Canal Roach and Perch — The Grubs Don't Work

I could tell that the dogs needed their serious weekly walk but I had plans to get my serious weekly fishing done so I thought I'd combine both and take them to the open space at Grassy Bend where they could run themselves into the ground and I could get a few hours in . The idea of fishing bread was out of the question because it demands my full attention and having dogs about makes that impossible. Then I thought about going after zander. No need to concentrate very hard with them apart from keeping baited hooks out of canine gobs. But I plumped for two rods fishing helicopter maggot feeder rigs for roach. 

I have had some encouraging success trialing this approach on the Coventry Canal where a couple of good hybrids fell, but both times I tried it on the North Oxford it proved useless. Nevertheless, I thought I'd learn something because I'd shortened the hook links to three inches down from six or seven and added an inch of tubing to keep them stiff. I really need to make this approach work if I can because it allows fishing to be conducted during spells of heavy boat traffic and throughout the day where effective bread fishing requires being up at dawn just to get an uninterrupted hour in. 

I need an answer! 

The weather is mild and heavily overcast with intermittent rain. It is perfect even if it's grim. The approach is simple. Cast out the rigs, tighten up and attach bobbins, chuck a handful of hemp and a handful of maggots over each. And wait. 

An hour and a half later without a touch I'm beginning to believe the approach a poor one and maggots next to worthless. Wishing I'd brought a float rod and a loaf of Warburtons along I occupy myself taking pictures of nothing happening just to entertain myself. Might as well practise something worthwhile...

I'm tapping my Timberlands to that infernal tune again. The ground beneath is getting rather sticky, but then I look down and there's a lobworm. This is the third time this has happened now.  I know it is simply that worms respond to tapping by crawling out of their burrows — a habit that buzzards exploit and that old time bait collectors called 'worm charming' or even better, 'fiddling' —  but I can't help thinking this is a sign.

I resist the urge to use it. But this time I do put it in the baitbox for later. Because if these damn grubs don't work soon enough it's going on the hooks instead!

But the trial is not yet over. A trial requires persistence. Another hour and I'll know if maggots are worth persisting with... 

The picture above is no fake. I was trying to get myself 'in swim' together with two yampy springers running about like lunatics in the same shot. A big ask. What I didn't bargain for was that the first bite of the afternoon would come just as the camera's 12 second self-timer began beeping the last second countdown. Good timing, and the very reason I take so many selfie-style establishing shots.

No one ever took a photograph of a 2lb roach bite...

But no one ever took a worse selfie with a small perch!

Nevertheless, the bite was the classic twitch and drop helicopter rig one. Maggots have their stay of execution. And I've a lobbie in reserve...

But nothing happens after. The bloody maggots are just no good and that juicy worm is exerting an ever greater pull on my gut. Just as soon as I detect a fall in the light levels I open the box, halve the poor thing, nip tail and head on either rig and cast them out.

The response is absolutely instant. Within seconds of clipping up the bobbins the right hander drops to the floor. A roach hybrid. The left hander drops while I'm unhooking it. A perch. 

The grubs don't work, they just make it worse. These fish were there the whole time but ignoring them! 

Maybe they were preoccupied with hemp?

Yet another hybrid. But at least it's got roach in it...

Perhaps. But the worms do work and make it better. The rest of the session is a blur of dropping bobbins and frantic Estelle fuelled worm fiddling securing fresh supply of this wonder bait of which I get a further two that I quarter to make eight baits just to keep pace. Unfortunately, not one bite is from a roach. All thereafter are perch around the pound mark and I believe there's seven or eight or nine of them who've tripped up...

Now all this begs a few questions, not least of which is why I have never fished for perch this way. But actually, and more importantly, why it is not seen as an essential part of perch fishing...

None of that fiddling about with disgorgers down the throat or finding the hook hold all over the random place. Each and every single one was hooked squarely and securely in the lower lip. Very clean and tidy. Surgical, you might say.

