Canal Chub — Checks and Balances

'Jim Sidebottom was fishing the Coventry Canal when a chub 22 inches long took a liking to his lobworm hook bait. 

Jim didn’t have any scales or a camera with him but estimated the fish at 9lb, and the catch was witnessed by two other anglers. Whatever its true weight it’s another example of the potential of the Midlands canal network'.

This report from the Total Fishing website intrigued me. Wouldn't it intrigue you if you were me, lived just a stone's throw from the water in question, and by way of local towpath gossip had gained a very good idea of where it was banked? 

Simon Daley and his big Stour chub

A 9lb chub is a very, very big fish indeed. But at 22 inches just does not seem long enough to me. I'd say somewhere between 23-25 would be about right for such a fish with normal body proportions. However, I have seen a 7lb chub up close because it fitted into my roach net (22 inches long from spreader to frame) and quite comfortably for the purposes of weighing. That fish was from the Dorset Stour and caught by Simon Daley on a size 20 hook to one pound bottom. It was remarkably short, but very, very broad and deep . It had all the proportions of a small carp. 

Nice cropping, Hatt...

So I went back through the blog archive (my essential and indispensable log) to the very first month and the account of the capture of my largest ever chub — a fish that I weighed at 5lb 9oz.

It was approximately 22.5 inches in length and 5.5 inches deep gauged against the 4.5 inch width of the Okuma centre-pin reel in the picture. But that fish was weighed on luggage scales. I bought them from Lidl on the way to the Severn at Montford Bridge where it was banked.

I think they may have been the first set of scales I ever owned!

I still have them hanging in the shed as a curiosity and am glad that I kept them by as such. Because just a little later and thinking that reading a little low for what was a really chunky fish, I proved them to be some way out of whack and bought a new set I could rely upon...

This train of thought precipitated my annual scales check. So I got all my current sets out, hammered a nail into the shed door frame to ensure absolute verticality and stability, and then checked each in turn and one against the other with a 2lb weight. 

Maximum capacities left to right.  4lb — 32lb — 11lb

All were fine, accurate, and most importantly they were in agreement giving readings just over 2lb because of the thick Lidl carrier bag used as a sling. And so my long standing PB roach weighed at 1lb 15oz 8dr on the rotary set still stands. 

Still can't squeeze that extra half ounce!

4lb brass Salter in 1 ounce divisions — 2lb weight plus carrier bag

Out of curiosity I then slung the 2lb weight beneath the luggage scales when I received the shocking news of the incredible underestimate of just 1lb 4oz...

Imagine what excess baggage charges must have damaged the shallow wallets of hapless Lidl customers having relied upon these contraptions at Heathrow!

Next I slung exactly 5lb 9oz beneath one of the good sets and checked it against another. Agreed weight. Then slung that weight beneath the Lidl set. Oh dear! 'Some way out of whack' is just what they were and at some considerable margin under.

So I added bits and pieces to the bag hung below the dodgy set to have it read 'exactly' 5lb 9oz and then hung that weight beneath the good sets. 

Crane 50lb set in half-pound divisions reading approximately 5lb 9oz. here or there!

11lb brass Salter in 2 ounce divisions accurately reading 6lb 5oz for the previous Crane 'estimate'.

6lb 5oz!!!

Good grief. That's quite a chub PB for a Coventry angler. Shame I'm stuck with 5lb 9oz till I beat it with a fish weighed on the good ones! There's no backtracking, I'm afraid. 

But at least I do know my current sets are all performing perfectly in tune and singing the same hymn...

So. About that chub report. Can it be believed? 

Well, 22 inches is not nearly enough length for a 9lb chub to my mind. 6-7lb perhaps, and at very best. Still, that's a very large and desirable fish and one that I'd love to have on my PB list. But not a potential record shaker, I think. 

What do I know? I've never seen a big old Coventry Canal chub, have I?

But I do have reports of where one or two might live. 

And they're not so very far away... 

PS. Mick Newey's comment with a link to the Chub Study Group proved useful. I drew a median average line through the table and got a reading of an average weight of 6lb 12oz for the length of 22.5 inches. It was a summer capture, and though a chunky fish across the back, probably not at full late winter weight in the belly. So I think 6lb 5oz more than reasonable for it. Subtract up to half an inch for good measure and it still seems spot on.

Still can't and won't claim it though!

