Friday 8 February 2013

Much Ado about Nothing Doing

When it's boring and you're waiting for a bite that looks like it'll never come, what do you do? I mess with the camera and take shots of nothing doing just in case something does. I even take them just in case nothing does, because what might be a really interesting blank where something 'important' occurs which might make 'nothing doing' well worth writing about, still requires pictures of something doing.


It's a blogging law that must be obeyed. No fish = write the backstory. No pictures = no story.

Waiting for bites on the Coventry Canal


So I went down the cut, flicked out a disc of bread, fished it over a small bed of sloppy mash and waited for the first bite from a roach which should have come more or less at the hour mark because it usually does during winter fishing this way. Meanwhile I messed with the camera just in case nothing happened, which it did. Nothing occurred to me of any importance though so I was glad I took pictures of nothing important occurring otherwise there'd have been nothing to write about at all.

It was wet, it was miserable and it was utterly dull. The float just sat there promising to move without delivering.

Without pictures that would have been the size of the blog...

I wished I'd taken the dogs along just to annoy me. Molly would have gone in and woke the fish up. Oscar would have eaten all the bait whilst I wasn't looking forcing me off early. I would have had pictures of something more interesting than my own glum boat looking at a float.

This morning I took the dogs out lure fishing for pike. I couldn't fail to have something doing with a spinner and two springers in tow. That's a recipe for some kind of success, surely?

Lure fishing on the Coventry Canal
Well I didn't catch a thing except an endless succession of various bits of crap off the bottom, one of which felt so much like a pike bite that I struck it and carried on pretending for a while that a carrier bag full of water really was a thirty pounder because it felt just as heavy and ponderous as any dead one would. At least Oscar who's very young and wet behind the ears took a shine to the spinners and tried every cast to grab them mid-air, which was very entertaining for ten minutes but a royal pain in the arse thereafter.






Tomorrow I'm off to the river for a spot of roach fishing, a place where where nothing doing is very unlikely what with the stretch in question stuffed bank to bank with fish of all species ravenously hungry after not seeing angler's baits since November time and queuing up for mine.

I shall shoot lots and lots of pictures though, just in case...

13 comments:

  1. I admire your ability to write so much with nothing to write about, Lets have a fish next time though Jeff!

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  2. Yes let's! Lots of, or one biggy, I don't care. Gudgeon will do. Starting to forget what fish really look like.

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  3. That opening paragraph is a masterpiece of gobbledigook. Brilliant in its double dutch and needs to be read twice to make any sense, but it does in the end. :)

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  4. I think somethink went missing in the goobleldegook! The last sentence,first paragraph, it went tits up. Was OK when published.

    Corrected!

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  5. Jeff, have you lost your mojo on big bars of silver?... You was baggin up last year infront of me & I was full of jealously!!!... My lads addicted to pulling them big canal silvers in now....hope to see you soon
    Ivan..

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  6. No, I hope not. Just a couple of blanks at a spot that had no history of big roach. I caught two fish at the pound and half mark last summer and a one thirteen was found dead there too. So it seems likely there's a shoal of large fish about...but where? You know canals Ivan, the big roach shoals are very localised.

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  7. Which reminds me, I bought a 506 a year ago on eBay and haven't used it yet. I must dig it out.

    (Your) blanks really are useful!

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    Replies
    1. George you must. Great reels for constant casting. I think fishing without blanks would be very dull, but I do hate them anywhere else but the canal, where I can walk home as soon as it's evident its not going to happen.

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  8. Jeff, I just want you to know...the coventry canal is the hardest soul destroying canal I have ever fished....that is why the grand union is my first choice....jeff every fish you catch at sutton stop you deserve a gold medal!... Last summer our fish in together you deserved an OYLMPIC MEDAL for your catch!....
    Ivan.

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  9. I don't know any better Ivan. I know the locals never seem to catch very much but I do well out of it so I believe that's normal. The only time I ever fished the Grand Union with bread I caught bream very easily, it has to be said.

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  10. Jeff, in the winter time at the Grand union, the bream switch off and the big roach come on the feed ...hence the big silver bars I post on your FB... but you are right, come the summer time the bream come on the feed with a vengance! and they are easily caught with the right knowledge and tactics!.... How ever applying these same tactics at sutton stop can prove fruitless in almost perfect looking condtions....however this year...if it kills me.... Im gonna crack our beloved sutton stop ... Coventry Canal.....
    If there is one thing iv learnt about sutton stop is that at a certain time of the day the fish can switch on like a frenzy..... Hence me witnessing you bag up on tench and bream!
    Ivan.

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  11. It's probably to do with clarity, Ivan. Only a few boats very now and then makes a difference I think. The fish become very cautious until late on. On the coloured canals it seems that time of day doesn't matter so much nor does disturbance. The GU is very active for water movement, isn't it? All those locks. The Cov hardly ever moves at all unless it rains like stupid

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  12. Good comment about water movement & colour jeff, yes you could be right, 2 weeks ago at the GU, bites were thick & fast .... Until the brightest sunshine came..... then it went slow...until the witching hour....then it picked up again.... Like I said to you in the past, I clip up so the feeders just under the boat ..." in the darkness of the shadows"... and yep there is always a boat or two to cloud the water....so Jeff this is another part of the jigsaw to cracking the coventry canal...
    Regards Ivan.

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