Tales From The Towpath

If you try to find any information online regarding the fishing in the Wellington Basins - two small connected ponds run by Taunton Deane Brough Council in Somerset - then you will struggle to find anything of much use. There is more about UFO sightings whilst fishing there, than captures of tench from the water it would seem. In any case, this is what makes it appealing to me. It is one of those unique waters nowadays where you genuinely don't really know what you are going to catch. As far as I can tell, the fish seem to be able to pass freely between the two lakes providing they can negotiate a pipe that connects the two.

Being a public park, these fish see a lot of bread, so all I took with me for a couple of hours waggler fishing on Monday afternoon was a small sliced loaf and a bag of liquidised. I set up my favourite canal waggler, a Peter Drennan original, and the only one of its kind that I own. I've been very careful for a number of years not to break it or lose it! I locked the float with a BB and two number 4s on the lower side, allowing me to be slightly more versatile and slide one of these shots down later on if needs be. For droppers I had a number 6 above the hooklength (0.09mm), with two number 10 shot on it, to a size 18 B520.

With the water perhaps a little too coloured and a little too deep where I'd sat to catch the better roach on punch, I turned around and fished the smaller pond for the second half of my short session, where the water appeared clearer. The roach were perhaps only slightly larger, with an average size of about 2oz, but I did also manage a very pretty 6-8oz skimmer which was already turning greeny-bronze in colour.

I used a keepnet but slid the fish back as they should be, running them along the length of the net whilst it was submerged until they swam out the top. I only had around 6lb in those few hours, but they were vividly marked roach, a species that I always love catching from clear water.

Whilst fishing, a young lad came up to me (you can see him fishing with his parents in the top picture) and asked me a few questions. It got me thinking about my own introduction to the sport and where I might be without the start that I had. I was lucky enough to spend all my early time on the bank with my dad and match anglers who showed me basic techniques and so much more that many of us experienced anglers with those sort of beginnings take for granted.

In a bit of a philosophical mood, I also wondered about angling decades ago, when the sport was full of more mystery than it is today. When floats had to be made and groundbait mixes concocted at home. Put in that situation, and without other anglers to guide me, I wonder how much I could have worked out on my own, or maybe even whether I would've got frustrated and packed it in altogether. Who knows, but besides all this, I made my own little connection with the past by using a porcupine quill float on running line today.

They might not look terribly sensitive to unfamiliar eyes but these floats take very little weight to cock them and require careful shotting. The above 6" pattern took just a number six above the hooklength with a number 9 and 10 dropper below that to dot it down to a pimple. A small shot, like the number 12 I used today, is important to mark the depth as these floats will slip. The shot will go through the bottom eye of the float, but not the rubber so mark it against there when setting the depth.

What better test of these floats' sensitivity than an afternoon targeting crucians and tench at Little Yeo fishery near Witheridge, a venue where a set of lily pads are never more than a lazy cast from the bank. For bait, I soaked half a pint of expanders and two slices of bread in the landing net, mixing it up in my hands for feed. A size 18 baited with an expander was the staple offering though I did try breadflake from time to time. Bites weren't long in coming, and the more I held back the feed the more positively the float buried, although those classic little dips and slides so synonymous with crucian carp were ever-present.

The fish are small but cute at Little Yeo, aside from the skimmers which I'm not convinced are doing particularly well in this small, heavily stocked pond. They appear stunted in growth with large heads and skinny bodies, and the stock could maybe benefit from a bit of thinning out. A few crucians for the canal maybe - now there's a thought...

Not sure these little fellas would last too long though with the amount of pike around:

Canals can be a nightmare to fish in strong winds, but they are also landscaped to the extent that most have at least one or two sections sheltered behind high banks and/or trees. I found one such area on a wide bend of the Grand Western Canal today for some out and out roach fishing, a decision forced upon me by a 4pm visit to the local tackle shop yesterday which discovered that it closes at one o'clock on a Saturday. Therefore my baits for today were bread, hemp and tares, with some worm if the going was really tough and some scratching for perch was in order.

I've never actually used tares before, and first impressions today were somewhat misleading. After an hour of steady feeding with hemp and tares at twelve metres, I slipped on a small tare and landed a 1oz roach within a minute. That was it. I never had another bite on that or on hempseed.

A recent sort out meant that I had to tie my rigs on the bank. I set up a hemp rig consisting of a 4x12 Drennan 'Seed', a pattern which I believe has now been discontinued but has brought me a lot of roach on this method since I was in my early teens. It also works well for breadpunch, although I now prefer a custom made pattern which I actually obtained through ebay. I settled for a 4x11 float in around four feet of water. I always fish these with a positive shotting pattern; a bulk of number elevens (plus any fine-tuning shot) with a short hooklength housing a number eleven and number 12 dropper. Fishing positively needn't mean heavy line and hooks and cumbersome presentation. This kind of shotting pattern registers bites very quickly and clearly, even when catching small fish. Besides, a wire stem and strung shotting is asking for tangles. If I wanted to fish the punch in this way I would use the carbon-stemmed Drennan Seed. One final rig was a 0.5g Drennan Pinkie for fishing larger pieces of punch on the off chance of a skimmer or big roach.

This rig did account for my best fish on the punch, but ironically the pinch of flake that I was fishing was taken on the drop and the large bulk held up by a rudd of about a pound. Otherwise it was only able to produce the same 12dr-1oz roach I had been catching on the lighter rig, only they were much longer in coming. That rudd was more or less the last fish of the day, which had begun in the expected way with a bite first drop over a nugget of liquidised bread.

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I used to always carry a trace or two when pole fishing on this canal as the feeding activity, particularly when fishing the bread, inevitably arouses the interest of any nearby predators. Today that took around two hours, with a pike grabbing a roach hooked on the heavier rig (which gave me an outside chance of landing it). The same rig pattern with a 0.10mm hooklength and size 18 Drennan Super Carbon Maggot hook has brought me pike to around 10lb in similar circumstances previously, but not this time.

I carried on catching a few roach before the next pike attack came when a decent sized jack launched itself clear of the water in an attempt to grab another roach. I managed to land that fish quickly without it being snatched and reached straight for my spinning rod, assembling a basic float rig to a single barbless treble. In five chucks, I lost two pike and landed three from about 2lb to 4lb, before adding another small one a bit later. This messed up the roach fishing for a while and the only way I could catch was searching out my swim in areas I hadn't fed. I found some roach about three metres to the left of my feed area and swapped between there and where I had been introducing the liquidised, until the end of the session. It was very productive, and strangely would dry up and then return to being prolific with rest, despite the fact that I didn't feed even a crumb of bread there.

I have had a bit of trouble getting out fishing as of late. An infection which I picked up in my throat over a month ago has yet to subside and left me knackered. After several visits to the doctors', they've decided to test me for glandular fever (blood test tomorrow). The trips I have made over this period have largely followed a decent lie-in, and my venue has been chosen on the morning of the trip (which, to be honest, is nothing new). With that in mind, I am looking forward to the Tiverton DAC Christmas match at the end of this month. I've been tightening up my approach as of late and getting back to the style of fishing that I truly feel at home practicing. If I had Sundays free through the summer, I think I would get back into match fishing. At least this would then impose some sort of routine upon me as far as my fishing is concerned. I still wouldn't fish the commercials for carp though.

