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!

Canal Roach — Kinda

After testing things out near home and satisfied that things would work having hooked and banked a roach/bream hydrid at the lower end of the size range of roach I hope to catch, I went to the venue earmarked for my winter roach campaign to see what trouble would lay in store when two helicopter rigs were cast into the tricky place.

I've started out fishing these rigs wrongly on purpose and for good reason. I do know how is best. They should be fished on a very tight line to the rod and the heavy bobbins clipped on high to register only drop backs. I used them the first afternoon mid-way, so that I could view more of the truth of the matter. That this might make them less effective meanwhile is not the point. Seeing what happens during the bite is. Clipped up tight it's all or nothing. I want to see rises and falls and drops and lurches. All good information to my mind

Secondly my hook links are currently at six inches length and set to hang from the mainline at about 7 inches up from the feeder. They should be 4 inches or less and set just half an inch higher up the line than that so the hook cannot snag the top of the feeder. However, having them work perfectly all the time every time from the outset is not how I learn things. I want to see how they work when set up incorrectly.

And I soon learned something that demands that I must change things to suit this venue.

Boats passed by without problem. Fishing the inside of a long and very wide right-angled bend meant the track was way off. Those that came all took this line and missed my near shelf casts by miles. No rewinds necessary then. However, then came along a convoy of three genuine working boats with professionals at the helm.

I'm always happy to watch this kinda craft pass through. Their skippers are expert!

Strangely, I was just thinking about why I'd not caught perch... and then one appeared!

These fellas don't tiptoe round the corner afraid of what's out of sight. They really gun it hard to get their very long and fully laden vessels round in a smooth clean arc. You should see one towing a butty of equal length round the sharp 360 degree hairpin outside the Greyhound Pub. The missus pumping that great big rudder to not only steer but power it round. It's very impressive stuff. All in a day's work. But this show of gumption churns up the bed no end and chucks all the rubbish about. A lot of which was found festooned around the rigs on retrieval.

The second and more serious problem was that the long hook lengths were twice found tangled in looped knots around the mainline and itself. Turbulence on a tight line had caused them to do the propeller motion they were designed for, but the long supple link had been able to turn in on itself.

However, I did not shorten them. There was more to learn. 

First fish I had was fish in name only. A crayfish. And recasting to the same place I received more bites from them so I cast elsewhere. Then there were a few short pulls of the tip that never shifted the bobbins.  These were from fish. The maggots were expertly skinned so probably from roach, but I was not to discover which species actually caused them. I suspect the incorrectly set up 6 inch rigs had failed to prick as they always should when tied up 'right'.

Big roach don't need to be given nearly an inch to take a mile out of an angler! An inch or two will be subtracted next time... 

What a two and half-pound canal roach kinda looks like...

I left the place satisfied that I'd identified what needed to be sorted at home and then tracked back down the towpath and set up for the last hour of daylight in a banker swim. A fish topped that I fancied was a very good roach indeed so I cast to it And then the heavens opened and I was caught in a long, heavy  and persistent downpour of rain. Of course, the bobbin dropped to the floor during the worst of it when I found myself attached to a strong fish that I wondered might be a small tench.

When I saw it in the water I then had the thought it might be a very large silver bream indeed and one to smash my personal best. But at the net I knew it was another hybrid. But I wasn't complaining. At 2lb 7oz it was a new personal best for roach x bream. And was slap in middle of the size range that I predict for true roach at the venue where I'd just been instructed in advance of wintertime pursuit by boats, crayfish, and purposely ill-tied rigs.

'Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted'. 

The rain wasn't easing any time soon so I attempted a quick shot of the fish straight off the ground.

Kinda worked...

But room for improvement.

Canal Roach — Round the Bend

Had an idea going round in my head lately. There's this canal, you see. And it contains roach. Big ones and proven ones. Not ordinary roach, mind. I truly believe that it holds monstrous roach that you would not believe the size of. In excess of wildest dreams, if my calculations are correct...