Also, why did I not realise earlier in my long life that I was an expert worm fiddler?

I could have made a bleedin' fortune!

But most importantly of all. How can I fish worm but avoid perch when it is roach that I'm after?

That is the question...

PS. If you're thinking the lobs don't work for roach, then think again...

Dan's opposite experience

Canal Zander & Pike — Embrace the Void

If there's one thing about living right by a canal full of zander that I consider a great bonus then it isn't that I can go catch loads of them at a moments notice, but that I can go experiment with hooks and rigs and baits and what not without incurring overheads. If you have to travel far and then pay for the privilege of fishing for them, then understandably you'll just want to catch if you can and will choose the most reliable method known even if its success rate is actually horribly low. Experiments cannot be afforded. 

I don't have to worry about all that. My greatest cost is that of half a slice of bread with which to catch skimmers for my bait... 

The void between MX and PT is critical. A membrane of flesh covers it. 

The picture above is the skull of Perca fluviatilis, the European perch. It is well worth studying if you are a predator angler because this skull is the typical one of the Perciformes. All members of this huge order of fishes have similar skulls, or at least all members have the same bones in the same configuration with the same linkages between articulated jaw parts but with often very large differences in skull morphology. Marlins and sailfishes, for instance, are Perciforme but so are ruffe and sand eels. It's difficult to imagine that such vastly different fish are related at all, let alone that they all share a common ancestor. But they do.

There's just thirty or so Perciformes swimming in British waters but only a handful that attract the attention of anglers both as quarry and as bait (and often as bait for another Perciforme!). There's perch (of course), ruffe, bass, mackerel, the various sea breams, sand eels, wrasse, and the subject of this article, zander.

You'll notice the absence of pike. Pike are not Perciforme but Esociforme; a very small order of fishes that includes just two families — the pikes/pickerels, and mudminnows. By contrast, the Perciformes comprise of 160 families, 10.000 species, represent an astonishing 41% of all bony fish and are the largest order of all those animals with articulated spines like us — the vertebrates.  

On the one hand we have a narrowly specialised order that evolved many millions of years ago to exploit very particular niches and have remained almost unaltered since. On the other we have a burgeoning explosion of species each of whom evolved to exploit particular niches amongst a myriad of alternative situations and no doubt continue to do so to this very day. 

The Perciformes are, by any definition, one of the most successful orders of animals that ever populated this planet.

The skull of pike. Notice the lack of voids around the jaw

Pike aren't related to perch, nor are they related to zander (in fact zander are more closely related to wrasse than they are to pike, which seems preposterous but is true). So, the old 'pike-perch' name for zander is most misleading, though it still persists in usage. It's remarkable that bait fishing for zander is for the most part conducted as if anglers were fishing for 'pike-perch', that is to say they are fishing for zander with pike tackle as if zander were actually a perch/pike cross. 

You wouldn't fish for large perch with pike tackle and even if they grew to double figures you still wouldn't, and that's because perch fishing and pike fishing diverged centuries ago. 

The skull of zander. Notice the large void behind the jaw

Our approach to zander, though, has yet to split fully away and develop in its own right and so it remains tightly bound to pike fishing practises because the history of zander fishing is so very brief, sprouts from pike fishing in the first instance, and is yet to evolve into a separate and distinct branch of the sport.

Standard pike fishing dead-baiting approaches applied to zander are not appropriate. The only thing they share in common is that they both eat fish...

The Coventry posse established that many moons ago when just about every blogger about these parts was fishing for them but experiencing disastrous returns on (admittedly small) investment with treble hooks. So we were driven to explain why so many runs were missed without the least indication that a fish was there in the first place, when a thud was felt it might drop off a few seconds later, and when a fish seemed well hooked then one in every two (or three) might shed the hook mid-fight or at the net. 

We were losing up to 90% of chances on a very bad day. 60% on a good one. It was all wrong.