Tempting as the rivers have been with the recent rains, I still feel more confident on my 'local' canals and haven't made a visit to running water since September. Tiverton Canal, the other day, gave my new whip a short workout for a few roach up to 1oz. The area I fished also throws up the odd very decent roach from time to time and I saw a few large fish topping at dusk which I was confident were not bream. A breadpunch line to cover brought me an 8oz skimmer to go with my whip fish whilst the best roach of about 10oz actually turned up on the pole/whip line in the track - thankfully hooked on the pole. A troublesome jack pike was also captured and relocated a few pegs down earlier in the session.

If that was a warm-up for the new whip, then today it was really put through its paces on a trip to the Taunton-Bridgwater Canal. If you can find the fish in this canal then you really can make some bumper catches, and my 0.25g drake crowquill that was in use on the Grand Western was eventually replaced by a five number 4 old Drennan Canal Grey to get though the smaller fish and down to the better roach and rudd. In total I fed over a loaf of liquidised in something like five and a half hours. Even the first frost of the winter hadn't deterred them.

The drake crowquill is my starting float of choice, but unfortunately I could only get hold of the sizes up to 0.25g, necessitating that change to a more standard waggler. Delicate waggler style floats for the whip aren't easy to get hold of and, I must admit, I was initially a bit wary of the fact that these floats are not straight. However, they worked for the shyest of blade roach on the Grand Western Canal and when shotted correctly I'm sure that this is no real cause for concern.

Back to the Bridgwater Canal though and, as ever, I kept my hat in the ring for a bonus, with a chopped worm and caster line to an inviting bush at twelve metres. I thought the rudd might eat all the bait I put in here so I dumped it in reasonably heavily and infrequently, letting it settle for a few hours before trying there. I selected the smaller worms in the bag for the perch, which seemed to work better today than the juicier dendrabenas that I usually favour. I also picked up a pike on my fifth drop on the worm, after a run of four perch to 12oz. I'm usually reliably quick with identifying pike that I hook on the pole, but this one had me and Dom fooled for quite a while as it chugged up and down the canal slowly; I thought it might even be a carp, after ruling out tench, perch and bream. In the end though, it was just a typical stamp jack for this canal, at around two to three pounds.

That wasn't the only pike of the afternoon either, as my little pike float set up was utilised on three occasions to remove similarly sized jacks from both mine and Dominic's swim. Typically, the best one I caught was from Dom's swim, at around 4lb. Actually it was used three times by just myself, with Dominic also borrowing it to take two further jacks of his own.

I started circumspectly on the whip as far as feeding was concerned but really I should have been positive from the beginning and fed a decent nugget of liquidised every chuck. This probably would have seen off the small rudd earlier, although I made the most of the last hour with more roach responding to some real heavy feeding and a few bigger rudd too. I hooked three very decent samples but the hook bounced out when I eased off the pressure, which I should have maintained to keep a secure hook hold. But this is a method I haven't fished for a number of years and the learning curve over these two sessions has already been steep.

I suppose I ended up with around 15lb of fsh in the end, not including the four pike I had. It doesn't really look like it in the picture but it was literally a bite every cast on the bread. My right elbow will be aching in the morning from all that casting.

The Christmas match looms closer but I have decided against using my time on the bank to practice, as the bait fridge at home still contained three sacks of worm this morning; a bait which won't see the clear, cold waters of Tiverton Canal this Sunday unless I am really struggling. Besides, top priority is a canal-best perch for me at the moment, and I've earmarked the Taunton-Bridgwater Canal as the place to catch it.

I set up in a heavily overgrown swim which looked unfished for some time. Out of the bag came two top kits; one with number 4 latex for a light punch rig as I was expecting fishing to be reasonably difficult given that the bottom could be easily seen five metres from the bank, despite a strong breeze and ripple; and a blue hydrolastic for chopped worm to the far bank stick-ups. I also rigged up a whip, starting on the heavy waggler rig I finished with on my last session, which turned out to be the correct choice, as a lighter float would never have cocked in a swim that became infested with half-ounce rudd.

To avoid the high stems on my own bank, which extended some three metres into the canal, generally I stood up on my footplate to fish the whip. By the end I was fishing a size 14 B611 and five pence sized piece of punch and still catching the same tiny rudd, only the bites were more positive. The pole was a waste of time.

After ninety minutes, I shipped across to 14m with a decent bit of worm tipped with caster and waited. Not very long as it happens, which is usually the case when you allow the worm line to settle for a good length of time. The culprit was an 8-10oz perch, quickly followed by two more of similar size. I thought I might be on for a real red-letter day as far as the perch were concerned but I only managed two more at random intervals during the rest of the session (plus a smaller one on bread). There was snow falling when I awoke at half seven back home, and it certainly didn't feel any warmer than the forecast high of 6 degrees at any point during the day, yet the next fish to show on the fourteen metre line was a decent tench of about two and a half pounds. Around half an hour later I had an even better one which must have been 4lb, a very decent fish for the Bridgwater canal I reckon.

I put some more bait in and took a walk with my pike rod, snaring a jack of around 3lb; a beautifully conditioned fish and one of many it would seem on this particular stretch. Is the poaching problem on this canal not as bad as made out? On the other hand, I have seen a high number of poorly equipped anglers cycling and walking along this section. I also bumped into a reader of this blog, Steve Fisher, who was out after pike, stretching his legs and covering plenty of water much as I like to do. I snagged a roach through the fin whilst I fished the whip and we chatted, to which Steve remarked "Ah, that's the Tiverton method is it!". I believe he had three or four jacks himself before passing me a second time.

Back to my swim and the sun was now reflecting off the water where I was fishing the worm. There was no way I would be able to see my float for some time so I dumped in a proper pot full of worm and caster (plus a few red maggots) and concentrated on the whip, feeding heavily. A ball a chuck soon had rudd throwing themselves all over the place in my swim. Then a 4oz perch on punch gave some indication as to why. Not long after that I hooked an absolute lump; one of those fish which doesn't need to shake its head or body to build up any sort of momentum, this fish just made its way along the canal and kept going! A tench I would imagine, but I'll never know as it broke the hooklength at the loop. I suspect a pike would have bitten me off instead, and there was no way it was a big roach, rudd or perch.

I think any pike angler who fishes deadbaits on canals with a decent head of roach or rudd, could do worse than take a bag of liquidised bread along with them. This really does send small silvers into a frenzy which never fails to attract pike. I had two more on small rudd flipped over the top of this line, the larger of which was around 4lb and provided a few headaches as I battled to keep it out of the reeds with my short rod.

As soon as the sun moved far enough around for me to fish the long pole again, the whip went up the bank and a worm slipped on the heavy rig (I say heavy, but the hooklength was 0.10 to a 14 B520). Small rudd were a nuisance here aswell but on the two occasions when the bait reached the bottom, it didn't take long to pick up a further couple of tench, similar in size to the first. Then, to avoid the rudd, I slipped on two whole worms and had a slow dragging bite followed by solid, slow resistance which I straight away knew was a pike. I lost it after a five-minute battle, as I faffed about trying to net it too close to the marginal reeds, but I got a good look at it and it was but average size for this canal. That unseen whip fish remains a mystery however.

A heavy frost forced this match back half an hour to allow some competitors to break the ice which had formed on 50% of the match length overnight. I was keen, having refitted elastics and tied rigs during the week, but this match turned into a bit of a grueller for most. There were not many fish caught off any peg, and the best weights were made up of large bream, some reportedly as big as 5lb. I had hoped for a roach match but the severity and suddenness of the drop in overnight temperatures clearly put most fish off feeding.