The trouble is, the venue is almost impossible to fish effectively but through the night and very early morning times and that is because it is plagued by an endless two-way procession of you know what. That thing I cannot abide. Those once essential but now pointless contraptions that make life hell for the canal roach specimen hunter. 

Imagine, if you will, that one day the motorway system becomes redundant because technological advance renders the vehicles that ply them redundant. They moulder. But Mother Nature transforms them into pretty strips of weathered and crumbling tarmac on which weeds grow tall, butterflies flutter by, hares frolic, and on which pedestrians and cyclists might get to work or take a casual stroll along after. Then imagine that business-minded upstarts buy up all those rusting articulated trucks, punch holes in the sides for windows and kit them out with galleys and bunks. And then rent them out to holiday makers who'll burn tens of gallons of diesel fuel in pursuit of joy by making pointless journeys to nowhere and back again. 

Did I digress? 

Now I said, specimen 'hunter' because I meant just that. A person who goes out and actively hunts prey. Moves around. Does this and that to improve chances. Changes tack. Changes mind. And all to put himself at some small advantage in trying to gain a winning edge against very tricky quarry. Anyone who knows me well will testify that I cannot sit still for long in any swim unless I get the right kind of bites or expect them to come with certainty. I am a hunter by my very nature and never more so than when roach fishing.  

I am not a natural specimen 'trapper' by any means. It is not me who digs a hole in the ground, covers it with sticks and leaves, puts a morsel of food on top and waits for as long as it takes for prey to follow the scent trail and fall in it. That is what I never could abide. All those fruitless hours spent wondering if things are right. Are the rigs correct? Is bait is the right one to use? Was it cast to the right place? All the million little concerns that plague the trapper's waking hours. Who has no idea till his hapless prey falls in when he's fast asleep whether or not it ever will... 

It's no wonder carp anglers buy so much tackle. They have a lot to think about while they wait, and wait, and wait. Maybe this will work better? Maybe that will work better? After yet another blank session during which the uselessness of an approach is revealed, they'll go straight out and buy the answer. And then take the new kit to the bank along with the doubtful stuff just in case it was right after all but the prey were asleep at the time. All piled high in a wheelbarrow. 

Well, I think I have no choice but dig my holes and prime my traps if I want those roach I anticipate, because this venue demands I do. I really don't see any way round it. I cannot keep a float in the water for nearly long enough and when I think I might get a whole half-hour of interrupted calm, round the bend comes yet another.

It's not that I hate the drivers. I don't know them. And cannot judge them. I can't see what kind of footwear they've chosen to go with their appropriately broad-brimmed but usually ill-fitting style-free headwear.  And if you cannot see a man's shoes then you cannot make character judgements about him. Ask any woman if you don't believe me. Women always check your eyes and then your shoes before smiling your way — for the quality of both together belie a man completely. 

The only one I ever saw wearing equally great hat and shoes was a woman...

Surprised I noticed at all when I couldn't take my eyes off her lovely bum. 

An 18 inch roach pan and a very compact outfit

So, anyhow. I digress yet again and must get back on track. This morning I began by tying up helicopter maggot-feeder bolt-rigs and then went round the corner to my test bed swim to see what might happen. I was hoping for roach but didn't know what I'd get. I suspected lots of small perch and skimmer bream. Maggots draw both like nothing else...

The buzzers have no batteries in em. Merely convenient rests. I like to be alert at the wheel and may not buy any for the planned future. The rods are little nine-foot Shakespeare wands teamed with ABU reels. Both are excellent at the job in hand and the outfit fits neatly into the confined spaces of canal towpaths. The feeders are two little green things once given away for free on the cover of some magazine or another. Very small capacity of just twenty grubs. I added extra weight to them by cutting up scrap lead flashing found in a skip into strips and folding it around the original too light pieces. I don't want to spend money I don't have to, and over-feeding on canals is the kiss of death in every instance. 