Because the canals are very easy for us all to reach and therefore we could experiment at will, within a year answers were forthcoming. It was found that the mouth of a zander was the entire problem. It just has so little flesh in it that standard treble hooks could not cope. Even in large sizes the three individual hooks were still small and worse, the hook was impaled in the back of a bait and could not turn. So they'd just skate off the bone and only find a hold by accident.

The answer was mostly a hook size and bait size thing. Small slices of fish lightly pricked through the flimsiest piece of skin by single hooks were found to be successful. And these hooks had to be large ones to work best. Sizes in the order of 2 - 2/0 were about right. This approach brought our zander fishing into the realms of normality where loss rates of 20- 30% were acceptable. And then acquired skills might improve it further. 

Missed runs were fewer and fewer between, bumped fish far less of a problem, and it soon became apparent when on occasion five, six or seven runs on the trot were fluffed then it was a pack of very, very small fish that were the culprits.

When I tried an established bass (a perciforme) hook in size 2/0 under a float I found that I'd hook zander always through the void behind the jaw and experience 80% success or greater with them.

But I'm one of those who believe loss rates should not be incurred at greater than 5% for any kind of fishing, be it barbel, roach, or great white shark...

I assure you, the picture above is no advertising gimmick. That is a real hook — the 'Mustad 39937NP-DT Giant Demon Perfect Circle Hook' — and one that will set back the big game shark hunter wanting mako, hammerhead, bull, tiger and great white on his personal best list, circa £150. 

God Forbid they should ever lose one! 

It illustrates perfectly what a circle hook is and what a circle hook does. Imagine that a great white hits a bait and takes it down the throat along with this hook. The point is set at an angle of 90 degrees to the shank and there's a six inch gap between. Because the point is facing in this direction it cannot easily catch on anything unless it hits something to turn around. So the hook is drawn out of the smooth gullet and back into the cavernous mouth where steady tension brings it to the closed jaw. Because the line is pulled against a very large float, the shark's forward motion draws it into the very corner where both jaws meet when it turns and catches around one of them. Against a float that would be the top jaw most likely.

But it only pricks. The fight is what makes it penetrate because there is no striking necessary, in fact that would be a mistake because unless the line is pulled backwards it won't come to the scissors of the jaw as it should.

I draw your attention back to the six inch gap. That's critical. Should a shark with a jaw thickness much, much greater than six inches take the bait (imagine that!) then it's not going to work very well unless it finds thick flesh and Mustad are just going have to create an even more preposterous hook!

But sharks have rubbery mouths. Zander bony ones...

Imagine we take a more reasonable sized circle hook, say a size 2/0, and then try to hook it up to various gauges of metal piping. It can only be hooked fully around pipes with exactly the same gauge of the entire gap or less because the metal is not going to give at all. 

But when a circle hook meets up with a (less than impenetrable) jawbone and wraps round it then the point will be driven in gradually by force. Not very far, but enough. And when they lock up there's nothing a fish can do to shed them. The barb is quite unnecessary, in fact. Once coiled around the jaw they just don't fall out of their own accord, in fact you can slacken off if you like. Take a tea break and let a shark do what it will for a few minutes! 

When used for more reasonable predators such as pike and zander then the same principles apply. I've trialled them recently and can report 100% success thus far. Well, 100% percent success after remembering not to strike as I did with the first two runs under a float when I dragged the hook out in error. Since then I've banked five fish by them (3 zander, 2 pike) without any trouble at all. 

The last zander was taken by a further experimental approach. I'd gone perching down the cut but had a rod made up in the quiver that I'd used on the river a few days prior to the session. It was a simple running ledger rig with a two-ounce lead and a size 1 circle hook. I had an idea. 