Last week Exeter held a match in Snakes Wood, which made up D section today, and there were winning weights of skimmers but a number of small roach caught also. Both Gary Thornton and Dave Pullman had over a hundred, sat on adjacent pegs. My dad was in this section today and it fished very hard, his eight bites resulting in 680g of mostly one decent skimmer. Just over a kilo won this section in the end; a decent skimmer and around 15 roach for Wayne Mitchell.

I pulled peg 3 out of the bucket at the draw and knew I might be in for a hard time of it. The pegging started at Tidcombe Bridge, where Zac Newton had drawn the end peg. I think a few people in our section expected him to do well, but I wouldn't even pleasure fish there; it's a poor area. Between the two of us was Dom Garnett would you believe, although we had the benefit of some space between us due to overhead powerlines. Despite my initial reservations, I fancied a bit of space, and the bush opposite, would be a advantageous. I expected the top end of the section to fish better, although these guys had to break the ice, something the first five pegs were spared.

I set up a whip (one missed bite and definitely not the day for the method), a roach punch rig, and a skimmer punch rig - all for the bottom of the near shelf. Everyone else in my section fished the bread a section or two further than me, in the track itself. There was no boat traffic on the day, as expected, but I believe the fish like to feed on these drop offs, slopes and depth changes, rather than necessarily in the area of greatest depth. I only fished one other line, across to the spindly branches hanging off the far bank. The plan was to fire a small pouch of squatts across on the whistle to see if they would reach. They did, so I cupped in a small ball of black groundbait, and used a catapult to loosefeed squatt, else I would have fished punch there.

It took around 15 minutes to take my first fish on the bread, which was slower than those on pegs 4 and 5. This first response came after a change from 3mm punch to a 4mm, which I found strange on recap considering that it was such a difficult day. Two tiny roach were followed by a weighty skimmer, which was a massive bonus on such a day, all caught on the light rig, but the line never really got going and I had a look on the squatt much earlier than I wanted to. Two dumpy roach came pretty quickly, both requiring the net, but that was a false dawn and the remainder of the match was disappointingly scratchy.

Mid-match I hooked an absolute lump on double squatt, which I played carefully for a few minutes before the 22 hook pulled. You have half a chance on a balanced elastic, which was a soft 3-4 through a full top kit, but this was undoubtedly a proper bream, the slime on the hooklength giving it away. The remainder of my fish came a variety of ways; a 5oz skimmer on squatt, a few roach on punch and a couple more on a strung out shallow rig, fished in the track short of my groundbait, where any loosefed squatt had dropped short. Every time I caught a roach and thought I'd found them however, nothing more would come of it.

An hour to go and with the swim totally lifeless, I decided to go for broke as I knew that my mate Richard Higgs on peg 6 was beating me with three skimmers and seemed to be catching blade roach steadily. Nobody else seemed to be doing a lot either and by now we knew that a few people had managed bream in C section. As I knew I wouldn't catch Rich or the overall leaders by scratching for more tiny roach, I decided there was no point starting a new punch line (which can sometimes work for roach) and instead began flicking marble sized balls of liquidised over the near shelf trying to make something happen in the last half hour. I thought the match being put back until a 3.30 finish might increase the chances of a big roach or two turning up.

While I waited I employed the skimmer rig with a bunch of squatts (after all, I'd already lost a big bream here) but it never worked. The bread line also failed to bring another bite, so it was a pretty boring last hour or so, and I was relieved when the all-out was called to be honest. I knew I'd come second in section, and the weigh-in showed just how hard it had been with Zac weghing in 200g or so and Dom about 400g. My two skimmers and dozen or so roach went 1.050kg, then there were weights of around 300g and 100g whilst Rich had over a kilo and a half from peg 6, and caught reasonably steadily it would seem. Included in his catch were three skimmers of about 6-12oz, a decent roach and quite a few of the usual 'blades' too. The guys the other side of him had 300-500g of tiny roach, plus one angler who did not weigh in.

I arrived back at the football club for snacks and results and it soon became apparent that the lost bream had probably cost me no more than first in section as the overall frame weights were some way over the 3 kilo mark, meaning my bream would have to have gone well over 4lb if I had landed it. Possible, but probably not worth dwelling on. Still, I got a tenner back in the pools.

Overall winner was Ali Robinson with at least 5kg, possibly six, but I was so incensed at me and dad not winning anything on the raffle that I failed to take many of the results in! Paul Elworthy was second I think, and although you clearly had to be on the fish in this match as the top weights were so localised, he seems to be the don on the Tiverton Canal, always there or thereabouts.

A well-organised event once again, and it would be nice to see more matches of this size on natural venues nearby, but sadly the Christmas Match seems to be the only one to attract this many anglers (38).

I've booked into another match. Dave Harvey had been telling me about the excellent fishing on the King's Sedgemoor Drain when I met him after the Tiverton Christmas match, and suggested that I fish Bridgwater's Christmas Fayre on the same water, to be held the Sunday before Christmas Day. I find these wide, deep venues quite daunting, but they appeal to me massively. I won't be expecting to compete with the venue regulars on the day, but am anticipating an enjoyable day's fishing nonetheless.

I've only fished the KSD on one previous occasion and that was whilst roving the levels a couple of years ago for pike. I managed a pike of about 7lb by Greylake Sluice but it appeared to be on its last legs; all head and a pitiful body. When I unhooked it, I could see another length of braid hanging out of its mouth and entering the stomach, no sign of a trace. Bad pike care and angling is a problem on the Levels and particularly by the access points.

Today I visited an attractive tree-lined section of the drain to try and formulate some sort of a plan for the forthcoming match. Recent matches have been won with over 20lb of roach with plenty of double-figure back up weights. Seven pounds was last in one of these matches!

Peering over a bridge on arrival, I made out the remaining swirls of what must have been a pike attack. And there were small fish topping everywhere. It was a decent walk over bobbly ground to find a swim. I didn't expect to see so many anglers on this water on a Tuesday but after every bush I passed there seemed to be someone in position with a rod or two out for pike. I later had a visit from Bridgwater bailiff Seb Newosiad who revealed that four of these anglers were caught without permits. Buggers - I could have been spared the walk.

After a bit of swim construction, I got started in the late morning. I fished a single line at around seven or eight metres but this took a surprisingly long time to produce a bite. My opening gambit was three balls of dark groundbait, packed with leftover squat, loosefeeding casters over the top. Worryingly, there were no signs of fish at all but I could see them a couple of hundred yards back towards the car still dimpling on the surface.

Then, after half an hour it was as though someone had flicked a switch and my rig just would not settle as small roach after small roach attacked whatever hookbait I offered them. I also added hemp to the loosefeed when it became apparent there were lots of fish in the swim. To be honest, my rig was all wrong and I couldn't be bothered to set up another one so targeted pike with the old faithful spinning rod and small pike float. Drifted roach sorted out two pike, both around 7lb. The first was a sorry looking thing, not at all dissimilar to the one I caught at Greylake, but the second was perfect and must have somehow avoided capture by any angler on this popular drain.

This was much more exciting than the roach fishing as far as I was concerned and even my intermittent efforts on the pole sustained a bite a chuck throughout the session once the fish arrived. I'll have to have a good think about my rigs before the match but until then I think it's about time I got back round to some piking and giving my legs a bit more exercise.

Our week-long canals tour kicked off with a visit to Pontypool, Wales, to meet up with David Overland, author of "Fishing With Emma", and his angling pal Ray Minty, who it transpired used to fish the Lee Navigation in North London, like myself. He moved away from the area at around the same time, so who knows, we may even have bumped into each other there a few years back.