I was most surprised at sitting about for half an hour without so much as a touch. Fishing the near shelf and at almost a straight line along it I survived three boats in a row without a recast. Something of a miracle that every one passing by actually stayed in the track when yesterday one misjudged and crashed into the bridge by making too wide an approach on the bend. I was just beginning to doubt my traps when the right-hand swinger twitched, rose and fell, and then slammed into the rod. This was not a roach and neither was it a bream. The creature was mad as hell and somehow that I still cannot figure, managed to get under and then cleanly over the other line to be beaten and banked on the left side of it.  

It was a hybrid, of course. But I was very happy with that result because it was very 'roach like' and if the rig would catch such a fish then it would certainly catch my roach too. Experiment concluded. But I stayed around for another half hour to see what else might occur.

I had one more bite and a small skimmer to show for it. But at least there was just the one to show for it. And not even the slightest sniff of the dreaded gorge swallowers. Believe me, where I'm going that is going to matter very much.

If I can beat both of them and the boats too then I think I'm in with half a chance.

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 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.

Canal Tench — Dustbin Lids & Farthing Kites

Location: Coventry Canal. Subject: tench. Swim: particular. Arrival time: critical.

Four O'clock in the afternoon is a little too late in the day to be certain of securing it and so I thought we'd probably not get the right peg because it is the most desired swim on any canal round these parts. Either side of it you'd think the cut was entirely fish-less the way some local anglers behave about it but we did get it and set up in it. About half an hour after we'd settled down a couple of well-known middle aged lads, bikes strapped up with tackle and hung down with bait buckets arrive for their pre-planned canal carp overnighter.

Round the corner, no doubt, they were brimming with optimism, laughing and smiling as they discussed the night ahead and how best to go about it, but now on the home straight and with us two interlopers in plain view — they approach — flying faces like a pair of farthing kites!

We're fishing, of course, right where they'd planned to be...

You'd think they'd either have gone home and forgot about it or more likely set up nearby and fished till our planned departure some time after dark, but no. They plonk down dejectedly on the bench to our left and do nothing. It'll be a quarter of a day before we'll move but they're going to sit and grumble and glower at us till that long distant moment arrives.

"Jeff, when you've finished fiddling with that fag come over here and feel my rod' Says Martin, "It's throbbing!"

Sure enough, stroking my hand along his stiff, sleek, black length, it is...

"That'll be your electric magnetism, mate". Says I.

My circle hook experiment continues. As before, one rod fishes a traditional J hook, the other a circle pattern. Both are baited with corn and both use the same helicopter rig with six-inch hook-lengths. What would the canal tench make of the difference, if and when they turned up?

I thought my first run (and what a belter it was)! should confirm things but picking the rod up and winding down to the fish it was clearly not a tench but a bream. However, at the net it looked for a brief second like a very big roach — and I do wish it had been because it went 2lb 6oz on the scales. A hybrid but a very nicely proportioned one more roach in appearance than bream.

As with the roach caught the previous session, once again the circle hook hold was perfect with the fish hooked squarely through the lower lip and as before, dead centrally. This fish's mouth was very much like a pure roach's mouth, in fact. And that was duly noted as — and later turned out be — significant.

All the tench I'd caught at Lemington Lakes (see previous post) were hooked the very same way. However, all the bass I have ever caught on circle hooks (and once I began using them it quickly became a running total of many hundreds) were all hooked in the scissors and remarkably all were hooked in the lower left hand side of the jaw but never the right and the result was the same whether ledgering or trotting a float down a creek. That has to be because bass snatch up food items and just like J Edgar Hoover, they never turn left.

Tench, roach and hybrids, and probably all bottom grazers, clearly don't do that. They'll pick up the bait with their heads down, rise up in the water, and straighten up. Also, unlike bass or perch, pike and zander too, all of whom have generally similar jaw arrangements, such fish are not predators and don't have pronounced 'scissors'.