What if I put out that rig, hung a stick off the line as a bobbin creating time enough for the bait to enter the mouth without resistance, and just let any fish that took the bait drag the rod in? My theory was that the circle would be taken to the scissors by the weight of the lead because the fish would always be swimming directly away from it whatever direction it went. Then the hook would prick as the line was pulled tight to the rod top. And all I had to do then was pick up the rod and wind the fish in.

I never saw the bobbin rise. I was fully focussed on the perch float and only noticed the bite when the rod began inching toward the water. 

It worked brilliantly!

But it was very lazy...

Rewind to the skull picture and see why it was hooked in bone with minimal penetration

Because it swam off above a lead, then of course the fish was hooked in the bottom jaw but did not actually penetrate flesh. It was coiled around it but locked fast anyhow because the point buried in the bone and tension did not allow the hold to fail. I wonder now if I should keep going with the lead approach but also try another variation on the theme on a second rod? 

What if I use a large float...

And I think it will have to be one so very bulbous in order to create two ounces of drag that it makes me look like a bleeding idiot for using it! 

Might that work better ensuring that the hook can always embrace the void?

I have no shame. I'll try anything once...

Or twice!

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!

Cotswolds Roach — The Seeking Wind

Once or twice a year we make a journey to the Cotswolds to pit our wits against the coldest fishery in all England. I think we've returned six or seven times now. The experience has never been an all out pleasure, let me tell you. And it's nothing to do with the fishery itself which is as spick and span as you'd ever like and stocked with a nice balance of species (and some of them desirable specimens if you know what to go at). But is to do with the peculiar location of it. 

You'll think the day pleasant enough as you close the front door and believe yourself well dressed for it. That's when you must turn on your heels and go back indoors. Are you wearing thermal undergarments? A turtle necked jumper and jeans? A heavy tweed jacket? That's not nearly enough, I'm afraid.

Though I'd dressed in what I consider ample protection for autumn fishing elsewhere, I packed a spare jumper yesterday morning well aware that where we were going I'd almost certainly require it at some point during the day. That point arrived just as soon as I'd dropped the tackle into my first choice of swim...

Here we go again. 

Martin tends not to move once settled in his first choice. In fact I cannot remember him ever changing his peg without being forced off by circumstance in all the time I've known him, which is getting on for a decade now. He's fishing two pegs to my left. About ten minutes after our first casts I hear him call "fish on...", and then there's this sickening splintering 'crack!' followed by, "Oh, Shit!".

His 'circumstance' has arrived.

Lucky for us that I have my roach pole with me because without it we'd be going home far earlier than expected.

I have ants in my denim pants. I'll move two or three times in any given session. But fishing this venue I'll change six or seven times to find my fish because their location is determined by an all important factor and I think that never more so than with our target species. For some reason those roach that live in lakes (and the big ones especially) do seem to like a bit of undertow. 

We have the wind on our backs. Though the water is choppy over the far bank it's quite calm out front but we have undertow flowing left to right to contend with. Martin fishing worm and caster fares well with an opening specimen of 1lb 6oz between plenty of pound-plus perch. But my maggots fail to raise a bite in the first two hours and so I move round the lake a little way and fish worm myself. 

It seems a good move. I do get a respectable roach there and plenty of good sized perch too but the swim dies off and does not seem to be entering recovery any time soon so I move again. More in order to seek shelter from the persistent wind than to actually find roach, I might add. I discover a peg tucked behind a bush that offers what my chilled body requires.

However, there's no denying that I'm going to have to move again because there's just small perch in front of me and too many carp splashing about for comfort. When I hook and bank a small example I decide that either I go to a different lake on the complex where I know there's a sheltered spot and there catch small tench, or, I go back where I started, endure the wind, and pursue big roach with a couple of handfuls of scrounged caster.  

Passing Martin on the way round I see him playing a carp. Looks like the same one I'd just returned a hundred yards away. I think two carp arriving so close together an ominous sign. Last time I fished caster at this venue I caught six or seven roach over a pound in a couple of hours only to have carp invade the swim around 2pm and wreck it. It's 2pm now. Nevertheless, an all out caster attack is what I plan and what I'll execute regardless.