If I'm honest with myself, I can be a bit of a pessimist when I go fishing. I'll take far too much tackle to cover situations that in all likelihood will never arise and then want to move as soon as I've set it all up, because I think somewhere else looks better. Generally I like a bit of water in front of me, but we found the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal both narrow and shallow, with no depth to speak of more than about seven metres from the bank, and not much more in the track either. But my God was it a beautiful bit of water, and our hosts had not only provided us with local knowledge but also bait, which was to be liquidised bread and some steamed slices for the hook.

I opted for a very delicate approach to feeding, by introducing my bread loose via kinder pot. I also put in a little chopped worm and half a dozen red maggots along the swim a foot off some spindly branches reaching out from the far bank. My first fish on breadpunch was a pristine roach of good stamp for the bread, followed by three or four similarly sized ones too, before they began to get smaller and less frequent.

I then dropped a small perch on a red maggot over the chopped worm line, using the same rig an inch or two overdepth. The next bite resulted in a fish shooting for the bush on the opposite bank, but it soon came under control and surprised us all when a small pike was netted. David said that he had never seen one from this area of the Mon & Brec before and that his son would be thrilled to know they were present.

That was it for the chopped worm line, but a little rest brought some more roach when I tried again on breadpunch. When bites tailed off completely, I took a short walk along the bank and dropped a nugget of liquidised bread in there, catching two or three plump roach before we decided to call it quits and take a little drive and stroll along other local stretches. I had about fifty roach in three hours for an estimated weight of around 5lb.

The second area we tried was more coloured, and I blanked, trying to make groundbait and chopped worm work there, but I enjoyed watching Ray catch roach and a couple of small skimmers on breadpunch and chatting to David, who is a truly smashing bloke.

Thirty seven anglers turned out for this match which was moved from the King's Sedgemoor Drain to the Bridgwater Canal in the week, owing to floodwater. This switch buoyed my optimism as I am more familiar with the canal than the drain. I was happy when the match organisers announced before the draw that there would be two sections and no overall payout, which I think is a fair arrangement. "A" section was 19 pegs from the Boat & Anchor Inn towards the Widewaters - an area which I am familiar with, whilst B section would be the wides and a short (six pegs) stretch beyond, known as Smithy's, which I have zero past experience of.

I recognised one or two faces and even a couple of anglers approached me at breakfast to say that they read my blog. I sat down and had a bit of a chat with Shane Portlock, and he later offered me a bit of advice about my peg on the bank and the possibility of a trip to the Gloucester Canal next year. Top man. Come the draw I pulled out peg 17, and assuming that the last peg before the wides was the last in the section, i.e number 19, I was bloody ecstatic. That would be more or less exactly where I caught all my tench before here. Slight disappointment then when I discovered that I was a bit further back towards the pub than I initially thought (there were 24 pegs up to the Widewaters), and perhaps just off the best tench pegs. On the other hand, I reckoned I was at the better end of the section. Dad was also fishing and drew end peg 37, so we both felt confident of some fish.

My day started with a longish walk after sorting out bait with my dad at his end of the match-length and I was slightly startled by the whistle going when I wasn't ready. I got a bit flustered and ended up dumping in a big pot of chopped worm when really I should have started with lighter feeding which in my opinion works better for perch, which I thought would be a more realistic target than tench in my peg, at least early on. Not being ready for the whistle caught me a bit unawares and I didn't really think that move through. My plan to start on the whip began well though, and I went straight in on the bulked waggler to combat the strong winds and had easily a pound in the first half an hour I would think, mostly roach.

As the match progressed I had more trouble hitting the bites on the whip, although there were obviously fish there. I became aware that my section was fishing quite hard so I knew I could forgo speed and concentrate on presentation to keep bites coming. I went into my rod bag and pulled out another top kit to take a light punch rig, the like of which I might more commonly use on the Grand Western Canal, but given that the rudd had been conspicuous by their absence today I felt it would be a good move to try it now and convert the missed bites into roach in the net.

The angler to my left had a good fish early on chopped worm at twelve metres, but it turned out to be a pike, which don't count. A few walkers reported back that Simon Garbutt on peg 20 had already had a dozen tench with only half the match gone. As he wasnt in my section i knew I didnt have to worry and concentrated on beating those to my right. Information was sketchy at best from the early pegs in my section but it emerged that Paul Purchase had caught at least a couple of tench, but from what I could gather, nobody else had had any. I then noticed a half decent rudd top over my chopped worm line so shipped out to 16 metres and had a fish of 6-8oz on half a worm. These were as good as a tench at this stage so next put-in I slipped on a red maggot and two fluoro pinkies which worked for three more good rudd and nothing after. Those four fish must have given me an extra pound in weight though, and in very little time at all.

For the rest of the match I got my head down with little roach and had the occasional look across, but never for too long. I knew that the section had gone (as I wasn't willing to gamble too much time trying to catch the several tench I would now need) and thought that I should be aiming for second place. The wind was an absolute ball-ache though and I had to retie or untangle the whip rig God knows how many times and replace the hooklength probably half a dozen times. At the whistle it was in an absolute state up the bank and I had to make do with catching some tiny little rudd, which invaded my swim in the last half hour, on the pole. Throughout the five hours, I fed around two loaves of liquidised bread by hand to keep the fish coming, although in fairness most of it blew straight back into my face anyway.

After weighing in 5lb 8oz myself, I heard that Chris "Gappy" Parr had put 4lb 8oz onto the scales back towards the Boat & Anchor, and expecting that he would have out-performed those around him, going on his reputation, I fancied an outside chance of a pick-up. I was very pleased and not too surprised then to return to the 37 club afterwards and hear that I had in fact come second, which I thought was just reward for drawing well and some sound decision-making, even if I didn't fish brilliantly well. As for my dad, he weighed in just under 10lb and only managed seventh in section! I should have grabbed a pic of the results sheet but I can recall that Paul Purchase won my section with over 13lb, including four tench. My 5lb 8oz was second (worth £25), Chris Parr was third with 4lb 8oz and there was a tie for third place with 3lb 8oz. One of those anglers was Dave Harvey, but I'm sorry I can not recall the name of the other angler.

As for the best weight on the day, that was a scarcely credible 81lb of tench banked by Simon Garbutt from peg 20. Swapping between two lines and mostly fishing caster over chopped worm and caster, he took 25 tench to over four pounds. Second was Simon King with 38lb-odd in the wides, his twelve tench coming in the last ninety minutes of the match. Then there was a weight of around 23lb I think, next to the winner, and about 18lb was 4th in Section B; the biggest weight which included no tench.

Entry was only ten quid, and everyone took away a prize which looked to be worth at least that alone (my dad collected a bottle of port, big Toblerone bar, and a cheese set with a bottle of red in with it), never mind the fact that there was no day ticket charge for non-members. On a final note, If I've got anybody's name wrong, I do apologise, there were a lot of new names and faces to take in. Please let me know if I have.

It all seems to have gone a bit quiet on the old blogosphere as of late. And I have hardly helped things myself, what with my intermittent postings and the temporary removal of my blog from the public domain. Anyway, after some tidying up of my site (which you may or may not notice), it is back, and hopefully for good.

