Canal Roach — Ghosts

The roach campaign on the Oxford Canal is now well underway. Well, underwhelming is probably the correct word for it, because on Friday I uncovered a few home truths about my first port of call that I hadn't reckoned with. I got to fish bread at Grassy Bend without a boat passing by for an incredible four long hours. I packed up and went home frozen stiff by an increasing chill wind when the fourth hour had passed by so who knows? There may not have been another boat pass through the rest of the afternoon...

However, what that period of uninterrupted peace framed was a distinct lack of fish. In four hours work there should have been at least six or seven bites. That's what the Coventry Canal would not fail to give in such a time frame at just about any location I know of even during the toughest of times. But I had just one. 

It arrived just as it should at around the three-quarter hour mark. That's typical when fishing bread over mashed bread in wintertime. Almost a rule. It was also a typical roach bite. The float shot up in the air without prior warning and a good fish was hooked. And it really could have been that 2lb roach I set out for the way it fought. 

Jag, jag, glide....

When I saw the flash of a broad silver flank deep down in the murky water I went all jelly legged and giggly headed thinking I'd cracked the barrier first try because the fish was clearly a good two-pounder.  But then it came up in the water and rolled over when I saw a white underbelly with two pairs of pink fins. 

All ideas of roach went out the window. With the Grace of God this must surely be a simply monstrous silver bream heading for three pounds...

Only in the net did I realise that this fish was something of a disappointing freak. It looked all the world like it had to be some form of hybrid because surely it could not be a true bream. Not a hint of yellow-bronze anywhere, just a plain silvery white from tail to snout. Except for the pairs of pink ones the other fins, that should be a mid-dark grey in normal bream, were colourless and transparent. I had to turn my back to the sun to get a picture of it in the shade of my body otherwise the camera couldn't cope with the blinding reflection.

But checking the oddly wonky lateral line, the scale count was way over fifty and absolutely conclusive. Nothing more than a common or garden bronze bream, I'm afraid.  It was one of those strange 'ghost' bream I'd seen years ago swimming beneath the ice a mile up the road. 

A 'ghost' bream accompanied by dark fish of normal colouration

The shoal I saw was about forty strong spread over a large area in small groups of two to five large fish. All were the normal colour except for a couple that were pallid white. These were spotted in a group of five and I wanted to catch one from that day on just to examine them closely to see if they were indeed very large silver bream that I fancied were living amongst these ordinary bronze bream.

Shame that they weren't quite what I'd imagined they might be. At two-pounds eleven-ounces this fish would have been 83% of the current British record and a new British canal record too if they had been! 

I have to say that I always suspected that this area where I have always struggled to get bites was actually something of a desert without much to commend it apart from the undeniable fact that fish when they are caught there do tend to be large roach. Now I was certain that my past ruminations were correct. It really is very sparsely populated indeed.

Which begs the question — should I return to tough it out there or should I explore alternative options elsewhere? It's the specimen hunter's eternal dilemma, isn't it? Do you fish where a proven track record has already been established or seek to confirm a new place with all the uncertainty that entails?

Thing is, for long sessions it does provide what few other places do. And that is, as the venue's name suggests, large spacious grassy verges. And they provide a great deal comfort. Also the ravens were back on the pylons. Two pairs now. And they are quite an entertainment chatting amongst themselves and soaring around while the hours pass by, one by one.

Another try or three, I think. Early mornings perhaps...

Commercial Perch — Gimme Shelter

I don't usually endure atrocious weather if I can avoid it. However, yesterday morning we had a perching trip planned during what was forecast as a period of heavy rain and high wind. I remembered that I had a brand new fishing shelter that I'd never used stashed somewhere in the house so I thought it the perfect opportunity to test its mettle. 

It was simple to set up. Well, as easy as it could be given the wind trying its best to wrest it from my grip, but once pegged down it provided perfect protection against the elements. I'm usually quite neat and tidy having done so much canal fishing in the past where tackle must be laid out in military order so that things don't get broken by passing bikers hurtling down the towpath hell bent on beating some personal time trial. However, within the hour the interior was strewn with jumbled gear and soon assumed all the appearance of a 1980's Stonehenge free festival tarp bender on an acid trip comedown.

The fishing was pretty dire. I didn't get my first bite till the 2 hour mark and then all I caught were bream, hybrids and the very occasional roach from that point. At least I upped my hybrid score on the challenge board by 7 points...

I've never thought heavy rain a good thing where perch are concerned. Or roach come to that. And I'd caught neither by noon. Actually, the only kind of fishing that really works in heavy weather is long stay carping and the like. Then getting a bite during the worst of it is not a hardship. But when float fishing it is a busy style that demands a high work rate, so everything gets wet and muddy and there's no way to stop the gradual accumulations of these minor discomforts, Before long it's a mire and the only way to avoid it getting worse is to stop fishing till it ceases.

My swim became alive with fish by degree attracted by a constant drip of chopped prawn. Perch may love them. But so does every other fish and I was stuck with them and them only. Normally I have an answer to that problem but moving to somewhere more productive of perch was not on the agenda today. I had a shelter set up! 