This next and final choice of swim is a more a matter of instinct than anything else. Dropping the tackle on the grass I walk past a dozen options and back again before deciding that I really am drawn to one in particular. It smells ever so 'roachy' for no particular reason that I can fathom because it smells just as much of nothing peculiar as the rest...

However, once summoned for his spaniel-like nose, the judgement of my primal angler must be obeyed. 

Fifty or so of the wonder pupae are broadcast just where near shelf slopes away to deeper water. Then I practise the 'little and often' method — feeding accurately over the float with just a pinch of three or four every few minutes. It soon works its magic but the worm rig must be amended because the sudden sharp dips are impossible to hit. At least I know that I have found roach. Perch would just drag the bait off and produce clear sail away bites.

The shotting pattern is radically altered to allow a single dark floating caster to sink through the last twelve inches by weight of the hook alone and with just one small tell-tale shot above. All the bulk bar one left at half-depth are bunched under the float. This has the appreciable effect of slowing bites down. Finally I hook what I know must be a roach. At just over a pound in weight I think it a promising start. 

The trouble with caster is that the slow fall of free offerings brings roach up in the water. They will then attack the shot and produce many false bites that are almost indistinguishable from real ones. I guess its just something that has to be put up with. Roach never do get any easier. Even when caster drives them crazy they'll suck them in, crush them, and spit them out in the blink of an eye. And I'm getting shelled almost every bite.

So I thread them up the shank of the hook. 

'Clonk!' 

Whatever this is — it's worth keeping.

It's not a carp and I don't think it's a perch either...

"Perhaps it's a bream?".

And I tell myself that's what it must be even when I see a broad green back emerge. 

Just as well. I might have made a terrible blunder at the net had it flashed a bright silver flank...

Calling Martin over I put the fish back in the water for safe keeping — but not before checking the meshes for large holes!

A truly beautiful young thing without a scale out of place. I tell myself against all reason that she might run close on two-pounds because disappointment is so often the roach angler's lot and prudence his best friend. But my other best friend arrives in an incautious frame of mind and he declares it "a good 'two and a half ' any day of the week" at first sight! 

Only the one way to find out...

The pointer of my trusty 4lb Salters bought eight years ago after a very near miss with and expressly for the purpose of weighing my future 'fish of a lifetime', had never registered better than 6 ounces under in all that time... 

At long last it plain sails past the two-pound mark and settles rock steady at three-ounces in excess. 

The sun shone upon the lake for the first time in the whole of the day. The seeking wind petered out and the air warmed. A coincidental lull in the weather. 

I thought it remarkable how very impressive roach of such size are when taken out of their natural element but how very slight they seem on their return. She was as long as my forearm and extended hand to the tip of my middle finger. Yet back in the water such measurements seemed insignificant and tawdry. In a few seconds she was gone.

I'll admit I was quite saddened by her dignified vanishing because as preposterous as it may sound... 

I'd felt the overwhelming desire to take her home.

Canal Zander & Perch — A Turn for the Worse

The Avon was as clear as I have ever seen it be. Chalk stream clear is what it was, but that's not a good thing in a mud stream, let me tell you. What we Midlanders want, is 'a nice tinge of green'. It's what we'd engineer for every fishing day if only we could control the weather. But we can't. 

Meat to the left of me, dead bait to the right

Martin and yours truly were to fish a new stretch. Well, it was for me. I think he's fished it once before. Anyhow, he cleaned up and beat into the weeds not only myself but the ten or twelve anglers taking part in a Saturday morning match. He should have taken part. His chop fuelled perch catch would have paid for the journey there and back, and his costly bait too.

