Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.30

No let up on the sessions I see, but the thing is especially my body clock hasn't recovered from the 20 odd years as a freelancing jobber where often I was out the door by 5.15am and and returned 12 hours later. 

An alarm isn't needed which is completely alien to the Wife and Sam for that matter where its a much needed hardware to make sure they awake from their stage 3 delta sleep. Now Ben is an earlier riser like me, but Ben is Ben, fishing is about as interesting to him as trying to conform to being 'normal' but thankfully a happy kid and that's all that matters at the minute.

So the problem is when I wake at the weekend I just cannot lay there and after that period of tossing, turning and thumb twirling I might as well get my backside out of bed and go fishing. So I was back to the bream dream swim mainly because I fancied one of the roach hybrids that reside here to try and get a much needed proper bend in the rod.

To be fair there was another reason and that was because when I was fishing here the other day a lady who was passing said she had seen a carp slurping on the surface and it was a good'un too. 

So with the same gear as the last session I was back for some double dipping, again with bread as bait, with a disc on the hook and a large piece in the band. 

This stretch of canal seems to have less boat traffic which is nice and especially along this length of it where it would be difficult to moor a boat. It's just one of those nice local rural areas I have at my disposal to enjoy the surroundings where at the minute there is a canal side property for sale at a steal at £2,350,000. 

There is something so satisfying about turning up at a quiet canal when most people are in bed, especially at this time of year when the insect life is vibrant and the waters warm. 

There is a lovely set of reeds here and I positioned the lump of bread just off it and feed some pellets and a dose of groundbait for any passing carp to home in on.

Compared to the last session here the surface couldn't have been any calmer and with the sun nice and warming what a pleasant place to be. 

I found to my detriment though that the fish on this canal can often vanish completely but it looked so good for a bite it was just a matter of chilling out, sipping PG's finest and watching the world go by.

I fed the main swim with groundbait the tell-tale swirling on the surface showing that it was doing its thing and hopefully bring some fish in for a feed.

The bream here do produce quite a bit of bubbles but they were suspicious in their absence and after an hour with only a line bite I was scratching my head wondering where the heck they had gone to.

Ok the carp may well be hard to track down but the other species were not showing either.

I decided to give it another hour which is unlike me as ones restless legs tend to kick in but I stuck it out knowing that any transient carp may well show up when I least expected it.

Nothing on the sleeper rod either which was still doing its thing close to the reeds where I'd also fed some pieces of bread to float on the top to see if any carp in the area would take a bait off the surface.

The sun by this time was illuminating the surface nicely and any passing carp would be easy to see if they were patrolling the reeds over at the far side. A farting bull on the field opposite brought a smile to a rather lacklustre trip out and when two hours had passed I decided enough was enough and headed back to the car.

Not far from where I'd parked there is an overhanging tree and a rather wild looking bush so I fed some mashed bread and then flicked out some bread flake to fall slowly through the water column.

Canal fish don't mess around when taking bait and a few seconds after the flake settled a bite developed and the float was moving from right to left. I struck in to a solid fish and after a characterful fight a 3.5lb bream was in the net. Ok not the carp I wanted, but I'd take that especially when it was in decent conditions. No more fish, and another blank avoided, on to the next one !!!!

Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.29

To find carp on canals is not easy, and local knowledge is very often necessary for success. The weedy stretches will of course be the places to try but often in this neck of the woods one is confronted with miles of water all similar, and one is hard put to decide where to start. 

I received a message this week from a fellow canal fisherman 'Jon from the racecourse' who had hooked and lost a couple recently though which raised ones eyebrows. You see I'd seen carp here in the past, in-fact a decent head of them and upon locating them I actually lost two to a snag. 

So it was good to see them back in this area that can be tough for bites. You have to be on the quickly though as they disappear as quickly as they appear. 

To be fair I had earmarked this stretch for a dangle again as I heard that there was chub here as well so that almost dictated the session where I'd fish a nash bread bomb presented piece of M&S garlic naan (mediocre, so don't bother) over some feed pellets in the margin and then a simple float set-up with piece of slow sinking flake just off the cover on the far bank. 

Now although the capture of large carp had occasionally hit the headlines of the angling press since the beginning of the last century, it wasn't really until the 60's or so when carp has became a topic of conversation amongst the angling fraternity. 

Prior to that you see, the carp has been looked upon as a fish possessed of such an incredible brain, as to be able to tell whether or not the angler (who was never expected to catch one anyway) was using 2X gut or 6X. If the gentleman in question was using anything coarser than 6X, then Mr. Carp would turn up his nose in disgust that such a fellow existed, who would try and seduce such a noble fish from his home with rope. 