2lb 12oz perch rescued

The weather broke early afternoon and the rain ceased. I continued catching bits and pieces the rest of the session but Martin finally broke through with a big perch. It would be the only one caught all day long between four anglers around the pond sitting it out for them.

For some reason my camera made a complete hash of the trophy shot. All three takes were completely out of focus and somewhat overexposed though pictures taken before and after were perfectly sharp and well exposed. Quite why automatic cameras freak out on occasion I have no idea. Luckily Photoshop can rescue almost anything except a whiteout. Good job this was not his personal best perch, though!

And before...

My only spell of excitement was evening time and finally hooking what I truly believed had to be a big perch. It was hard fighting, kept its head down, and felt quite weighty. There's no other fish in the lake that it could possibly have been except a good crucian. Imagine my face when some kind of washed out gnarly old brown goldfish with a nick out its back hit the net.

City are at home and the crowd turning out in ten minutes time and we have to avoid the traffic.

Hey! Ho! Let's go!

Crucian Carp — Not Quite Solid Gold

What could be a better way to spend time on a warm summer afternoon than sharing a swim with a friend in the dappled shade of a stand of grand old white poplar on the dam bank of an ancient estate lake and fishing for huge crucian carp? It's the perfect picture of a Great British idyl. One that could have been painted by John Constable and hung in a gilt rococo frame on the mansion's sitting room wall. But substitute 'small skimmer bream' for 'huge crucian carp' and the gilding is rubbed somewhat, flaking away here and there, and the red bole beneath is showing through.

The largest of the day. Best bream too...

The water was the deepest in the lake and was alive with signs of fish. Patches of bubbles erupting everywhere. Before first cast the anticipation was electrifying and when the first bites came and were the most delicate little dibs and lifts imaginable things were looking very good indeed for the rest of the day ahead. All we had to do was connect with one in every ten and we'd surely bag a veritable horde of golden treasures...

Martin scored first. And second, and third. Clearly he was going to have a hard time of it on his side of the swim because all were small bream. And every one a snotty one too. I was having a hard time of it missing bites and bumping fish. Eventually I changed hook — though it felt sharp enough there was surely something up with it. Then I joined Martin in his skimmering. One after the other they came. And then when the sun was high in the sky and the shade diminishing we were joined by small perch too. One of which took a grain of corn.

We went through four bait changes. Worm, corn, prawn and pellet. None made a halfpenny difference. The bream were having all of it and there was no way to avoid them. I laid down a bed of hemp to fish over hoping that if it drew crucians in it would hold them fast. What it produced was an exciting  fizzing surface that continued all day but still the culprits were bream rooting around for every last grain.

Vietnamese folding fishing hat. This summer season's 'must have' accessory!

It was hopeless. But it wasn't in any way depressing. It was a lovely day and it was a lovely way to waste time despite things. We had a jolly good time not catching quite what we wanted.

The frame was spoiled but the picture was good!

Crucian Carp — After Noon

Crucian carp are one of those fish that are fairly easy to find round here. Perhaps I should say that fisheries that contain them are not that uncommon. They live in many local ponds and lakes. Catching them however, is another matter. These venues are not at all like Harris Lake at Marsh Farm where you can fish for crucians specifically. Their bites being very easy to differentiate from those arriving from their main competition, which is tench. All you have to do there is strike at every little indication — tench will pull the float straight under. There's no problem seeing which is which.

A tip off from a local angler fishing the canal put me onto a new prospect. A local free pond where just because it looks as if it should hold them I've tried for them once or twice, but unsuccessfully. He mentioned having caught one to his surprise whilst enjoying a day's general fishing. Asking what kind of size it was he opened his hands and indicated a length that I reckon would be about 2lb, depending on body shape. 

So I went over with a rod hoping to find one for myself. Unfortunately, because the venue is free to fish, not cared for as a fishery should be, and not fished very often, it was choked with weed and so there were just two viable swims open. Before setting off I'd noticed a wind knot in the hook length but forgot all about retying before commencing fishing. It cost me the only bite of the short session when what was certainly a small carp pulled the float straight under, snapping the weak spot under little strain.

I do think it worth a very early morning return soon, and to a swim prebaited the night beforehand to get the fish out of that weed and into the clear. Seems like a plan to me.

My next effort was at Monks Pool in Bulkington. This would be an entirely different prospect. I have caught a crucian there but just the one. It was taken on a prawn intended for perch in early springtime. They are rarely caught because no-one ever tries for them at Monks. All anyone seems to care for are its king carp. It is full of all kinds of species, though. Millions of individuals. Most present in every swim. And therefore crucian bites are impossible to tell from any other. 

I don't think I arrived quite early enough. It was a warm morning and bound to get even warmer later. That would mean after noon it would probably turn into an endless round of arm wrenching tussles with sub double-figure carp. I was not to be proven wrong... 

First swim I managed small rudd and roach, hybrids, perch and bream on both prawn and corn. Moving about I caught more of the same and gudgeon too. No crucians though, and no signs of them either. Of course I knew at some point there'd be carp crashing the party. So I rigged up a barbel rod and flicked out a piece of free-lined crust just to have the first caught by design. It wasn't in the water longer than three minutes before it was engulfed by a pair of rubbery lips attached to 8 pounds of muscle. 