I won't bother with a round-up of 2013 as it was by no means spectacular, and besides, most of the better fish I caught I couldn't publish for one reason or other. Anyway, I will try and update it now as regularly as I can, which may mean less writing, but hopefully a little something new on a regular basis for the perusal of those who do drop by. I still struggle with trying to find the balance between keeping the blog readable, and putting in all the little bits of info I may want to check back on in time. Then there are the complications that arise from making it public knowledge what you are catching and from precisely where. Recently, a page was started on facebook regarding piking in my local area, and within no time half a dozen pike anglers were pitched up on a short section of the Grand Western Canal in pursuit of a 15lber which had been posted on there. A shame really, and I see no joy in trying to catch a particular fish you know has been caught already by someone else, even if it is from a canal or river.

Moving on, I have made a long list of targets, but I won't go into them all now as it would take too long, but the ones I would like to revisit at the end of 2014 are as follows.

3lb Perch - If I can get this from a canal, even better, but I have stillwaters, canal venues and drains all to target in the first quarter of the year.

1lb 8oz Silver Bream - This will probably be a case of playing the numbers game, and I would be happy with anything over 1lb really and worth weighing. This will be a target for the early spring after my perch exploits are over.

2lb Rudd - Another target for April/May time, and the perfect way to spend some warm evenings on the canals.

7lb Tench - I realise some of these are ambitious but I've decided to aim high this year, and if I fall just short, I will still be very happy.

20lb Common Carp & Mirror Carp - Don't care when, where or how.

Wels Catfish - Not after a monster but to tick off my first night fishing trip would be great too.

Mullet - Any size! If my tally exceeds five by the end of the year I will be chuffed, but sometimes I wonder if I'll ever catch another one at all...

Other ambitions include pike and carp of decent size from canals and a decent dace catch from the tidal River Exe (I've stated 15lb+ on my checklist), a water I just haven't got to grips with during my few attempts there over the years.

Who knows what the year ahead will bring; I'm sure there will be periods again where I don't get out for weeks on end, but then there are always fascinating diversions and one off trips along the way. Thanks to all those people who bumped into me on the bank over recent months and told me to get my act together and make the blog available to read again - this one's for you!

Between Dominic catching a can of Carlsberg first chuck and me celebrating victory in the South-West Bread-throwing Championships was some quite exceptional fishing today. Exceptional for the fact that my first attempt to catch a 3lb perch this year resulted in zero interest in a small livebait and yet two 12oz perch on breadflake fished on a whip. And exceptional for the fact that Dom caught the same pike twice in one day, some hundred yards and three hours apart, a scar by the anal fin, and a strange congenital defect of the gill cover giving it away.

I think I have finally come to some sort of arrangement that will allow me to fish at a moments notice without the need to carry masses of gear, and it comes in the guise of a small, recently-purchased, Wychwood shoulder bag that will take two small tackles boxes. I have filled three of these tackle boxes of equal size; one with pike gear, one with carp and feeder tackle, and another with floats and all the bits and pieces required to fish them. Then I simply chuck in the box/es that I require that day, into the bag, and grab a rod and landing net and I'm off fishing. I've considered many scenarios, from big carp, to trotting, mullet fishing, and wobbling and static dead baiting for pike, and see no reason why there is ever a need to take the seatbox out pleasure fishing again where a pole is not involved. I also have a fold up stool that can be carried easily in the unhooking mat.

My new "light on luggage" approach came through its first test today after perch, and I was able to set up a small float rig for presenting half ounce roach and rudd, and a whip rig for keeping busy without ever feeling that I could have been better prepared, or able to keep more mobile. Although the perch failed to show, something we blamed on unsettled weather conditions and coloured water, there was plenty of action from pike for Dominic, who landed six (well technically five), to a best of 11lb 15oz.

My Esox action was limited to a single fish, but a feisty one of 9lb 7oz on a single size 4 hook. The more I use single hooks for presenting fish baits, the more I am convinced of their advantages over treble hooks (and two sets of hooks) for catching pike; everyone I have landed has been securely hooked in the scissors where they can come to no harm. As an aside, I would never dream of not using a wire trace where pike are present. I haven't found perch to be unduly bothered by their use to warrant the risk.

The whip provided action throughout the day, and a regular helping of liquidised bread soon got roach and rudd lined up in whichever swim we tried. Keeping mobile for the perch and pike was the name of the game and whilst some areas held more rudd, others threw up roach or silver bream. The best rudd was around 1lb and I also lost a good fish at the end of the day which turned out to be foul hooked. The scale that came back on the hook was tiny, but I was convinced that the fish was of decent size, possibly a tench based on that evidence alone, but I couldn't say with any certainty.

I did finally hook a perch almost at last knockings, but it threw the hook as it surfaced. It wasn't my three pounder, but a decent fish nonetheless, and the closest I came to catching a perch by design on the day. At least victory was mine in a contest devised to dispose of the remainder of the bread, which basically involved splitting what was left of the loaf in half and then squeezing it into balls and throwing it as far as possible. Dom's fate was sealed when his missile began to dismantle mid-flight, whilst mine disappeared into the night and is probably traversing the sky somewhere over Birmingham as I type.

I almost can't even remember how many pike he caught compared to me now...

After promising Jamie Rich, who writes the well-read Against Men & Fish blog, a personal best pike over a year ago and failing to deliver, I met up with him again today. Last time, we endured a bitter, biting wind and motionless floats on the Somerset Levels and I think Jamie's late arrival at our meeting point this morning betrayed his pessimism for round two. But I was feeling quite confident. After all, the target was simply to beat a previous personal best pike of "a few pounds".

The weather was not kind to us again and the following five or six hours gave our waterproof kit a thorough working over as we were battered by rain and hail, which made the surface of the water resemble John Wilson's approach to loosefeeding. The first job was to rig up a light float outfit for catching livebaits, which took a lot longer than usual, owing to the line and other fiddly bits and pieces sticking in the cold rain and a hook which refused to be tied. Eventually a small rudd was lifted ashore by Jamie, who greeted it with pleasant surprise as though he thought we would never get around to the business of fishing for pike. Out went the rudd to the same spot which had produced it, and the small pike float could not have been there longer than a minute before it disappeared from view and Jamie found himself attached a jack of maybe two pounds.

He looked made up with that, and I was so chuffed for him that I had yet to get started myself, but two baits were soon in position for any more lurking predators, and it was Jamie again, who found himself attached to a good fish, which turned out to be a perch of 2lb 6oz; a personal best by a single ounce.

I had three or four perch to the pound mark (pictured top) over the next couple of hours, including one fish which had a six inch length of mono trailing from its backside. I cut this as close to the fish as possible before slipping it back, and hopefully it won't be too badly affected by its previous encounters with anglers. Jamie lost a better pike which we put at around 4 or 5lb before the weather downgraded from apocalyptic to simply dire, allowing us to move to another area where we could gain at least some shelter from the elements.

I thought I was destined to not catch a decent pike after watching Dom catch them all last time I went fishing but amidst my efforts I was pleased to slip the net under another personal best for Jamie, weighing 8lb 5oz. You can read more about his match fishing exploits and what he thought of the day on his blog. My day ended with one final disappointment when I lost a pike which felt very decent, heavy and strong, before the hook pulled on a surging second run. Jamie rounded up the day with a hattrick of long, pointy things and another pike of 3-4lb though, so it was ambition achieved for him, and then some. Well done mate, and sorry for the long wait!

I've never been good at keeping to targets, being quite impulsive with regards to my fishing. I prefer catching bigger than average fish - who doesn't - but I don't always prefer fishing for them. With the rivers and drains still out of the equation, pike have been put on the backburner and carp have come into consideration as I seek out a healthy bend in the rod.