I wondered, though, if the circle pattern would snare the inevitable by-catch of all my canal sessions to date — bream — a fish with an extensible tube for a mouth...

The answer seemed to be, no, they wouldn't, because Martin was landing one after the other while my circle line to his immediate right was twitching away, the bobbin jumping about every now and then, but without true runs developing. I thought it must be bream taking the corn but the hook failing to prick. I was pretty certain it had nothing to do with tench what with Martin hauling bream after bream just yards away.

Then at last, the right hander fishing the J hook sprang to life and a fish was on, but then it was off again. In a fraction of a second it was lost but not before sending up a large vortex wherein Martin spied a big orange tail. A carp. The hook-link had snapped clean off near the swivel. An unfelt wind knot or a nick in the line had lost me a good fish.

I changed the rods over, the J hook now fishing amongst the bream. Certain I'd have a bream in ten minutes, I was proved right and my theory that circle hooks will not easily catch them possibly gaining credence.

Imagine that, you, you died-in-the-wool tunnel-visionary carp fanatic, you. If circles will catch tench reliably (and I intend to prove it) then they will certainly catch your species reliably too, but even better than that. If they won't also catch bream, in fact make it almost impossible for them to hook themselves, well, then we have just about the most perfect hook for the long-winded job of laying carefully planned traps for the chosen few but avoiding the attentions of the unchosen many, do we not?

We'll see...

Departing when it was clear that tench would not show we left the peg open to the farthing kites.

I have it on reliable account they caught now't besides dustbin lids...

Triple Crown — Three British Records in One Year!

Yes, I've held two British records for some time, possibly three, but without knowing it...

The penny dropped yesterday. Whilst going through my photos I realised that I've caught probably the largest of their types ever documented in this country!

Of course they aren't pure breeds, you'd have heard all about that some time ago if they'd been, so there's no chance they might be ratified because the English don't do with bastards and mules and certainly don't keep records of them. However, the Irish take them very seriously indeed and their official body, the Irish Specimen Fish Committee, accept claims for both roach x bream and rudd x bream hybrids and ratify the largest as official national records. 

Absurdly, those hybrids caught in Northern Ireland are not eligible for British Rod Caught Fish Committee records because there aren't any such kept by them, but pure species from the same country are because it's part of the UK. So Northern Irish anglers can submit claims for any pure bred fish they catch to two national committees and half breeds to one. However, the UK record for roach was caught in Northern Ireland, but the official Irish record is half its weight and hails from Drumacritten Lake which is believe is in County Fermanagh, also in Northern Ireland...

There must be good reason for such an anomaly, but if there is I can't imagine what it might be.

I've always argued that the BRFC records shouldn't include Northern Irish fish because it makes no sense at all to set fish hailing from two entirely separate land masses against each other just because they're joined politically when they're divided by an entire sea!

It's an absurdity very nearly as ludicrous as my submission of a Coventry caught claim to the Irish list because Northern Irish captures are eligible under their rules, Northern Ireland is part of The Union, I'm British and Coventry is in England. Yet that is almost how it works the other way around, with an Irishman in border country able to take his boat onto Quivvy Lough, anchor up in the middle, cast into the UK, and claim a record standing here in Coventry!

Seriously though — I do think we should take hybrids just as seriously as the Irish do. We should at least have a record for our common roach x bream hybrids and rudd x bream too, even though they are far, far rarer captures here.

Rudd x bream hybrids are very tough, hard-fighting fish who'll test the skill of any angler. I know. I caught one last year and it had me at the very limits of my skill and my tackle groaning under the strain. Easily as powerful as the tench caught at the same place, same time, it was thought to be one for most of the fight. Only right at the last and nearing the net did I twig it wasn't. If only there were more of them here, I'm sure they'd attract a loyal following as a sport fish and perhaps get on the list...

That fish, my only specimen ever, almost certainly wasn't the largest ever caught in England at 2lb 13oz  8 drams but I cannot find a record for a bigger one, so I'm claiming the gong!