After that three minute knockabout I went back to my float fishing. I'm thinking 8lb would suffice for still-water carp points — I'm probably not going to camp out in hope of a twenty at any point unless it be down the river or the cut. But carp were beginning to show themselves all round the lake by eleven and I just dreaded the thought of getting attached to an endless series of them on a three-pound bottom with all the attendant hassle of re-tying new hook lengths. Then of course, the float zipped away and a small carp stripped twenty yards of line from the spool in seconds. 

Here we go...

It took a little while to tame but was netted and without breakage. Clearly the old bulk spool of 3lb Sensor in my bag was still serviceable and my tying of the spade-end fine-wire B911 up to scratch. But then a swim move brought a proper problem. I'd trickled mashed prawn into the reedy margins of a quiet corner where I'd not seen carp movement, then plopped the baited hook amongst it hoping for a delicate little lift of the antennae to strike at. 

Which I got...

At first I really did think I'd hooked my target because it felt like a two-pounder of one species or another. But then the fish, that clearly had no idea it was actually hooked, became heavier and heavier and heavier. After about fifteen minutes of guiding the fish around in circles in an attempt to tire it, the float appeared and then the shot, and then the huge tail paddle of a carp the like of which I'd thought this lake did not hold. For a while I really thought it was a twenty-pounder. But in the murky water I wasn't sure. 

Very risky short line hook and hold tactics in play. Kept it out of the reeds though...

I didn't see it again for another twenty minutes. I don't think I'd actually tired it much — bored it more likely — but it had begun wallowing. Which was a good sign. I thought I might actually net it eventually if the hook-length could stand the strain of my trying to get it up in the water more often than it was down on the deck.

When I'd managed that I began to see the fish more frequently and it was clear it wasn't quite so large as thought, but still, it was obviously into double-figures so it was well worth being careful with. I netted it (and it only just fitted in the frame) only when I had it make the mistake of coming in close and high at the same time. If I hadn't teased the lump into that position, I might have been at it all day long! 

It was thirteen-pounds nine-ounces and quite a handsome mirror. But was nigh an hour in the beating! 

Because I rarely fish for carp specifically these days, it is the largest I have caught since August 2008 when I was lucky enough to catch a 15lb river fish. I was dead chuffed with this capture. Really pleased. And very impressed with my entire outfit which had coped with a fish it wasn't really built to tame without ever feeling near breaking point. It feels balanced and correct. Forgiving but man enough to fight well above its weight. And that's nice to know when I might encounter a canal carp I cannot afford to lose when fishing for silver bream or roach.

And therefore I'll do something I have never done before and endorse the lot...

Rod: Korum Neoteric XS 11ft Power Float — Feels capable, absorbs lunges perfectly. First proper test of this rod.

Reel: Korum CS 3000 — Predictable smooth clutch without sticky spots, Again, performance when it really mattered.

Main line: Daiwa Sensor 5lb — Cheap and reliable. Doesn't seem to go off with age if kept in the dark.

Hook length: Daiwa Sensor 3lb — Ditto

Float: Drennan Glow Tip Antennae (2 No1) — A peerless float without equal for the lift bite method. Think the larger sizes better for general use. This was the smallest version I think. 

Shot: Dinsmores Super Soft — Does not damage light lines.

Hook: Kamasan B911 (barb-less spade-end fine-wire) size 12 — Holds fish of all sizes without complaint. Surprisingly strong for such a lightweight hook.
Hook tying tool: Stonfo. — Ties super strong knots to spade ends with little effort once the technique is learned. Five turns is best. More or less than five makes for a weaker knot. 

One of the uncommonly encountered  fully-scaled mirrors. Lean and wiry. Like a wildy in many ways.
By far the toughest scrapper I encountered through the day and actually the fairest test of the tackle

After that it was one carp after another and wherever I tried I simply could not avoid them. I think I banked another five or seven. I can't remember quite. I got so used to playing these fish in by degree that I entertained myself by taking selfies mid-fight. Not something I would attempt when playing barbel!

My day concluded with earnings of forty odd points and a climb of another couple of notches up the scoreboard into a comfortable 7th place. Not bad work. I only got my license a month ago and was at the very bottom in last place not so very long before. More importantly, though, this challenge sees me fish with burning desire, zeal and passion. I really do want to do well at it. It feels good to try hard but work harder.

It even feels good to catch carp again...

Every now and then, I might add!

Canal Roach — What Really Matters

When fishing for roach only one weight really matters. Not two-pounds as you may have been led to believe. That target weight is for general anglers who never fish for roach seriously and never will but occasionally might snare a big one by accident. No, one-pound is the target when you fish by design and this rule applies wherever a roach angler might fish, because, if you can't catch pounders there on a regular basis something is seriously wrong with either you, your approach, or the venue. 