A fish of twenty pounds is the benchmark, having only before managed one fish of this size in my many years of angling. My companion on that first trip was Ben Franks, and he joined me again today for another trip to the same venue where he also took a 23lb 11oz fish last time. Once again the owner at Viaduct was most helpful, and it's not hard to see why it is one of the most well-renowned fisheries in the country, not just the South-West.

After our chat in the on-site tackle shop, we had a walk around Cary Lake where three carpers had set up camp. My enquiry of "Any good?" to the third of these was met with strict instructions about where we could and couldn't cast depending on which swims we chose, and a parting shot of "plenty of room for everyone, eh". I still don't know what he'd caught but being told where I can and can't fish by a tosser with matching big pit reels on a one acre pond is one of the reasons why I often steer clear of commercials.

We set up with Big-time watching us intently, lest we cast near to one of his many loose-fed pellets, Ben taking a swim where he could explore a small wind-swept bay, and I an open-water peg. A switch from livebait fishing for perch and pike last session to carp fishing with straight leads was made easily with my new system of carrying minimal gear, just a quick switch of a light tackle box, and a change of rods, being all that was required. I cast the left-hand rod out with meat on the hook and a few loose bits on dissolving PVA string, whilst the second rod had two halves of a spicy squid boilie on a hair (no feed). It was only when we walked around the fishery a bit later on that we discovered that boilies are banned. Oops!

Within ten minutes Ben had a run on a bait cast to the bay, but lost it. I was next in, when the boilie hookbait was picked up by a plodding, parrot-mouthed mirror of just under twelve pounds. As we were weighing that one the other alarm screeched off from a more scrappy common, but one of around 6lb or so which was unhooked in the net and slipped straight back. I chucked back out and then Ben had an 8lb common carp. It is hard to make this kind of fishing sound any more interesting than what it is, that of lobbing a bait out and waiting for a run, which is what happened again with a third carp, this time weighing 14lb 4oz, the best of the day.

The activity seemed to coincide with a spell of sunshine and fish on the bank for the other anglers on the lake, but the next 45 minutes passed without incident. I reeled in to find that disappointingly the PVA string on both rods had failed to dissolve so I had no chance of any action. Next time I will hollow out the boilie next to the bend of the hook to allow water to attack the PVA. I scoffed a hot pasty in the shop and picked up a few bargain pole floats for 99p which look great for a spot of bread fishing when I don't have the seatbox with me, before we upped sticks and headed to Spring Lake where the carp run larger.

By this time we were more familiar with the rules so it was luncheon meat all the way on this lake. I cast one towards the island and dropped one in close with a little helping of meat and hemp over the top, before sitting as far back as possible to await further developments. I only had one more run, this coming to luncheon meat on the margin rod, but I missed it, before Ben enjoyed a hectic forty minutes landing four more carp to 12lb 2oz and losing two also. I even hopped into the swim the other side of him for the final hour, to no avail.

I quite enjoyed our trip to Viaduct even if it did start off on a slightly irritating note, but I will continue in my search for a twenty pound carp, no doubt enduring more selfish carpers and parrot-mouthed pasties along the way.

I took a couple of hours off this afternoon and headed to the town stretch of the River Exe in Tiverton. It is nowhere near as prolific as that other urban Westcountry river, the Tone in Taunton, but nonetheless I fancied it for a bit of unpredictable fishing and set up a 1.5g stick float in the fast, but even-paced current.

In the end I had about half a dozen bites, dropping off the first two fish before changing the hook pattern. Both felt quite decent actually, and less crazy than the two brown trout I later landed, so I'm guessing grayling, or perhaps even dace, which I have caught here before, but about seven years back now. I also had a grayling that was so small I could not indentify it until it was in the palm of my hand. Cute.

My search for a big silver bream has brought me beyond Bridgwater to a small commercial fishery called Emerald Pool, in West Huntspill. I was acting on a bit of a hunch following reports of pleasure and match weights between 50-90lb made up of mostly skimmers, roach and "hybrids". My suspicions were soon confirmed when I swung in a small silver bream first cast, although I did later bank a couple of very nice roach/bream hybrids over 1lb.

Emerald Pool is a lake of many features but also many, many fish. So many in fact that fishing to features seems pointless when all you need do is stir up a bit of competition in the surface layers. Typically, I spent the best part of an afternoon playing the numbers game, catching two or three fish every minute on a waggler set as shallow as twelve inches deep, only for the very best fish to make an appearance only when the light began to fade.

I had no preconceived plan to fish shallow, expecting that the largest fish would be found with a decent sized bait inert and pinned to the deck, but it is hard to get across quite how prolific this lake is. I spent the first three hours fishing right in front of my car, but the wind turned around making this unbearable, and after three hours of torment I concluded that enough was enough and moved to the other side of the pond.

It was when I started in my second swim at around half past one that my fortunes changed. I chucked in a couple of balls of groundbait laced with chopped worm and had a little tench and a few skimmers on the deck before I decided to come shallow. Thereafter I was catching skimmers and silver bream one-a-chuck, plus a trio of pretty fantail brown goldfish and a rogue carp or three. I chopped and changed hookbaits, between a piece of worm, casters and maggots but each bait caught both small and better quality fish. In fact nearly all the fish were quality, two or three to the pound being typical stamp.

I only had one roach all day, but that was a fish of easily 1lb, whilst the biggest silver bream I managed was 1lb 2oz. They are still on the lean side though so a return in the spring may be in order. The best bit of fortune was snagging up in a tree and losing the 4BB waggler I started on. I then took the opportunity to set up again with a short 2BB model, allowing me to fish shallower than I had before, which seemed to bring larger fish. I got through a pint and a half of caster in total.

There have been some good results on the perch front so far this winter, without the hoped-for 3lber yet putting in an appearance. At Simpson Valley with Dom Garnett, I shelled out the best part of twenty eight quid on bait, and parted with a a couple of fivers for day ticket money, in return for Dominic driving us.

I made up three new rigs on the bank to cover some options. Livebaits are allowed on this fishery so one of the rigs was quite unconventional to present one on the pole - a tiny little Drennan loafer float and size 6 hook weighed down by a bulk of BB shot. There was also a lobworm rig for fishing fourteen and a half metres across to an island, but to start with I fed some sloppy groundbait and maggots by hand to stir up roach activity close in, and fished a half gram Drennan Pinkie with three maggots on the hook just to see the float go under, which it did, resulting in a roach first cast.

Once Dominic had set himself up, he joined me for some photographs and to share a bottle of beer, which went down sweetly, even though I had yet to have any breakfast! Having said that, it wasn't a crack of dawn start by any stretch and it had comfortably passed ten o'clock before either of us got started. Before returning the favour for Dominic, I said I would have a quick go for a perch on my maggot line, and incredibly one responded, only a fish of eight ounces or so but a a great start and very welcome.

Whilst I let my chopped lobworms and caster settle near the island, I enjoyed the challenge of trying to catch the smallest fish I could on my size fourteen hook. I had lots of tiny rudd, a microscopic perch, and also a gudgeon. They might be classic perch bait, but I see so few of them these days that I didn't have the heart to lip hook it and instead set it free and stuck to the rudd.

My first look on the long pole with a piece of worm resulted in a half-pound roach/rudd hybrid, as did my second, but a larger bait and longer wait then saw a much greater length of blue hydro stream out of the pole tip, and a pretty, fat perch come to the net, weighing just shy of two pounds, at 1lb 13oz.