Err, hang on though — my claim is redundant before I even make it! The Irish have loads of them and their record is much larger than my capture, and given that it was caught in the River Lagan, County Antrim, which is in the UK...

Ah well. Only two records then!

But hold up, NO! They don't appear on the British list and it's an Irish record only.

I retain my crown!

Thing is none of them count. But, the fact remains that they are caught by anglers (whether they like it or not !) and if one is caught and recognised and there are no other contenders then official list or not, it is an indigenous species (well two combined...) and therefore a British record notwithstanding.

I do expect to keep my new records for silver bream x bream and silver bream x rudd, and especially the latter, for a lifetime. The Irish don't have them (so far as I know!) and they are rare fish here. Mostly because they aren't recognised for what they are, and how would anyone recognise a silver bream x rudd when the lake it came from is to most who fish there 'full of hybrids' who are actually pure-bred silvers?  

If anglers can't recognise a true silver bream for what it is then how the hell would they ever recognise their cross breeds?

The only reason I think this fish a rudd x silver bream is because I do know what a real silver is made of nowadays and therefore kind of recognise when it's in a mix with another species and cannot imagine it being anything else. It's got the right scale counts for a silver bream but silver bream are so called for very good reason — they're 'silver' and more so than any other coarse fish but their rival in silveriness, bleak — but this one one wasn't. 

It was golden-hued with purplish fins.

They can't mix with crucians or carp (who knows, they might!) therefore it's either a freak, or what I say it is — a British record silver bream x rudd at 13oz ...

As for silver bream x Bream, well I think I've caught a few of those now, one just the other morning, but I think this fish from Stratford-upon-Avon is the best and sets a new British standard at 2lb 14oz. There's no chance it isn't a record if it is one because there aren't any other contenders positively identified — but proving it is is difficult and quite tricky because I failed to take a proper mat shot and crucial detail such as that found in the anal fin is obscured by fingers. The eye is right and scale counts though difficult to make are still possible and good to go — certainly not a true bream and no sign of roach there I'd say.

And anyhow, even if the claim is thrown out (by whom?) then I have a back-up in the form of what certainly is a bona fide silver bream x bream hybrid of 14 oz caught very next cast and pictured above a true silver bream caught from the same shoal just five minutes later still.

The picture is the best possible illustration of the difference between a silver bream and one of it's mixtures in that there appears to be no difference whatsoever except that of size. But the hybrid just has too many scales.

Hang on, though...

Thinking it one thing I hadn't considered the alternative — that it might be a silver bream x roach instead in which case..........

It's a fourth British record in one year! Hoorah!!!

Shame they won't be taken seriously by the BRFC. But I will be submitting claims because hybrids are important fish requiring recognition and study.

Maybe I'll also submit to the Irish claiming them all as fish caught in Northern Ireland, because technically, they actually were. I don't think it'll wash — the Irish committee at least have the good sense when it comes to fish in recognising the geographical unity of a land mass over its political division and will allow the Irish Sea into the equation — but they'll find the irony amusing, I reckon.

Canal Silver Bream — The Early Bird

Dawn fishing in summer is wonderful isn't it? The most romantic of all fishing experiences ever committed to print, it appears in every good book on the subject of coarse angling because there's nothing to compare. Mind you the conditions have to be just so for it to work — cold overcast or windy weather are not going to cut the mustard, I'm afraid. As a literary device it has to be conducted during a balmy spell of dead still anticyclonic weather with bolt clear skies overhead and below there must be a certain kind of billowing mist, not fog, rising off the water. Only then do we have a recipe for romance.

Approaching Bridge 11 Coventry Canal pre-dawn

Getting there by car and fishing out the boot is no good either. You have to walk at least a mile or peddle a bike six or more, in the dark, and with the rod strapped to the crossbar because arriving full of expectation right at that time when the north eastern horizon begins to glow is everything and that's only increased by the physical act of doing it under your own steam.