He'd fished a swim I'd occupied earlier for barbel and predators. Then trotted worm over chop introduced via  bait dropper. He had a nice catch totalling about seven or eight pounds, with the best fish going 1lb 14oz. Chopped worm, you see. He did advise a lady competitor to go about things the same way before the whistle. She ignored him. And struggled.

I struggled too. Had a small chub and a few gudgeon on bread when I finally tired of the motionless heavy rods. But really it was quite hopeless. 

C'mon you buggers!

We'd fished the previous night for zander elsewhere. I had two runs after dark, hooked and lost the first to the left-hander toting a conventional wide gape 'J' hook but banked the second to the right-hander which turned out to be a very hard fighting pike of about three-pounds weight. Very cleanly hooked by the circle pattern, and I was very impressed. 

So I thought I'd pursue my experiments with the very same rig, but in a canal...

My theory was that I should hang a bobbin on the line to give a zander enough slack to get the slice of skimmer in, allow it to take up line against a heavy lead, and then hook itself against its weight. The sign of which would be the fish pulling the rod in the water. I'd left my bobbins at home so a broken stick was pressed into service. A bobbin is a bobbin after all.

Waiting for the proof of the effectiveness of my cunning plan, meanwhile I fished for perch on a short pole. But I hadn't bargained with the weather... 

Just as soon as I'd fed the swim, the heavens opened and the rain fell in bucket loads. 

It fell hard for an hour or more in which time I didn't get a touch. My trusty old cagoule that's always stuffed into the side-pocket in case of emergencies failed me. When new it helped me enjoy a force six storm way out in the Bristol channel and has saved me from a drenching on many unforeseen downpours since. Clearly knackered. It was now taking on water.

The rain didn't look like abating any time soon I thought of going home while I was still warm. Just as I prepared to, the zander rod laying on the grass bucked as a fish tried to pull it in. I wound down gently, took up the fight, and then teased in what I'd set out for. 

The rig had worked just how I'd imagined it would and the hook was set perfectly.

A lady from a nearby boat passed by in a bright orange cagoule that wasn't taking on water. Though it was hammering down she stopped in her tracks. Had always believed the canal had nothing whatsoever living in it, thought it astonishing that it should, and was dumbstruck by the evidence that it did. She was simply amazed by this fish. Its pristine beauty impressed her. Easy for us anglers to forget such important things in the pursuit of size and number...

Though she did ask in parting if they grew any larger! 

Briefly the rain eased off when the perch float dragged under very slowly and I hooked what had to be another of those nice fat ones I've seen so much of recently. And sure enough, it was another two-pounder. Just as I thought it might be.

But then things really did take a turn for the worse. And so I scarpered...

Canal Perch — Chop! Chop! The King! The King!

I've seen a phenomenal thing. Mucky stuff chucked in a swim. The results are a particle, the captures remarkable. That mucky old stuff in a swim.

Chop! Chop! The King! The King!

Good grief I always knew it was very good but never realised how fabulous this filthy finger blackening mush could be. But I was about to see...

You get a load of expensive to procure lobworms (and I mean a fishing shed load). And they are expensive one way or the other whether you dig them or purchase if you are going down this route with them. Buy or create a set of multiple opposed blades. Then you must commit the most ghastly of murders.

Finding a likely swim you sit down, then ladle the mutilated, mangled, and still twitching body parts in. You proceed to wait just a little while. But within no time at all you proceed to reap the whirlwind of your horrible deed.

Nothing I have ever come across in my fishing life is anywhere near so repulsive. It is foul stuff. And yet nothing I have ever come across is so very attractive. Fish. All fish. No matter what fish or which fish. Just cannot resist it.

And then when you've got them interested. And caught one or two. You must do the dirty deed again. And again, And again. And do it again for just as long as your bait box lasts. And that will not be for very long.

Danny reckons, 'It's a drug'.

"To the fish and the fisher, both", I'd say.

