Brief sesh on the river today, and I found a really good swim. It was on the outside of a bend so very deep straight under my feet, with a lot of cover on the far bank. I caught loads of perch about 1/4 lb each from right under my feet, and I was baiting across the river with lots of hemp, which brought in some nice roach and dace (and one rogue rudd - first I’ve had out of the Ouse).
About half way through I hooked into a nice fish on the far bank. Thinking it was a chub I estimated it felt around four pounds - but when it came up to the top I saw it was a Perch:
I didn’t have my scales with me, but I am giving myself 3lb for this. I’m sure it was bigger as it was really thick across the back, but in the absence of verification I’m happy to settle for this. It’s my best ever perch by a fair way anyway.
Been a bit lax on the blog of late - have been working on a contract in London and been dead busy with work changes (of which, more to follow). Have just discovered a “work off-line” option in Drivel (my blog editor of choice) so can now catch up with it on the train in and out - hurrah!
Meanwhile, back on the canal
I had an awesome session on the canal recently which I wanted to write about. I’ve been doing a lot of float fishing on the river lately with not much to report as I’m still really finding my feet with baits, techniques and all. I decided to have a go back on the canal as I’ve got a much better idea of how to feed properly and how to keep a swim going, all of which meant I thought I had a good chance of getting in to some of the skimmers in the canal. As most of what I have caught recently is around half a pound, the promise of some over-a-pound fish was a strong draw. I found a good swim with good far bank cover which reached out almost to the far shelf, and I decided I’d fish just out from there. I know the bream like the middle best, but I was hoping to get the best of both worlds and also connect with some of the larger roach I thought would be under the cover.
I was putting in loose feed of garlic hemp and strawberry corn (main course and dessert!) and fishing 2-3 red maggots on a size 16. I set the hook an inch or so over depth to start with and got started. Usually on the canal I will feed loose maggots as well, and the bites come thick and fast - usually from hordes of tiny perch - so the start was a little less than promising as it took 10-15 minutes to get the first fish. A roach of about 2-3 ounces to kick off, which was a good start. Some gudgeon followed that, and the perch did move in, but in far smaller numbers than usual given that there was no loose feed floating around that they would be interested in. Some more roach were coming, but nothing bigger than before. However, I was certain that the approach was right and it was going to be a case of waiting until the larger fish moved in and kicked the little ones off the bait.
And so they come…
After an hour or so the float lifted and dithered a bit before sliding under. I struck expecting a skimmer, but met with a lot more resistance than I am used to. There was clearly a bigger fish on the end, and I was elated to see a bream of at least 3 pound come into view. It put up little resistance as I netted it, and posed very obligingly for a photo:
This is a definite personal best for me and I was cursing the fact that I left my scales at home, but I slipped it back and carried on. I upped the loose feed a bit as I would expect a shoal of fish this size to need a lot to keep them occupied, and I had a second fish out of the same size about 10 minutes later. I was excited now. No more bream came out, but I did start to get some slightly larger roach (3-5 oz) coming out so it was clear that the little fish were losing ground to the big ‘uns. About 30 minutes on and ready to pack up, the float went again and I struck into another bream of about the same size…
Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a bream?
Except this one stayed down low and didn’t come straight up like the others. And after 20 seconds or so it woke up and charged off at a rate of knots - a carp? I only had 2 pound line on and I don’t trust the clutch on my reel so I had flipped the reverse-wind on and was having to do a lot to keep the pressure on while trying not to get snapped off. The fish did a circuit of the swim twice and then tried to head off down the canal before admitting defeat and coming in. As it rose to the surface I saw a gorgeous green back and the thick tail of a nice size tench:
I was ecstatic! My Dad used to fish for tench when he was younger and this fish has reached an almost mythical state for me as, despite always trying, I have never caught one before. I reckoned this one was over four pounds, but without my scales I had no way of knowing. I didn’t mind though, a childhood dream was fulfilled today and that has to count as a personal best, whatever the weight.