I knew just by opening a window on the world of midnight that thing were going to be just so by 3am and that's why I stayed awake just to arrive at the right time, because if I'd slept I might have missed it. I don't know if it makes any difference to the fishing though. There's a great deal written that it does but I find it hit and miss, sometimes the best time of day, often dead flat, nevertheless there's something electrifying about that first cast into a sud-flecked mirror surface that cannot be bettered.

It made not a jot of difference. My patent pending home-made night fishing waggler with its easy-to-see plain white peacock body and red chemical light attachment cocked and stayed cocked. Only when artificial light was no longer necessary did it finally slide away. Not the obligatory tench of dawn fishing legend and lore, nor the hoped for silver bream I'm afraid, but a nice big bronze one instead.

There's romance lost then!

Full daylight at sunrise improved matters when a few more bream were banked including one fish that makes up for the lack of what I went for because it is at least half a silver bream — what I reckon has to be a 'genuine' hybrid with its distinctive silver bream head but bronze bream body.

You might want to take a good look at its head if you're confused about what are the defining characteristics of true silver bream. That's what the head does look like with its big bulbous eye positioned almost at the top of its skull and very close to the end of the snout. There's far too many small scales on the flank for it to be confused with a silver bream though, whose scales are far larger and fewer not to mention much brighter.

Here's a simple ready-reckoning field test for true silver bream and possibly their hybrids. Hold your finger over the eye and move it up and down so that its width appears exactly that of the eye. The eye (the eye socket actually) will fit into the length of the head from end of gill plate to tip of snout from four to four and a half times over but never ever more, the distance from eye to snout is always one eye width or less and the distance from eye to top of skull half an eye width or less and those rules hold true when they are quite small or even very large specimens.

This is not true of bronze bream whose eye will appear far smaller relative to the head size the larger they grow. I believe this is because the eye of a bronze bream reaches a certain maximum size long before its body ever does, rather as in human children, whereas the silver bream's eye continues to grow in proportion to the growth of the fishes body.

Imagine a full grown adult male of our species with eyes the size of Marty Feldman and you'll get the picture...

I packed down around 6:30 when I thought it unlikely I'd get a proper silver and besides, I had a new bird to take care of back home, asleep now snuggled up cosy and warm beneath a swan down quilt but who'd open her mouth wide and beg me just as soon as I got home and woke her...

Before I'd that pleasure though, there was silvery looking thing floating under the far bank brambles that had caught my eye. It might have been a white carrier bag but looked like a bloated corpse of what would be a mighty roach or even mightier silver bream. So, I took the rod along and proceeded to cast after it.

Eventually I snagged and teased it near bank where it was gingerly maneuvered into a carrier bag of my own punched with holes to allow water to escape. I flopped it onto the bank and proceeded to take scale counts and stuff like that because the head was that of a silver bream. However the body had become so bloated and distended with gas that it was the shape of no fish I know of and had split the skin both sides with the scales fallen away so I simply couldn't total them up properly. However, the complete count from dorsal to lateral line was possible to make and was correct...

Head of a silver bream — body of a who knows what?

Appearances were no guide. It was the hue of death with all the colour of its fins and opacity of its scales vanished leaving only the ghost of pearlescence behind. Nevertheless I took a couple of scale samples home because when weighed it was exactly two-pounds eight-ounces, and if a true silver would be a leviathan at 85% of the British record for the species.

I don't think it is though, but can't work out what else it might be. Don't even know what use the scale samples would be to anyone, but they're something else to clutter my mind with, I suppose...

When I arrived home the chick was asleep as predicted, but when tapped on her cosy nest shot out like a jack-in-the-box, mouth agape, showing the arresting pink of her throat, and demanded my full and immediate attention!

And being such an early bird, naturally, she got my worm.

Reservoir Mutts — Smashing Stuff (Pt1)

Second stint at the ressy started off just exactly where I left off last weekend. Same swim, same line, same bait, same plethora of bites. Those silvers do love their bread...