Today, for a change, my perennial one-pound target served two purposes. Firstly to determine where I might catch better much later in the year when roach fishing is slightly less tricky than it is by default the whole year round. Not every peg on a canal is a good roach swim. Few are. Secondly, to secure points on the scoreboard and progress up it by degree. I started very late and have some very fine anglers to compete with who I must be in contention with or I'll not sleep soundly...

"Number five, have you got ants in your pants or what? 
Keep still boy, this a year class photo!"

First swim was skimmer central. I had five between four boats in half an hour. The bites were confident   at first, but the mash was then stirred up and bites could not be got straight off the deck so I shallowed-up and fished mid-water where I continued to catch till suddenly the swim died. That's fishing bread in canals for you. When it's terminal, you either move along or go home because once destroyed a bread swim is a very tricky thing to rescue.

I moved two pegs down and decided to fish there without groundbait. It worked well. First fish was a roach of half a pound, the second and third and fourth were blades in the two-ounce range. This was at the very least a roach swim and not a skimmer swim.

They look kindly enough, but are the purest evil...

More boats came through but the lack of groundbait and the scattering of the same throughout the breadth of the cut by propeller wash, seemed to keep fish coming. They were not scurrying off chasing bits of it, I do believe. And there was just the one dollop of white stuff to focus upon, which had my hook in it. 

At last I hit a proper fish, and banked my target for the day. A roach, and a pounder.

Beautiful fish are one-pound roach. They do look large, are very, very handsome, and mean all the right things if better is what you are after. 

Then a pair of voles exited the brambles. Could I get both in frame at the one time? As heck as like...

Very pleased to see them in town, though. But I wasn't so very pleased to see the culprit of the next 'roach' bite...

 I'm just a littleun', innocent, like... I surrender. Spare me!"

Avon Bream — Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box

Having to compete for best swim is never fun but when the rivers are as low as they are now many stretches have just one or two viable options available and they are invariably filled on the weekend. Martin and I met up with Joe down the Avon early Saturday morning. Joe was already fishing Martin's first choice and my first choice was occupied too. That left the rest of the river at our disposal.

Sounds OK, but unfortunately the rest of the river seemed devoid of fish. I had two alternative swim choices. The first a very deep peg that I thought might contain bream and tench, but it was so sluggish I might as well have been fishing a lake and I didn't get a bite there. The second, which always fishes well with a bit of a push on but does not have the same character without it, offered up a single knock on ledgered meat and a pluck to the same but trotted. Martin fared similarly. However, Joe banked three barbel...

Lucys Mill at Stratford-upon-Avon on Sunday afternoon was an outright disaster. On arrival a moored boat occupied a large part of the available bank with two float fishers trotting maggots above holding two of my first choice pegs. So I was forced to fish my very last choice swim downstream of the boat. With a great pool of water to fish you wouldn't think that a problem but bream were my target and they are found, as you would expect, in a shoal that I think prefers to be where I could not cast to without winding up the other two fellas. 

It was very slow fishing indeed. Just as bite-less as I thought it would be. When the boat moved and a little later the match boys upped sticks too, I was in their vacant pegs before their exit tracks through the grass had puckered back up. It was little better, But, there were at least bites coming every now and then. 

This unique place is that rare river fishery that can provide the angler with 40lb bags of large bream in the middle of a sunny afternoon. This afternoon is as sunny as you like. Casting every few minutes in order to put down a bed of brown crumb and corn as accompaniment for my hook bait of corn and worm cocktail, I'm pretty certain that I will find that big bream of mine.

But then two very small boys turn up. Say they'd recently caught a hundred-pound carp. Of course, I carefully pick apart the details of this remarkable capture and by stealth try to ascertain not only the venue but the swim too...

Can't tease an inch of sense out of them, but mention "this carp of yours would weigh more than either of you (if not both !) slung in a Lidl carrier bag hooked beneath a set of Ruben Heaton hung on a portable gantry". They look nonplussed. Then disappear but then reappear minutes later armed with carp rods. Say they will now fish for carp, but "could you set up for us"?

Ah crap. They've no weights, no hooks, no nothing else, but at least they have line (and thick springy line at that). So I rummage around in my box for the least valuable leads I can find which are two plummets I think I once found on the bank that I never have had a use for. Tie them on the ends, then hitch up a paternoster to dangle them from by tying a figure 8 loop knot 6 inches above to which I attach 2 ft leaders in 8lb line thinking the step down from 25lb to 8lb less ungainly than my alternative option of 3lb. 

I give them both size 8 hooks and instruct them to tie them on themselves. At which point they both sit down in their preferred swim to my right where they hunch over their end tackles in deep concentration. 

About thirty-seconds later one comes over with his knot for my inspection. It's some kind of granny/blood hybrid. Looks like it would hold a gudgeon. So I motion them closer, bite off both attempts, and begin instruction in the fine art of tying the palomar. My practised nimble fingers whip them both up in under a minute. They are astonished. 

"Can we have some bread please, mister?" 

"Yep, and where did you get the rods from, lads"?

"From Dad, he's fishing up there." They explain in unison, one waggling a finger in the direction of Stratford town.

"Why couldn't he set up for you? Is he mentally or physically challenged, or both, or blind, or something?"