I then had a few more perch on maggots but none were worth weighing. I might have benefited from trying to get through the pint of red maggots I'd brought with me on that line, but instead fed them sparingly with the regular pinches of groundbait to try and attract small fry and make the livebait a viable tactic (rather than encourage the perch to take maggots). A scattering of fish confirmed their interest, and so I tried a little livebait for ten minutes or so, using the pole to poke the bait in close to some trailing branches. Success! But it was a lone success, although the perch I did catch was a decent sample of around a pound and a half.

I always envisaged that the island would offer me my best chance of a big perch and so concentrated my biggest expenditure in terms of bait there, by topping up with chopped lobs regularly. These also seemed to tickle the fancy of the resident tench, and I caught five small ones up to a poundish. I was tempted to try prawns, but I have great faith in lobs and so left that area of field-testing entirely to Dominic. My next big perch on this line weighed 2lb 6oz.

By now it was much later and colder, and I'd decided to abandon thoughts of trying any tactic other than a big lobworm tail up against the island. The tench continued to get the adrenalin pumping every time I hooked one, only to reveal themselves as imposters once they neared the net, whilst another good fish to show on the worm was an immaculately condition bream getting on for three pounds, light in colour but deep in the body.

It began to rain but I fished on as long as I could, finally connecting with another belting perch when it was almost dark. I then weighed this fish at 2lb 11oz and retained it in the net whilst Dominic rushed to get his kit away.

There was still time and just about enough light for one more put in, and again the float slid away gently, and after a two second wait before striking I was into another good fish, only it felt much heavier, and especially so when playing it on the top kit. I had already called over to Dominic that it did not feel like a perch and my mind ran through the possibilities, considering what I'd hooked. I saw a pale flash under the surface and so was able to rule out tench before the tell-tale rubbery lips of a chub took a gulp of air at the surface.

In the rush to get photographs and pack away whilst it belted it down, I didn't weigh the chub, but would estimate it at a good three pounds plus. They never seem to look very well fed when I catch them from lakes, and this one's weight was certainly in its length, and the size of its head.

Not much to report I'm afraid, as I count the cost of a trip to Stafford Moor in Winkleigh - more outlay on petrol, bait and day tickets, for precious little in return. Beatties was the chosen lake, in the company of Ben Franks.

The water temperature did not seem too bad, despite an overnight frost, but the carp just weren't interested. I failed to learn much, except that my confidence in my carp rigs is pretty low. I think they might benefit from a bit of silicone tubing on the shank of the hook to keep the hair from wrapping over, but other than that I'm quite happy to continue with a basic running inline lead and shortish hook length. I used PVA bags for the first time today but I still came back most times with leaves and muck on the hook.

Half a boilie and a piece of cork was tried in an attempt to raise the hookbait clear of the silt and debris, but even this failed to impress Stafford's significant stock of fat mirrors.

I was fishing small PVA bags with a mix of six and 8mm trout pellets and broken mainline cell boilies in the bag, and then scattering a few whole boilies over the top with a catapult, which was achieved with surprising accuracy. I even tried a bright pink boilie popped up with a bit of cork, again to no avail. There were three other carpers on the lake, who also failed to catch whilst we were there. In fact, we did not see one sign of a carp all day.

The plan for January was to fish for a big pike and possibly sneak a few hours trotting for dace and grayling. Whilst I enjoy the canal and the often action-packed fishing that it brings, these are the months for getting on the river. Or not, as it has turned out.

When I awoke to a lovely crisp morning today, I couldn't wait to finish running some errands in town and get down to the River Isle, which I hoped would be fishable for the first time in weeks. I have yet to wet a line there, but know from Jamie that it can be excellent for mixed catches of chub, dace, roach and the like. I thought I would take my girlfriend Beth who, whilst not exactly having caught the fishing bug yet, seemed to enjoy her first trip a couple of weeks ago, when the float slipped under repeatedly to the tune of 35 roach and rudd to about 4oz.

Well, the river looked a brilliant colour on arrival (this isn't even sarcasm; it wasn't that muddy), the only problem was that it had expanded from its usual width of around eleven metres to something more like eleven hundred metres. Looking over one side of the bridge, the course of the river was not even discernible, lost as it was amid numerous submerged fields.

We headed back to the scene of our first fishing trip together, but not before briefly getting my car stuck in a ditch along the way. With the underbelly of the car painfully close to the ground I was lucky not to have caused some expensive damage, but we were soon on our way again and assembling a whip beside the Taunton to Bridgwater Canal. I was happy just to watch and feed, as Beth's second cast with a piece of flake snaffled her first net fish, a beautiful rudd of maybe 14oz, and one of perhaps half a dozen of similar size that were to later follow. It was pretty uncomplicated fishing; perched on a high wall and wondering what the next cast might bring. Invariably it was roach, between one and four ounces, and I wondered if I might be spoiling her future enjoyment of the sport. Fishing doesn't really get much better than this in my opinion.

I see in any interview the same question asked; "If you could only fish one method for the rest of your life, what would it be?" The real answer is I'd probably give up fishing, as it's the variety in methods, baits and styles that keeps me from getting bored. But if you asked me to tell you what my favourite method is, I'd be hard pressed not to nominate the whip. I just love the instant sensation transmitted on the strike when using such a light tool, which can not be matched by elastic or when there is the added weight of a reel attached to the rod. Okay, so I am just trying to justify why I then nicked a go and proceeded to hook by far the biggest fish of the day, which brings me on to the biggest disadvantage of whip fishing - it wasn't up to the job in had, and I lost it. Despite having the fish on for some considerable time, it soon realised it could go more ways than just down when it approached the surface and darted off, snapping the 2lb hooklength. Thoughts of a big bream were quashed and tench instated as the suspected culprit instead.

I fetched a waggler rod from the car to give us a chance if the same thing happened again, but of course it never did, and as the roach began to get smaller we considered a move. The second swim looked promising, with lots of activity from rudd, which picked morsels of floating bread from the surface, whilst hopefully some better samples settled below. The first fish was another nice rudd, all of twelve ounces, before some smaller ones held up our droppers. I nicked another go. What happened? I had a 1lb+ bream of course, the first one she had seen. I soon realised we hadn't picked the best mix of species to catch for they aren't easy to tell apart to unfamiliar eyes. But I now know that roach have 'sad mouths' and rudd have 'happy mouths'? The next fish was a silver bream.

As the light began to fade, Beth latched into a better fish which emerged as another common bream, double the size of mine, and worth a weigh as a benchmark for future specimens. 2lb 2oz. I should have then taken the rod for another go, as the next fish was the best of its species that I have seen in nearly 20 years of angling. By now the light had all but gone but we were able to continue by streetlight. I assumed this was another skimmer, and it came to the landing net like one too, but the head was wrong and I initially made the same mistake thousands of anglers do every time they catch one. "Hybrid", I said. It was only when I placed my hand under it to remove the hook that I saw what it really was. Silver Bream! And a bloody good one too. I thought it would go a pound, but it was an ounce short. Does it matter? Not at all, and it did require two hands to be lifted.

The water might still be cold, but it was nice to feel the sun on my face for a couple of short reccies along the Ilminster Canal. I picked up a pint of white maggots after a morning at work yesterday and checked out the water with a short stroll before opting for a waggler rod over the whips in the boot of my car. A reliable old Image canal waggler was threaded onto the line and locked with two number four shot. I started light, with some spread 10 and 11 droppers to a size 20 on an 0.08 bottom. It wasn’t long before a few roach responded and the odd wasp perch. As the evening drew to a close I was catching some very nice 3-4oz roach alternating between the deck and half-depth. I even had a little fantail brown goldfish and spoke to a walker who said that quite a number of goldfish had been popping up in catches recently.