We met up very early yesterday morning for a perching session at my far flung venue. The one that was kind to me a while back. The conditions were straight out the perch fisher's textbook 'wish' list. Mist on the water, sun low in the sky, a tinge of green but good clarity, and us fishing long before the first whiff of sizzling bacon drifts down from the nearby boats.

Didn't exactly succeed at first. Well, I excelled in catching each and every small perch in a mile of water. What with my pole n'all, I was so very adept at catching these tiddler fish that Danny thought me in very real danger of turning out in decked in blue within the week and forging a promising and lucrative career in match circles.

Just seconds after my remarking that we hadn't seen one yet — he caught a daddy ruffe. A great admirer of pope is Daniel Everitt, who once a year goes to Suffolk armed with suitable equipment to get his fix of monstrous ones. I think he was more impressed with my recent multiple captures of these pretty little ugly things than my success with the perch.

It wasn't really going to plan and so after a couple of hours we moved along. To a nice looking space between boats with an attractive water feature to ponder far bank. We were in for a rare treat.

I fed a little chop beneath the stern of a boat. Danny fed a fistful just off the near shelf in open water. I had a skimmer first put in. He'd sat upon what seemed a dead peg because my next put in produced a perch near two-pounds, and then another of similar stamp that was lost while his float steadfastly refused to sink from sight.

However, he'd injected a much heavier shot of 'gear' into the vein than I had...

Over the next hours Danny's synapses were on fire. He simply could not stop them coming. Just a short pole length to his left I was now facing a deserted swim ( canal 'swims' are just a yard square!) as all the dope heads in the area queued up in his. And what fish they were. All around the two-pound mark, and one an ounce over. And these weren't repeat captures either. Each was released 100 yards left or right.

It was quite unbelievable. But the best moment of the day was yet to come... 

He'd fished a sleeper rod with a small deadbait for zander and was getting quite a few of them as his perch sport peaked. Then he decided to jig a drop shot over a crayfish corpse he'd kicked in earlier just to complicate things. He then had a run on the deadbait, missed it, when his worm float vanished and he hooked what we knew was going to be the best perch yet. But somehow he'd also hooked himself in the crotch of his pants with the deadbait rig!

It really looked like it might go three-pounds as it came to the surface. And there's Dan gingerly playing the fish, not because he's afraid to lose it, but because he's in danger of spiking himself in the nads should he get off his seat! I performed the netting honours as instructed.

After such a run of like-weights who'd begun to look smaller and smaller as the day progressed I think we were a little overawed by the sight of this future brute. It wasn't quite the three-pounder we'd thought. It was the same weight as my opening capture last week at 2lb 6oz. But with a very different body shape.

The conditions were straight out of the perch fisher's textbook 'don't bother' list. Bright cloudless sky, sun overhead, the water as brown as bacon breakfast tea, and us fishing through lunchtime. Yet Dan hadn't ceased hooking, sometimes losing, but mostly banking these large perch for what seemed an age. I fluffed another fish meanwhile and did land a small zander of about a pound and a half on the worm. When I butchered and pitched in all my remaining meagre supply bar two kept back for bait, I hooked up again and banked myself an exact 'two'.

By noon it was becoming very busy. By 1 O'clock a chain of boats passing through every few minutes with passers-by a constant stream behind us. "Caught much?" many would ask. "Yeah, we've had a few tiddlers", was Danny's deadpan repeat reply. And the more often repeated the more comical that phrase became.

We'd both overstayed our allotted time frames by two hours. Then he had the shock result of a half-pounder... Things were coming to a close! But I'm sure if we'd stayed on into the late afternoon and evening we'd have caught all day long. We finished with eleven perch between us. If I'd dug another fifty worms and slaughtered most, then it may well have been twenty or more.

I didn't mind one little bit my banking only two good fish when Danny had nine. It was a great day's sport and a session to remember for the rest of my life.  In my canal fishing experience it has to rank in the top three eye-openers. Those sessions when you realise that these tricky venues where many struggle to succeed are often stuffed with special fish that you can catch regularly if only you have the guts to put in the graft to firstly discover them, and the nous to figure how to.