"Said he couldn't be bothered to, mister".

All this time I've a beady eye on the rod. It's nodded once or twice but not twice in the same nod, so there's been no need to worry. However my ten minutes of patience is long over and now I'm irritated and becoming stern. Hooking on two bread discs each I instruct them that their preferred swim "is my upstream swim, so can you both fish below me out of harms way, please". And by 'please' I don't mean there's an option. 

Dutifully they drop in where told where I tell them to cast close, in the faster water, which is 'barbel country'. "Behave yourselves. Sit still. And don't turn your backs on those rods for even a moment".

"Barbel"? One enquires. "Are they as big as carp"?

"Depends on the carp, Sonny Jim, but no. They don't get that big here. Nowhere near 100 pounds..." 

I imagine young boys pulled sharply in the drink and towed down to Seven Meadows weir at 15 mph by 16 pounders, but there's a lifebuoy 100 yards downstream, so there's nothing to worry about. I think  — but don't know — that I can sprint that fast.

At last the rod nods twice and the strike meets with the unmistakable brick wall of a large bream running at a right angle to the bank. Plod, plod, plod, donk, donk, plod. In she comes. She's kiting upstream, and then turning downstream, but surely and steadily tacking my way. 

"Cor! What is it, mister?" They ask, mightily impressed by the graceful sight of a well-curved heavy rod.

"It's a big bream"

Three-quarters of the way in the hook-hold fails, but they don't know that, and when the slack is taken up but there's a tremble felt, I'm aware there's a comic moment arriving. Yep, a little perch had taken the worm on the drop as the feeder fell through the deep water to the deck. 

"Blimey, that is a big bream, mister" Is what I'm waiting for, but it doesn't come. 

They blink at me open-mouthed as if I'm some kind of ancient old fool with a head as big and empty as a cardboard box who doesn't know the difference between big fish and little fish when I have one or the other on the end of my line. All small boys may not have not caught one-hundred-pound carp...

But of course, all small boys will have caught small perch.

Canal Tench — This Useless Hour

Wake at 4am. Try to get back to sleep but orexins have already kicked in and are firmly lodged on my receptors. That's buggered my circadian rhythm then, which I guess I'd better realign with an evening's alcohol abstinence at some point soonish...

What on earth can be done with such a hushed hour of the day? Pad silently about the house in dressing gown and slippers at a loss for things to do — make a cup of tea — look out the window at nothing happening. At least my inbox isn't yet cluttered with pokes from friends I didn't know I had or alerts that 26th July is some company's birthday I'll never buy a thing from.

Met Office says there'll be rain by noon but it's a mild dry morning and I think to myself, 'what the heck'. I'll get dressed, bike down the cut, and go earn myself a handful of challenge points if I can't find good reason not to. Will catch something. Might catch well. I hunt around the house for good reasons not to, nevertheless, but there's none to be found. Fishing, I decide, is about the very best thing that can be done with this useless hour. 

For reasons of health and safety not a lot of leisure activities are allowed here. You might die from a 40KV arc, or be beaten to death by irate basin inhabitants.  No soul has had their days  concluded by either fate in living memory, and the fishing, even though carbon rods actually throb in the electrified atmos, is always worth the risk! 

What I really enjoy about the early stages of such competitions as this, is this. They allow me to go fish uncluttered by the baggage of wanting lots of fish or fish that weigh lots. I can just go out and catch whatever there is to catch without vision funnelled down the wrong end of the telescope. If one species won't play ball then play ball with another that will. Not catching? Then try another approach, move to another peg or indeed, another fishery. Caught what's sufficient? Then go catch something else sufficient. Everything counts, and time is not wasted wanting what you can't have.

Hell, I'm even thinking of taking along two types of bait next time! 

But on this morning bait will be bread and ledgered too because bread is in the bag from Friday night and a bread ledgering rod is made up in the quiver. I might be wide awake but I'm still lazy. Target at my preferred spot will be firstly, tench, but I know that bream will show for sure. And roach, rudd, silver bream and hybrids are possible too.

And it doesn't take long for the first, which as expected is a bream. Not worth the weighing, though I guess a pound and a quarter. There will be better to come for certain. And 20 minutes later, sure enough, 13 snotty points flop into the net in the form of another just under three pounds. My chosen spot is nothing if not predictable.

There's a couple of friendly lads fishing nearby. They've enjoyed an overnight session, have lost a big carp too, but they have a little nugget of information for me that I think might just make a big difference here. A zander was also caught in the night but on a large bait that I'm very familiar with but have never employed on the canal. But it wasn't that a zander was caught that was the interesting thing. What was, was that nothing else was. Though all night long their buzzers were beeping and their bobbins jumping...

Sport today isn't as frantic as it can be. There's days here when just a piece of bread flicked to the right spot and without ground bait about it will see fish hitting the net every five or ten minutes and a thirty pound bag amassed in just a few hours. But this morning is steady. A bite every twenty minutes or so and mashed bread needs feeding regularly to keep the pot on slow simmer.  