Avon Roach and Barbel — Saved by the Belles

To the shops!

Between yesterday's morning and evening work commitments I had a short session planned on a local free still water. Was going to fish corn over an experimental corn laced meaty ground bait to see if it would work. Had it all prepared and was ready to go when I learned that the girls were off to Stratford for the afternoon and were leaving in the next ten minutes... 

To the river!

Lucys Mill looked better than it has for ages. Last two trips the place seemed somewhat stagnant with hardly any of the exciting flow complexity I've learned to read and exploit. Apart from a trickle of water passing over the bottom weir, really it was just a lake then and most uninspiring. Now the top weir was flowing strongly and the bottom weir gushing noisily. It looked vital, and I hoped it might be alive with hungry roach.

The influx of water combined with the seasonal die back of weed had clearly caused something of a problem. Not, I thought, a serious one. Just the usual one of having to wind in occasionally to clear the line. However, this weed proved to be that from the great cabbage beds at Stratford Recreation Ground, fragments of which are neutral in buoyancy unlike reeds and rushes. And so the debris was not only at the surface but spread throughout the entire water column below.

I discovered quickly that this would cause a second problem. Fish were biting alright, but were scattered here, there and everywhere, and without any particular shoal concentrations I could locate.

So I was forced to cast my bread here, there and everywhere. I plucked a few small roach and a single gudgeon from various locations. But there wasn't the usual continual run of bites I'd come to expect. I'd get one there and then have to cast here to get another. And wait some time between. It was all too random to be successful unless by sheer chance.

The fish were clearly chasing natural food about — all that invertebrate life dislodged from the decomposing cabbages — and at all levels.  I could not compete without a float rod and a box of maggots at hand, neither of which were. And then an isolated shower approached and it rained. Heavily. And for some precious time in which I could not fish having left the cagoule I always have stashed in the side pocket for just such occasions drying in the shed. I stood under the trees and watched my hopes for this snatched opportunity crumbling...

When it stopped I tried downstream a little way for bream with corn on the hook and a large feeder full of experimental corn laced meaty groundbait. Cast way across the main flow and into the big slack far side I hoped it would sit still. Usually this will be fine so long as the flow channel is not very wide but today it was. Even with the rod set near vertical I could not stop a big belly of line developing. Not a problem so long as it doesn't dislodge the feeder and it didn't. Well, it didn't until sufficient weed had found the line when it was dragged along and bite detection was nigh impossible.

I dropped the tackle in the one place I reckoned it would stay put. Right under the bank and in the strongest and smoothest flow of all. Something of a gamble with only a roach net to hand and large barbel the only fish likely if a bite were to come. They would be chasing food too but along the bottom and right where my bait was placed. 

I'd banked a double-figure pike for Keith Jobling in that little pan and that at Stratford Rec. And it had happily accepted Simon Daley's seven-pound Dorset Stour chub too. Surely I could manage to fit a big barbel in head first, tail out, if I were to walk it downstream to slower and less tricky waters? 

Given sufficient time it would have happened, I'm certain. The conditions were perfect and my personal history of barbel fishing sessions at Lucys Mill, though not exactly extensive having tried just four times for them and them alone, is one of having hooked up to double-figure fish on three occasions. 

Luckily there wasn't nearly the time for such a sticky problem to occur or the session to count as 'barbel fishing'. Though I thought I had an hour to go, two happy ladies refreshed by their jaunt round town appeared earlier than anticipated with a funky little cardboard doggy box with a string handle and my hand-written name on it full of cheese and pickle and poached prawn sandwiches. 

Saved by the belles.

Back to the car and home...

Crucian Carp — Zen Disco

Keith Jobling treated me to a session at Napton Reservoir on Saturday afternoon. A fairly large water for the locality, but not one of those great reservoirs supplying water to the thirsty masses, rather a supply for the nearby Grand Union canal. Split in two pieces by a causeway, it was the reedy swims along that rocky structure that Keith reckoned held our best chance for one or two of the venue's lovely crucian carp. One of whom he'd caught last month.

Keith starts out with a distance feeder approach for large bream. 

I really love crucians and the difficulties they present. But I adore the dinner plate variety. Napton contains only this discoid (disc-shaped) type and none of the more common lentoid (lens-shaped) type. This is because crucians that live in waters stuffed with pike adapt their bodies in response and assume this shape as a brilliant survival strategy.