Owing to this sort of idea being rather general, very few carp were caught, as those who tried to catch them fished much too fine, and if they were fortunate enough to hook one except in the very rare places that carp can be caught in snag free water they were generally broken.

In the 21st century though all the superstition and mystery that surrounded the carp has been well and truly exploded. It has been shown it is well within the bounds of all of us to catch carp, and large carp at that, provided we are prepared to go to a certain amount of trouble to catch our fish. 

Carp can be caught on line that would tow a barge, provided the bait has been presented properly. Lobworms, part boiled potatoes and bread used back in the day still catch carp despite the boilie and bivi brigade now being the norm for the modern carp angler who would rarely fish canals when down the road you could catch 'One Eyed Muggy McMug Fish' who apparently now has reached the belly bulging weight of 50lb.

 

Jesus I'm waffling, better get the rods out !!

To be honest with the weather warm and the sun high in the sky it probably wasn't the best time to go to the canal because as expected boat traffic and footfall was more than I'd like. With both rods out what I didn't expect was a bite quite quick on the dumpy float which I missed. I cast out an again the float soon went under but this time I was premature and didn't let the bite develop.

To third time lucky ? we thankfully yes, because this time I left it go under the surface for a second or two and then struck firmly in to a fish. I knew what it was straight away and that was one of the turbocharged roach bream hybrids that reside here.

Quite a nice one as well and ok not the target species but at least not a blank. Not long after the first boat came through but the lock gate didn't quite open enough so it had to go back and forth and give it a couple of goes before asking for help.

So with a couple of passing gongoozlers with extra muscle on the lock paddles I manned the rope and eventually the boat managed to get fully in to the lock. By now the swim was as knackered as the gate so after trying a couple more chocolate coloured swims I was wasting my time and it was time for the off. 

Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.28

So I was back with Sam to the same swim which 24 hours before produced quite a few bites from Mr and Mrs Slabby. This time though a sleeper Zander deadbait rod out and Sam would fish his whip whilst I'd chill out and watch. This area literally has acres of wild garlic and that pungency hangs around in the surrounding air, no vampires to be seen here, well apart from the Zander that is. 

Now Supercrush Green from Sonubaits was a key ingredient to the success I had yesterday I would say. Why ? Well sometimes confidence is the key in fishing and I've used this a few times now and there is no doubt it attracts fish in to the swim.

A blend of fishmeal and crushed koi pellets it certainly attracted the bream that's for certain but it also kept them grubbing around in the swim. I added a few small pellets in to the mix which helped I'm sure so would this session live up to the whip bending it produced yesterday ?
 

Now locating bream in canals is not always an easy mater. 

The shoals you see tend to roam up and down the boat-road in search of food and in my experience there will only be a few bream in any swim. 

If one bream is seen or caught, it is a practical certainly that there will be others in the vicinity.

Now after seeing a decent one roll here many moons ago when I was chasing canal Zander it is an obvious place where the roving angler would stop and set the gear down. 

You see from a rather lacklustre looking canal all of a sudden open country side and feature aplenty. 

Bait I'm sure goes in here more than any other area in a good walking distance. It's just one of those areas that screams fish and believe you me from often huge quantities of very featureless cutting all of a sudden you have plenty going on from reeds, overhanging trees and submerged roots. 

Now I'm not likely to visit a commercial venue anytime soon where spods of bait add to the fishes girth, but any leg up the ladder on these sort of forgotten venues is a must if you are to get a bite or two where often sections of canal can appear and often are devoid of fish.

And talking of devoid of fish, well Sam and I hot footed it to the same swim where bites were aplenty but there was a huge chop on the surface where the wind was making if difficult to see the float. 

After feeding the swim as before I thought it was only a mater of time before Sam's float would go under, but no, an hour went by with no action whatsoever. Those fish most likely vacated to another area of the canal.

Perseverance brought a bite though and at first I thought it was a hard fighting hybrid, but no it was another eel which do seem to have made a comeback on this canal. Now I'd have stuck it out in the swim but Sam wanted to move so we retraced our steps and set-up 40 yards away where the water was still which made the float easier to see.

The first culprit to hover in the maggots was a ruffe which was a welcome sight considering the predatory fish that live here too. Which reminds me throughout the 2 hour session the Zander rod fishing a roach deadbait didn't have anything pick it up whatsoever.  
 
24 hours is certainly a long time in fishing where canal fishing can often be bomb or bust. This was definitely a bust session compared to the last.

Another move with Sam now searching for sticks and stones to annoy his Dad, we only fed maggots this time and 15 minutes with the float in the water it buried and a lovely plump roach succumbed to Sam's whip.

And that was that, it was a scratching round for bites day where the bream were nowhere to be seen. What an odd session, we'll be back though, there is some nice fish here and to be honest, it was nice to catch a variety of species even though they were not the intended target.