When I'd sorted my tackle about me and got around to actually striking bites rather than enjoying out of the corner of my eye the spectacle of a float plunging up and down like a misfiring piston, in they came one after the other, just as before, only this time the difference was the stamp of them. All little fish these and some greedy urchins with heads smaller than the bait they'd gobbled!

Reservoir Mutts — Equally Smashing Stuff (Pt 2)

Sorry for my sad broken rod, its tip dangling uselessly jammed against the float, I pushed the glass splint back in the splintered carbon socket and retired it to the quiver, perhaps for ever.

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 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.

River Roach & Silver Bream - A Full House of Pain

Some time last week, perhaps Tuesday evening down the cut fishing with Norman, I became aware of a twinge in my leg. A kind of sharp ache in the joint between femur and pelvis. When I sat on my seat and then stood up, it would hurt a little, so I spent most of that canal session sitting on the grass. At home that night, it got a little worse and caused a restless night. By morning, My leg had seized tight and had to be manipulated out of bed, but I thought little of it. I'd overdone the exertions of trotting in a standing position off a rickety, half-submerged pallet on Sunday, and was paying now with a little muscle pain.

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

Canal Roach - The Sun's Burning Your Eyes Out!

Over the last four years I've got so used to fishing the local canals in the late afternoon, through evening time, and often an hour or so into darkness, that I'd all but forgotten that they are actually open to custom, the full 24 hours of the day. It's easy to forget such things. It's easy to dismiss such things. But nice to be reminded of such things by someone who fishes the early hours as a matter of course.

Confounded Fish! - Bream, Silver Bream, Roach and their Bastards

The local canal is where I catch the odd fish that looks like a big roach at first sight, remarkably so on occasion, but who turns out to be a hybrid with bream and roach parentage. It's not like catching one of those rudd x roach hybrids discussed in the previous article, where the body shapes of the parent species are so very similar that a mix is really confusing to the eye. Most of the time with roach x bream hybrids the distinction is really obvious, with the majority of looking distinctly different from both parents. Though they have a mix of bream and roach characteristics, because the parents are so vastly dissimilar in appearance themselves, they look like 'hybrids' at first glance and are rarely mistaken for anything but.

Silver Bream - The Reel Deal

Yesterday was a historic one in angling with no less than three anglers setting out from home with the sole intention of fishing for silver bream and silver bream alone, and without heading for a certain commercial fishery, Mill Farm in Surrey, the Mecca of the species and home to a string of five or six recent past record breakers, to do so.

My Quest for the Magic Two - Rock Steady Beat

Before setting out yesterday for Stratford upon Avon and my beloved Lucy's Mill with Lee Fletcher, I'd spent the morning preparing myself for a two pronged assault upon two species of fish - roach during the daylight hours and then barbel around dusk and into darkness. The roach prep was easy - nipping across to the local superminimarket and purchasing a loaf of Warburton's blue was about it - the barbel prep rather more involved, as you can imagine.

Canal Roach - My Quest for the Magic Two - Nothing for Something

You may have noticed in recent posts that I am now the owner of a pair of buzzers? Well, I haven't used buzzers in decades - the last buzzers I owned were a pair of the first Optonics ever to hit the shops in the early eighties. At the time they were a revelation to those inured to the struggle with Heron buzzers and their ilk, of which I'd a home-made pair built at great labour expense and ingeniously I thought, out of ex-GPO telephony components and bean cans, deliberately designed to equal the remarkable ineffectiveness of the originals...

Silver Bream - Breaking the Back of the Big Blank

Since the freeze thawed and temperatures soared to the heady 10, 12 even 13 that degrees we are currently experiencing during daylight and to a lesser degree, nightlight hours, this month has been an awful one for anglers, for no-one is catching much, or even at all. The blogs may give the impression that here and there, now and then, some level of success is being achieved but the truth is that more blanks are happening than are being reported. The fish have been knocked for six by the sudden and rapid change in their habitat and are sulking their squamous little heads off...