A brace of slightly smaller bream show but then a huge wrench of a bite flies the tip around bending the rod to the rest and I'm connected to what's briefly a very convincing impression of that tench I came for.  But, the initial burst of speed and power soon falters and I see what I reckon is a hybrid coming in. Never mind. She'll do. They count too.

Shame she wasn't a proper roach at 2lb 2oz. Nonetheless, my improper madam earns a very respectable 29 hybrid points, rounds off this two hour session for a total score of 42, and progresses my name upward a notch on the leader board. 

All went according to plan bar the lack of tench. But there's always the evening to come when I think they may well show themselves and show themselves to a new bait. Might just stay out late and correct the tempo of my days.

Avon Perch and Bream — Glad I've Had Enough of This...

"Ooh, it looks nice, don't it? " Is what I said to Martin on arrival.

And it really did look pretty good considering recent weather events. Cold, warm, dry, wet, icy, mushy, topsy turvy, you name it, we've had it. Why, we even had a rare winter thunderstorm the other day with really heavy hail that for a brief moment transformed Longford into a passable imitation of the winter wonderland we didn't get for Christmas.

The water was a really great colour. Not yet bottle green but sandy olive green and fining down well. How could we go wrong here today?

First cast into my current favourite pool, I had a bite on ledgered bread, the bait I always start off with just because I think it tells you the most about prospects. It's a diagnostoic bait where rivers are concerned because in my experience, if dace, chub and roach and the like won't bite on bread you can be sure you're not going to have an easy time of it with any other bait, or any other species come to that.

Second cast I had a small chub of a pound and a bit, so things really were going to go well.

Then, after a few more taps on the tip the skies darkened, the wind began to howl, the rain began to fall when the the tip fell still — well, not still as such because it was bouncing about in the rest — but certainly not bouncing to the attention of fish.

Then it came down in a massive and surprising torrent lasting all of twenty minutes, the brolly flapping, rain drumming on the canvas, and me holding on to the pole hoping no bites would come now because I'd not strike them if they did.

They didn't, and when the rain passed and the wind calmed they didn't return.

Martin hadn't fared so well, either. His day had started as mine had. A few encouraging bites on maggots but then nothing after the welcome cessation of unwanted precipitation. It seemed we were in for a tough one and as it transpired, so we were. I didn't have another bite in the next three hours and nor did he.

In the end I decided to go all out with worms and try for a perch. Worm being the bait of choice for the desperate because when nothing else will work, they just feasibly might...

That's when I found I'd left my river float tube at home and brought the canal one instead. Luckily it contained a little perch bobber amongst the other useless-for-purpose ones, so that was pressed into service. It just about worked. The water in the pool was a good ten feet deep and the tiny thing was strung a long, long way above the low slung bulk shot necessary to have the bait near bottom in this swirling eddy.

It ambled about for an hour before it finally did something positive. I struck, and a fish was on, which turned out to be the target species — a very welcome perch about a pound in weight. Naturally, I thought it would be the be the first of many but I thought wrong. Its shoal mates had other ideas and the next hours passed by as fruitlessly as they had before.

Then the sun came out blasting the land with fantastic low shot beams of light turning the far bank reed beds incandescent orange. All very pretty, but who cares when there's no good reason to enjoy the spectacle? Without fish to catch along with them, Mrs Nature's sublime lighting effects are just so many coffee table photo opportunities.

But I took them anyhow!

Martin came downstream to join me.

I took pictures of him — then him and me — then me and him — then me myself —and when bored with the exercise went back to fishing.

The perch bobber went about its business, as before. It was kind of relaxing watching a float do what a float does without the prospect that at some point in the foreseeable future it would be doing what it should. And then, about ten minutes after deciding I'd had enough of watching it do what it shouldn't, it dragged under.

Amazingly, the onerous chore of pulling the rig free of a snag turned into the pleasant throb and the enthralling job of a good fish to bank. And it did feel a very good fish too, and it really didn't feel anything like a chub either, and that meant it had to be a perch, and then I got a little worried!

When I saw the broad yellowish flash of an enormously deep flank, way, way down in the pool, I went a little wobbly...

Blimey this was a good perch! A bloody huge perch!!

But, of course...

It was only what I'd least expected!

Ah well...

In the closing moments of a long, grim day, a slim three-pound bream — that for a few exciting seconds really was a fat five-pound perch — made me glad I'd had enough of this.

Canal Tench — Bream #14

With the first feature of a new Total Coarse Fishing series hitting the shelves tomorrow morning, I thought I'd better get out there, do my job and promote sales by catching one of the little tincas the piece is all about. 

Of course magazines don't magically appear in a puff of smoke overnight. The pictures were taken two months ago and the copy written a week later. That makes for difficulties all round when the piece has to be topical at high season for whichever species it's about and for tench, or at least pleasure fishing for tench, that's right now. 

I was after a canal specimen back in May, and that's double difficult. It's not a pit where tench can be almost guaranteed to behave in a certain fashion as the water warms through spring, it's an out and out summer venue where tench are concerned, however, despite cool water and blanking outright for nigh on six hours I did actually hook one at the last but then a snag got itself into the argument and won! 

