook point. Lowering the rig back into the two feet of water, I waited. A few minutes later the float buried itself and this time I connected with a proper swinger that rounded the session off nicely.

Was it worth driving through monsoon conditions, watching boats destroy the swim, enduring canal turbulence usually associated with shipping lanes and spending half the session waiting for water to settle? Most definitely. The rain stayed away, the fish fed despite the chocolate-coloured water and, for once, the canal allowed me to leave with a smile rather than a fresh collection of excuses. 

No roach though, I might be wasting my time here !!

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.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.144 (Canal Perch and Zander)

There are moments in life when everything feels finely balanced, delicately poised like a well-shotted waggler on a calm canal… and then, without warning, someone boots the rod rest, knocks your tea over, and sets fire to the landing net. Last Thursday, somewhere between a mid-morning brew and a half-hearted attempt at productivity in the automotive design studio, that exact feeling descended upon us except instead of fire, it was IT. Which, in many ways, is worse.

It began innocently enough. A little pop-up. Bottom right corner. The digital equivalent of a polite cough before chaos. “Attempting to access IP address…” it said, or something equally sinister and vaguely unhelpful. Being seasoned professionals, we collectively shrugged and carried on, because if you reacted to every strange IT message, you'd never get anything done. Besides, the organisation was “blocking it,” which sounded reassuring in the same way a garden fence reassures you about an approaching rhinoceros.

By late afternoon, however, the studio had begun to unravel like a cheap spool of line under pressure. Systems started dropping out one by one. Drives vanished. Applications wheezed their last. Wi-Fi went funny. The general mood shifted from mild curiosity to that quiet, creeping dread normally reserved for when you realise you've left the landing net in the garage.

Friday brought hope, or at least the illusion of it. There were “workarounds” that marvellous IT phrase which translates roughly to “this might function if you don’t breathe on it.” I clung onto my CATIA licence like a carp angler grips his last boilie during a blank session, managing to work locally and avoid the increasingly haunted Indian network. Forty-plus hours ticked off by lunchtime, I clocked out feeling smug and slightly heroic, convinced the tech wizards would wave their digital wands over the weekend and restore order, despite the main IT guy gone AWOL.

Blog readers they did not.

Monday arrived like a damp bivvy morning grey, disappointing, and smelling faintly of something gone wrong. The systems were not just broken; they were caput. Not resting. Not updating. Not “experiencing issues.” Properly, gloriously dead. The design studio had all the functionality of a chocolate teapot. By midday, I’d been reassigned to “A2MAC1 benchmarking duties,” which is a polite way of saying “find something to do that doesn’t involve working systems.”

And then came the bombshell. IT, those brave custodians of cables and confusion, admitted defeat. “Not anytime soon,” they said. “See you next Tuesday.” Next Tuesday. As if we were discussing a casual pint rather than my entire working week evaporating like mist off a canal at sunrise. As a jobber on an hourly rate, this wasn’t a quirky inconvenience it was financial vandalism. A forced holiday, unrequested and entirely unpaid. The sort of surprise nobody enjoys.

Naturally, I approached Tuesday with a sense of purpose. By which I mean I did absolutely nothing. A lie-in, a leisurely clean of the Jimny, a bit of rod sorting the kind of day that feels productive until you realise you’ve achieved nothing of actual consequence. Still, there are worse ways to spend time than tinkering with fishing gear and pretending you’re preparing for greatness.

Sam, meanwhile, had a rare day off school with a dodgy tummy and a level of honesty that cut through the morning like a sharp hooklink. “Don’t want to poo myself in school, Daddy,” he declared. “I’d be known as the kid who sh*t himself.” LANGUAGE !! A fair point, delivered with the clarity of someone who understands the brutal social economy of the playground. Some reputations, once earned, are impossible to shake.

Just as I began to contemplate a proper fishing session the next day to salvage the week, fate intervened once more. A message from 16 year old Ben’s special needs hub in Stratford-Upon-Avon arrived the night before: boiler issues. Closed. No warmth, no learning, no peace. Plans shifted again. Fishing window reduced to a couple of hours a frantic dash rather than a leisurely campaign.

Still, a couple of hours is better than none, and with a tip-off from Buffalo Si's mate Security Neil about a local perch spot, I was off. The venue was an inlet from a lock above, a place where the water moved just enough to make things interesting. The sort of swim that whispers promise while simultaneously reminding you that gongoozlers, and the ever-present dog poo bag waving brigade are never far away.

Thankfully, there’s always a way. A bit of manoeuvring over the rather high lock paddles and I found myself tucked away from the main towpath, in a spot that felt almost… peaceful. The flow was perfect either tight to the wall or a metre out where it behaved like a miniature river. A proper little gem.

Out went the perch bobber, maggots and worms from my own wormery doing their duty like loyal soldiers. Alongside it, a sleeper rod for zander, armed with a roach deadbait and quiet optimism. The kind of setup that says, “I’m here for anything that fancies a nibble.”

And nibble they did.

Perch came first six or seven of them. Not monsters, but spirited little fighters with that trademark aggression that makes them such a joy. Each one a reminder that fishing doesn’t need to be monumental to be meaningful. Sometimes, it’s just about the rhythm the cast, the drift, the strike.

Then, about an hour in, the sleeper rod came alive.

Now, a zander doesn’t do things politely at this time of year. There’s no gentle enquiry, no tentative nibble. It’s a proper take, followed by a scrap that feels far bigger than the fish itself. This one was no exception. All fins, fury, and indignation, it fought like it had somewhere important to be and I was very much in the way.

Eventually, though, persistence wins. Into the net it came a cracking fish. Five pounds on the nose, full of spawn, and absolutely brimming with attitude. The kind of capture that makes the whole chaotic week fade into the background. Even the obligatory selfie felt like a victory rather than a chore, despite the fish’s clear disapproval.

By nine, the sun crept out and, as it so often does, switched the feeding off like someone flicking a light. Bites dried up. The moment passed. Time to pack up.

Back home, it was straight into Dad mode taking Ben out for what can only be described as a “liquid lunch” in Spoons and a pizza for him while his mum handled dinner lady duties. Sitting there, pint in hand, reflecting on a week that had veered wildly from digital disaster to unexpected angling success, I couldn’t help but think… I could get used to this.

Not the IT collapse, mind you. But the fishing. Definitely the fishing.

Roll on retirement !!