Coda
I did a lot right today, but I’d also be the first to admit that I got lucky. There are a lot of good fish on the canal but you have to get on them to catch them. I did well to get them in front of me and I think the approach I used got the best out of the swim. However, I feel that a better angler would have had more than two bream out, and I wonder how to approach this situation next time. A few thoughts:
- I didn’t use a keepnet, and I generally don’t for smaller fish. Even though I put the bream back in 10 yards down the bank, I can’t help but think that, in a swim less than 20 feet across, a fish of that size must communicate to its brethren that there is trouble afoot. Should I use a keepnet for the bigger fish?
- If it’s not the above that limited the bream to two fish only - do I need to up the feed even more if they are about? Or, are the canal shoals small enough that the extra feed I put in effectively filled the bream up and they moved on?
- Or did the bream move on when the tench moved in? I didn’t stay much longer after I had the tench. Partly because time was up, but partly because the fight seemed to have scared everything else off as that was my last fish. I only had 2lb line on so I think I need to scale this up to 4lb in future, then I can take charge a bit more. I can always use a lighter hooklink if the bites don’t come.
Things have been quite busy, but I haven’t really had much to write about either, so things have been a bit quiet from me. A couple of little titbits to throw out for anyone who reads this regularly:
I am back using my Mac after a brief sojourn into Linux, and am getting to grips with learning Objective-C as I think I need a ‘proper’ language under my belt to give me a better understanding of the internals of how to code properly.
I have not gone lure fishing for an age and am starting to think that it will be a good long while before I do again. I am enjoying float fishing on the canal and the river - catching more fish, but also having more time to sit back, relax and get to know more about the water and the wildlife. Also, my daughter has been with me one and was very keen on “boring fishing” (as opposed to “exciting” lure fishing) so I am hoping that I will get a good few trips out with her while the weather is good.
A new project starts up next week so I will probably be working in London two days a week for a little while. Not really looking forward to the travel as I am not really a big fan of The City, but the job will be exciting I think.
I have bought a license for the stretch of river at Passenham this year. It looks like a fairly under-fished stretch of river, but I like the look of it and would like to put some work in on a water this year. In my old birdwatching days I had a ‘local patch’ - a local area that I visited regularly and got to know well over the course of the year. I am going to apply a similar tactic to the river here and try and get to know it well over the coming season. By all accounts there is a good head of fish in the stretch - chub, roach, perch and the odd barbel and carp - so I am hopeful of a good season. Chub and roach are my main target, and I know there are some good sized specimens of each in the river so they could well turn up in this stretch.
I had a brief luring session there on Saturday which turned up nothing, but a good float session on Monday evening, catching some small chub, roach, and (I think) dace. I’m hoping to get a good handle on the river here and to get into some of the bigger fish as soon as I can. It will be a while before I get back into the swing of float fishing after a rather long break, but it’s such a welcome change to be getting into the fish that I am happy with the smaller fish I’m catching now.
At the moment the luring is on hold while I concentrate on float fishing and I hope to post up some good catch results soon. I’m taking the camera with me next time so I’ll start to put up some pictures of the swims as I work my way through them.
The picture shows the end net of fish I had from the canal the other day. Not bad for an iPhone snap I think!
I got out on the opening day day for some luring in the end. I was planning to go for a bait fishing session, but my wife had the car so I decided to go off luring on the bike instead. It was a glorious evening (multitude of flies notwithstanding) and the river looked fantastic. I started just by the canal aqueduct in a nice spot that had a fairly fast flow to the near bank, with a slacker area opposite. I tried a few of the old faithfuls through but didn’t have any interest. Last year I had seen some small perch in the swim so I stuck on a size 1 Mepps spinner - if there are fish to be had, I don’t care about the size! Second cast through I hit something which took off at speed and gave a hell of a scrap. I was sure it was a pike to start with, but then I caught a glimpse and realised it was a big perch. I slid the net under it and got the spinner out and had a good look - definitely a PB perch and must have been over a pound. Super start to the season!
I had one other little perch and a good bit of sport with a jack pike who followed my lure in three or four times, but nothing else. Still, I went home very happy and pleased that my first session on the river this season had gone well. Next time I will be out on the float rod as I haven’t float-fished this river yet. Watch this space.