Tough titty for me... 

Not strictly necessary for the feature though which is more dreaming of catching than actually catching — anticipating exactly the short balmy nights we're enjoying at this very moment when from experience I know tench exit the safety of their weedy daytime abode in the marina and go on patrol in the canal proper. 

I thought I'd give the hours around dawn my best shot so got there by three in the morning intending to fish till six or seven. 

First thing I put out a heavy duty sleeper rod fishing bolt rigged corn well down the far bank shelf hoping to arrest the attention of the more adventurous tench and perhaps even carp, then readied a beefy (but not to the point of overkill...) float rod intending to fish bread well up the shelf in shallow water near cover at first light.

Bream #1

First cast I couldn't actually see the float, but could see where it wasn't. The bread was taken within minutes and the culprit bream. It was taken again ten minutes later, again by a bream. They were really snotty ones too and loused up the terminal tackle something rotten!

The sleeper rod continued hitting the snooze button for the next two hours but suddenly it sprang to life, sank back down again, and went back to sleep for the rest of the session. 

A liner.

In the meantime the float rod was making busy cooking up bream breakfast fit for a canal king, catching one after the other. 

The reeds began to quiver and part trembling as large fish I really hoped were tench made their way along the far bank. 

But could I catch them? Could I heck as like... 

Bream #13

More bream, and then there were seven, and ten bream, soon twelve, and then unlucky for some, thirteeen... 

It was totting up to the kind of catch a matchman would gladly die for. All around the pound to two-pound mark it would have amounted to an impressive bag if I'd brought a keep net, but hadn't. 

I came for tench, and tench alone.

Earlier I'd dropped my last slice of bread in the cut, fished it out, but got there too late and it became a sodden mush. 

No choice but fish on with it I then found to my relief that even very wet bread can still be cast and used to catch fish with. 

You learn something new every day when fishing, don't you?

Soggy mush

Snotty buggers!

Down to the last few discs I thought of packing in because the bream were becoming irksome now but I thought a last cast or two worthwhile because those fish — whatever they were — they were still knocking the vegetables about over there.

Tight to the reeds — a bite, a strike, a feeble flutter and Bream #14 coming home to daddy... and then, by a miracle, Bream #14 woke up and started being like a tench! 

Off it went here and there, and though canal bream can do this when they have a mind to, there's a difference. When they get feisty they occupy the surface and you see them gliding about but when tench start getting angry they run deep, stay down and you don't see them till they're beat. 

This had to be a tench...

At last! 

Sure enough, after a minute or three up came a mean green submarine, 'splash!' and into the net with her.

Phew, I thought they'd vanished but at the last a lovely fish made all the more lovely by the situation.

Lucky too, because if it had been Bream #14 instead of Tench #1 then I think I might well have denied the king of the canal his morning feast and eaten her for breakfast myself, there and then, snot and all.

Handy passerby pressed into service for photo does very good job —
angler reads instruction manual, 'On Tench, and How to Hold Them ...'

Total Coarse Fishing Magazine - August 2013 Issue - in the shops tomorrow morning, Wednesday 10th July.

Canal Tench — Unglorious and in Vain

From whatever age I began to fish for tench I've always held that the first day of the season, the 'Glorious Sixteenth,' must be reserved for them and them only. Whenever that age was, it was very long time ago and in those days the close season really meant something to anglers because they couldn't fish at all and so the end of it truly was cause for celebration, not just a long past-its-sell-by date marking the end of a rather eccentric but typically British silly season. 

The only reason we can't fish rivers March through June is because of the hilariously absurd catch twenty two situation where scientific evidence is required to scrap that license exclusion but cannot be got because anglers must fish rivers at that time to provide the evidence but are not allowed to. So far as I'm concerned the term 'close season' no longer has currency because the season for coarse angling continues throughout the year without stop except where the water moves of its own accord. A nonsense — and if anything nowadays it is the 'non season.'

Anyway, I digress before I even begin. I still do go tench fishing to this very day on the sixteenth of June. Yesterday was no different but the squally weather was horrible for tench fishing how I like it (which is dead still and flat calm) at midnight of the fifteenth so I decided instead to go when the weather seemed to be heading for perfection, which was midnight of the sixteenth. 

I cast my line at the last second of the day and shouted 'Hooray!' but unlike the past when a whole lake would erupt with cheers and fireworks and whatnot, there was no one around to share the moment with but Oscar the dog.

It was a beautiful quiet night though and inky black too because the street lamps of the lane behind were extinguished for the first time in memory and thin high cloud masked the moon and stars.

I expected bites immediately, but sat there expectantly watching the dull red glow of a handmade night fishing float for the first three hours without so much as a sniff of one. I knew they'd come though, they always do where I was fishing.

Just before dawn the red tip finally made its way under, I struck into what I really thought would be a tench, steeled myself for the cut and thrust, but got only flap and plod. Nevertheless bream are often followed by tench in the dark hours, and so I cast back to the same spot and sat back to await the first tinca of the new 'anti-non season.'