Lentoid crucian carp of one pound weight

Pike find it much, much harder to attack them successfully. The first reason is that the taller the body of a fish, the fewer pike in a water are able to grasp it because of gape limitations. Pike cannot open their mouths any further than their jaw structure allows. 

A discoid fish of one pound will be able to elude pike with gapes smaller than its height but not those with larger gapes, but a 2lb lentoid fish will be just as vulnerable because it is only as tall as the smaller discoid fish. 

However, a 2lb discoid crucian is much taller than the equivalent lentoid one and able to defeat the attacks of all but the very largest predators in the water. And there's always going to be very few of them.

A discoid crucian carp of half a pound is about as tall as a one-pound
lentoid example but much shorter than a half-pound example would be 

The second reason is one of maneuverability. Lentoid crucians are built for efficient cruising. Discoid ones are built not just for gape avoidance but also for agility because their shorter 'wheelbase' lends much quicker and far tighter turning ability. Imagine the difference between the Land Rover Defender 120 and the 90, if you will.

That matters a great deal when avoiding pike who are missiles that cannot turn once launched but rely completely on narrow focus binocular vision and high speed surprise frontal attack. 

A 'disco' crucian may more easily turn out of the way, avoid the strike, and cannot then be chased. The pike misses by half an inch and then its high-set forward-facing eyes completely lose sight of the prey. 

In a zen trance watching my float...

Anyhow, we didn't catch any!

But it was most fascinating failing to because the water is quite thinly populated with small fish. So bites, when we got them, were quite easy to spot if they arose from crucians. I spent my time sitting cross legged on a council slab focussed intently upon the antennae of my float not moving for 59.99 minutes of the hour. I mean with totally absorbed and unblinking attention. As if I had the one chance to do what I wanted and that was to bank one of these large and handsome fish for myself by observing a movement that might occur, if it occurred at all, during the blink of an eye.

... barely move the whole day long

I did have two or three bites on corn (maybe a few were missed because I had to blink...) but for some reason failed to connect. All we had to show were a handful of perch caught on caster, worm and maggot, and so we left around six, went to Long Itchington, had a pint or two at the towpath pub, and then fished the canal till nightfall under a glorious sunset for the sum result of one skimmer bream to my rod.

But the near margins of Napton's causeway had got right under my skin. I could think of nothing else but Crucian carp caught between a rock and a hard place.

Canal Perch — Insignificant Accumulations

With the Bloggers Challenge nearing the end of its first third and with the autumn season in sight I've been working very hard to get what I can from the canal targeting those species that will be difficult to tempt come November and nigh impossible thereafter. Silver bream I can rest on. If I catch better as I go along than I already have then that'll be a bonus. There's no time to target them specifically. Rudd are similar. They turn up from time to time. And I really do mean time to time!

Carp are my next canal target. They have to be. They are so rarely caught around here that only summer will do for them and then usually at night. Tench I'm satisfied with. My best so far is good enough. There's no point chasing better when better is likely to come through carp fishing, is there? 

However, there's points to score during the daylight hours I often have available between, before, and after work commitments, when I can walk round the corner and make my way with species that will keep the year round. Roach for instance. I have a pounder under my belt and ten bonus points for it but that advantage won't stand long. However, canal roach are my strong point. Every other competitor must travel to catch them, but I don't have to, unless you'd call a three minute walk 'travel'. I don't even bother breaking down my top kit when I'm over! 

Perch are another. So this morning I went down Lady Lane to catch one large enough to catapult me from seventh place to fourth. I'd calculated that I'd require a fish of just six-ounces to do that. I thought that target a forgone conclusion and to be got in the first half hour. But I was wrong there. I had a succession of five-ouncers falling to lob head and tails over chop and most coming within spitting distance, the far shelf not producing well at all and when it did produce only giving up yet more of the inevitable skimmer bream who I've seen a little too much of lately. 

So I concentrated on that productive near line for the rest of the short session. And was eventually rewarded with what I set out for. A perch respectable enough for purpose. I packed down just as soon as it was released having no reason to stay on to catch better with 240 days to go in which to.

At 1lb 2oz it scored 18 points, launched my name to just where I wanted it to be, and with a little in the way of cushioning points too. Not a significant fish by any means. None of my captures thus far could be called that. 

But all are insignificant accumulators, nonetheless...