My mind was agog at the sheer volume of large perch we'd sat down on. You have to understand that prior to this season the average catch of perch local to me would have amounted to a sum weight of two or three-pounds and the best specimen I'd ever caught just 1lb 7oz. Today I'd seen ten perch to beat that and had exceeded it twice myself. And if you know anything about my perch fishing history and its painful perplexing defeats then you'll know why this session will be such a memorable one.

Perhaps the best feeling was that of knowing that the next bite would be from a really worthwhile fish. Seemingly, there were no small ones there to catch. But nor were there any really impressive ones.

Of course all that will change by next weekend when we plan a return.

But for better or for worse...? 

We'll, I don't think either of us really care, either way. Canal fishing is never so predictable. The next day seldom the same as the last.  

Canal Perch — Signal Success

There's a popular stretch of canal way beyond walking distance from home where I'd heard a few independant reports of decent perch fishing. Lots of them available apparently. And the occasional specimen in the net, so I heard. Local news I always take with a hefty pinch of salt. But large perch reports are not like large roach reports which are invariably about hybrids mistaken for roach. I thought them strong enough to make it worthwhile biking out a few extra miles to investigate. 

Chopped worm is mucky stuff!

Glad I made the effort because the short session was to become rather fascinating...

Choosing a likely spot I sat down on the grass with whip in hand. Nipped on a worm and dropped it on the near shelf. And then proceeded to make chopped worm. I don't move a bait so very often with a rod and reel once in place but for some reason with a pole or whip I find myself jerking it about constantly. 

Frequently I'd snag upon something. And I was frequently snagging upon something all over the place. The hook always came back clean, but often the worm had gone. Curious. Very curious...

I kept twitching the bait about. Then I did snag a large twig so I thought I had a rotten branch out front and should probably move along elsewhere. 

But then one of these 'twigs' moved off at the 'brisk' pace of a very big and determined specimen of that carapaced pest that I'm seeing far too much of lately. Heavy is what it was. And deliberate. I could not easily shift it against the elastic but anyhow, the hook pinged out before I could try harder. 

No great loss there. A large 'signal' is hardly that!

A River Blythe signal crayfish with a claw span of about a foot

However. Despite having not only a branch in my swim but possibly a horde of crustaceans too, I couldn't help feeling that something was not quite right. Often these sensations of 'snagging' felt much like hits from predatory fish. And besides that, I've yet to see a canal crayfish anywhere near the scale of the lobster-like beasts of the River Blythe who grow twice the size of the average canal specimen and who would be resistant to being hauled off the deck on a whip.

So I stuck around a while just to see what might occur should I...

Introducing the chop and fishing straight over with a still bait, the response was instant. The float dragged under very slowly and I struck into another of those 'crayfish'. Only this one seemed just a tad faster than before and when it began swimming mid-water, pulled out a yard of elastic, and then fought back hard and fast I wondered what the hell I'd hooked because it sure didn't feel like a perch... 

But it was! 

Two-pounds and six-ounces of perch to be precise. Easily the largest I've ever caught from a canal. And I have no doubt whatsoever now that that first 'crayfish' was none other than the self-same fish or more likely its like-sized shoal companion. 

Clearly I'd sat down right on top of them. Of course I hoped for more and better but in hindsight I should never have put in the chop because I truly believe you should never feed over the lucky find of a shoal of already feeding fish till they won't bite again without it. If only I'd known better, All it achieved was the undesirable effect of drawing hordes of small perchlets, tiny zanderlings, and later lovely little yellow ruffes, of whom I had four specimens on the trot around dusk.

Nevertheless. A more than satisfactory result. A new personal best for the canal. An interesting and valuable lesson learned.

And no red signal to halt me on the track when I go back!