The bite when it came came fast. Just seconds after I'd sat down I was up and at it, but once again, a slab. Ah well, this wasn't the plan at all. Sure enough, the next cast barely had time to cock before it was away and under. I felt the same sluggish resistance for a second and then it was off the hook.

Sunset at sunrise on the Coventry Canal

And that was pretty much that. The bites ceased as suddenly as they'd come — three in the three minutes it takes to land and unhook two bream and lose a third, but only three in the full six hours. I stayed on to see if light would bring the tench around but they never showed. My 'Glorious Sixteenth' was nothing but wholly unglorious and in vain.

Not that it matters much nowadays when there's another day as glorious, tomorrow...

Canal Roach — Poles Apart

Grassy Bend this time around and for me, a second crack at mastering Norman's loaned pole. It felt warm as I stepped out the house when he advised me that contrary to earlier reports about mild weather persisting, now it was set to rain. I fetched my brolly just in case and it was a good move because within minutes of setting up the predicted began to fall.

Canal Roach & Bream — Microdots & Trigger Shots

Another shot at the urban Coventry Canal on the cards should weather conditions allow, instead of borrowing a pole this time around I decided to fish my trusted methods to see if they worked as well in clear water as they do in the coloured water I'm used to.

I went up the shop to buy bread early morning when I saw the canal capped with an inch thick layer and believed we'd not get to fish at all without an ice breaker, but on arrival Norman's worst fears were confirmed... we had cat instead of thick ice to contend with because of the slight difference in temperature between inner and outer city. He'd already mentioned that thick ice would be a good thing but should cat ice form instead it might kill sport stone dead.

Canal Roach — The Pole — Long Arm of the Lore

An army of men stationed in military order wielding a bristling forest of sticks that reach from towpath to far shelf gradually disappearing into the hazy distance. A more natural mental conflation of classic venue and classic technique is hard to imagine and what anyone would believe the ideal picture of such a competition to be. Think canal — think pole... 

The long arm of the lore.

Canal Roach — Enigma Code

Friday evening I met up with local angler, Norman (AKA Reggy Perrin) a man who knows a thing or two about the inner city Coventry Canal. Intimate with those reaches from the terminal basin in the city and out past Courtaulds, his knowledge of what was once one of the country's finest match fisheries is nothing short of encyclopedic

Avon Barbel - Rock Eel & Chips

How often do you venture out, all full of yourself, tooled up, and ready to do battle with the monsters you imagine, only to be brought down to earth with a bump? Given the brief but hectic hour we had last time out, an hour when bites from barbel came thick and fast (but actual catches were admittedly, a little lean) we thought we were in for a session from heaven, Well, at least I did. Martin was suffering a hurt knee and dented pride after a work accident in Stratford, and I know what that does to quell enthusiasm, having recently suffered in the legs department myself.

Canal Bream & Hybrids - A Stuck Record

Despite the fact that the swim I found once promised so much, it seems now that it is becoming something of a bore. It was discovered when searching for my first canal carp and finding not only plenty of bream and tench, but some very encouraging silver bream and roach too, and those last species were the real reason I've spent so much much time on it, of late.

Canal Bream & Tench - Brief Minutes of Lengthy Hours

Approaching good weather upsets fish. They'll respond to changes we might see as positive, negatively. I'm sure of it. The weather we've complained of over the last few months has been settled in its unsettledness, but the fish loved it. Lots of water about makes fish feel good, because water is all they know of the entire universe. I can't fathom what life must be like for a fish...

Imagine if we were confronted with a progressive lack of air whenever the weather turned hot and dry, and knew that if that weather continued and continued, there'd come a time when all the air, would be gone...

Canal Silver Bream - Another No Show

Another morning chasing the elusive silver bream of the Coventry Canal saw an earlier arrival than I'd made for the previous session, but the same approach to the swim, which was to cast a disc of bread up the far shelf and see what, if anything, occurred. It was the same story. It sat there a minute, and then slid away. However there was no brace of silvers off the bat this time around, but the first of a succession of bronze bream.

Canal Silver Bream - Bloody Minded Fish!

Curious fish that they are, turning up in braces on consecutive casts just as often as singles out of the blue -- but for the life of me I cannot ever seem to manage a trio -- silver bream are the most infuriating fish swimming in my local canals.

This morning around 10 O'clock, I set off for the late morning feeding spell, which occurs between half past ten and half past noon in summertime, and especially in hot clear weather with bright sun, and for no earthly reason I can fathom. I was after roach, having recently had two different fish at one-pound, seven-ounces apiece from the spot where I was heading.

A Quest for Canal Carp — In the Light of the Truth

Quite liking the canal night sessions now that I've done a few. You don't see anybody at all. No one is around after dark in stark contrast to daylight hours, when it's a busy thoroughfare populated by all kinds busy going nowhere important, just feeding the ducks, jogging, cycling, walking the dog, or coming home from Tescos. I have it all to myself by 11pm, and all night long if I want to stay on.

That's good. I thought I might get stuck with some prattling drunk all night, or have to deal with lonely insomniacs, and to tell you the truth, I fear that almost as much as getting stuck with a nutter who I can just push in the cut if he gets too lairy