I returned the next morning before work in an attempt to catch, if not a bigger goldfish, then a more colourful one. The ‘canal’ is best described as a long pond really, as all that remains of it (whatever it was) is a section some 200 yards long on the edge of the recreation ground, so it is hardly surprising that someone has decided it is a convenient place to dump any fish which may have outgrown the garden pond, but it does add more unpredictability to quite an appealing little fishery. It was back to basics stuff once more, and with only two hours to play with, I took the same rod out of the car, already set up, and sat down this time near one end of the pond where I found it weedier and had obviously decided it looked more ‘goldfishy’.

It turned out it wasn’t and a few tiny perch later I decided a move was in order, even on such limited time. I relocated a short distance away to the middle of the canal and set about feeding some maggots there in an attempt to at least add to my tally of bumblebees. It was slow going for twenty minutes or so before the odd roach began to respond and just as I was suspecting that only dusk would bring them properly on the feed, I began to put together a run of plump roach once more, and, lo and behold, another brown goldfish. Not long after, I had a bite on the drop which resulted in a plodding fight and a larger, far more colourful goldfish. A very, very pretty one in fact, as you'll see below. I rounded off the session with about a dozen last casts and a couple of welcome perch, one about 6oz and another of half a pound or so. The best roach of the lot was actually a roach/rudd hybrid, which was unexpected as I never caught any rudd on either day despite fishing shallow on and off, and there was also another strange occurrence when I struck a quick bite, completely missing it and coming back with a cleanly severed hooklength, an occurrence I associate with the Grand Western Canal and its abundant jack pike population. I’m not aware that the Ilminster Canal holds any pike, but If it does, then I fear for the future of those goldfish!

The Ilminster Canal goldfish tally is now up to four, caught on the third of these little trips I've been squeezing in around work. This time, I only managed to fish for about an hour and a quarter but it was enough time to also take nine roach and eight perch on the same light waggler set up fished down the middle that I had employed before. I could get used to this simple fishing with hardly any gear. All I need do when I've had enough is hook the rod up, pick up the net and seatbox, and head back to the car. No getting caught packing away in the rain with this approach.

On this subject, I recently bought this little box off ebay for the princely sum of thirteen quid. It's great. Forget ridiculously named seatboxes for several hundred pounds, I really feel this budget bit of kit could transform my fishing this coming year, where I'll have to squeeze in what fishing I can with the available time that I have. Where most similarly priced tackle boxes fall down is that they are simply an empty shell, but I can keep all my shot, hooks, scissors, plummets and disgorgers neatly separated and organised in the top compartments, a few pole rigs, cups and plenty of spools of line in the middle, and then my bait, camera, scales, lunch and floats in the base. And it's a seat - for less than the price of a rucksack.

Back to the fishing, and it was again the little perch that responded quickest, before a shoal of 2-4oz roach moved in, and the goldfish came in the middle of those. This one was a kind of browny-orange. I'm not very good at describing them in a particularly flattering way, which they deserve, so I'll leave you to see for yourself from the pictures, but this one also looked to be carrying spawn, and more of these little fellas would be good news as far as I'm concerned. Jamie has suggested that I try caster next time, which I have no doubt would work really well for the roach, but my main aim is goldfish, so maybe next time I'll just take along a tub of fish flakes.

Throughout this long stormy winter I have found myself looking forward to March, and the first stirrings of Spring. It is a good month to be an angler but a bad month if you’re as indecisive as I am. Whilst nothing particularly large has come along these last few days, I have managed a mixed bag of fish by leaving a bit of kit in my car for an opportunistic hour here and there. Lack of planning has been to blame for that, but also thanked because I’ve enjoyed some sunny afternoons, largely in the company of my girlfriend Beth.

On Saturday night we left home at 5 and after a quick stop at Tesco in Ilminster, shared a rod and a catch of 34 roach, 2 rudd, a skimmer, and a roach/bream hybrid, from the canal, before it was too dark to see anything but the silhouettes of bats flitting amongst the trees. No goldfish brightened the gloom of that evening, though I did catch two of these on Friday morning before work:

The problem with this time of year is that there are so many venues which start to perk up and it becomes a difficult task choosing between them. With time running out to get on the rivers, which have finally become fishable again in the Westcountry, I stole an hour on the River Exe in Tiverton, trying to connect with those elusive dace, which I have not seen for about seven years. A salmon par was all that succumbed to an hour of feeding and fishing a waggler down the middle of the river, before a nearby beer garden began calling us, and we sat there sharing an ice cream sundae and hatching plans for a visit to Bude the next day.

On Tuesday, I treated my dad to an overdue birthday trip to the River Tone in Taunton. We picked up some maggots and day tickets to fish the fast stretch where dad could try out his new fourteen foot rod for the first time. I used a sixteen foot model to run a 7BB wire-stemmed avon through various pegs, but this became a 15’ 6” road by lunchtime when I snapped the tip section by catching it in a gate as I walked between swims. After a bit of a sulk, I managed the best I could by cutting the rod back to the next eye and rigging up again. I can’t say that I noticed too critical a difference for the rest of the day, and even landed my best chub from this stretch of river, weighing 3lb 8oz. The rod I use has two butt-sections though, to be used at twelve foot as well, and it is cracking at the shorter length for fishing a light waggler on the canals, so I will need to get it fixed pretty soon.

Meanwhile I found dad sat down by a small eddy catching gudgeon of all things, not to mention odd roach, dace and grayling, in amongst the minnows. He’d also had some nice 2-3lb chub trotting, and had several more later on too. It wasn’t the most productive day that I’ve known on the river myself, but a final tally of 15 chub, 9 brown trout, 6 roach, 4 dace, 4 grayling and a gudgeon, kept my arms and legs working throughout the afternoon.

Oh, and I also - somehow - managed to snare this padlock:

At Dillington Pond on Wednesday, I’d defeated myself before I started, having bought some prawns which I had absolutely no confidence in. I did manage some lovely roach to ten ounces or so on the whip, but became restless and packed up within a few hours. Worth a return visit though, with better prep.

The pick of my long weekend off was a visit to Bude on Monday. Although I didn’t get any fishing done, it was wonderful to be beside the sea in temperatures of sixteen degrees and for it not to feel like some sort of endurance test. Bude still seems to be on shutdown at the moment though; we couldn't get out on the canal in a pedalo or rowing boat, and even the bike hire place was closed. Meanwhile the chippies were in survival mode, with most offering special discounts for OAPs. I dare say they should avoid one particular establishment however, where the gherkins appeared to have been pickled for so long that the one I was presented with had become almost translucent. I left that one to the seagulls.

Wellington Basins & Little Yeo

Tiverton Canal - Breadpunch and Opportunism

Cracking the Whip, on the Taunton - Bridgwater Canal

Cold and Choppy on the Taunton to Bridgwater Canal

Tiverton & District Angling Club Christmas Match 2013 - Tidcombe to Manley Bridge

Sidetracked on the King's Sedgemoor Drain

Canals Tour Diary - The Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal

Bridgwater Angling Association Christmas Fayre - Taunton to Bridgwater Canal

Back for good

Predator fishing, fun and games

Against Against Men & Fish, and fish

Search for a Twenty (Take 1 - Viaduct)

Finding Time

Emerald Pool

Pond Perching: In Pursuit of a 'Three'

Beaten by Beatties

Beaten... by a girl!

Going Ornamental on the Ilminster Canal

More goldfish, and a budget tackle review...

Dabbling