The temperature has been gradually picking up over the course of the week and looks set to plummet again tomorrow, so prospects were good for today's trip with Jason Parr, in the hope of finally locating a few fish in the Taunton to Bridgwater Canal.
Seeing some rudd in the margins whilst undertaking a preliminary walk of the towpath raised our confidence, before Jason upped it further by sighting a couple of tench, also within a few metres of the bank. I set up opposite a floating raft of weed which I was confident would produce my first tench from the venue, but started on the top two catching rudd whilst regularly flicking in some leftover maggots and pinkies, before then trying out the breadpunch line down the middle.
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There were rudd everywhere; barely did the bait get to the bottom before it was snatched by fish between half an ounce and 3oz. I actually find catching fish shallow quite irritating to be honest, as I think it makes the fishing become a bit predictable. But that's not to say that quality fish won't show, and on about the fifth put in I brought a podgy 1lb rudd to the net. When the bait did occasionally make it to the bottom, I would catch a roach or silver bream.
An hour and a half later, I could resist the temptation of the chop and caster line no longer, and shipped over to fifteen metres with two halves of a dendrabena on the hook. The first bite, within a minute, was so positive that I didn't really expect a tench to be responsible, but a steaming run through the weed, followed by a few metres of elastic, told me that one was. This was quickly followed by five more in consecutive chucks, mostly on the small side compared to Exeter and Tiverton Canal fish. Not that I was complaining
Jason then started to find some bonus fish of his own on his chopped worm line at thirteen metres. First to show was a pound-plus perch, which was joined a bit later by one slightly smaller, before the first of seven tench, for a total of around 20lb at the end of the session.
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I rested my tench line occasionally to drop in on the bread to see if I could find more roach, but the rudd were still there waiting for it in the upper layers. The tench kept coming though and the only thing that stopped me catching even more was a trio of kayaks ploughing through my far line and disturbing it, but most annoyingly completely reshaping the weedbed which I was fishing to, making it difficult to drop in over my feed.
It took a while to get things running smoothly again, but it seemed that the more I fed, the more the tench responded. I landed my first nine but then lost three of the next nine I hooked, leaving me with an end result of 15 canal tench in five and a half hours fishing. The smallest was around 1lb, with the best being up to about 3½lb, so we estimated that there was somewhere in the region of 40lb of tench.
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An imminent shower saw us packing the kit away as quickly as possible at half three, but unfortunately it reached us before we could get our tackle back to the car dry. We then wasted the remaining hour or so walking around wobbling small deadbaits, having pinched a couple of rudd each for this purpose.
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The result on the pike front wasn't as hectic as our last trip together back in October, but a 2lb jack to my rod at least provided some variety to what had already been a very productive day. By this point we were absolute sodden, and the warm air from the car heater was most welcome when we eventually made it back.
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Seeing some rudd in the margins whilst undertaking a preliminary walk of the towpath raised our confidence, before Jason upped it further by sighting a couple of tench, also within a few metres of the bank. I set up opposite a floating raft of weed which I was confident would produce my first tench from the venue, but started on the top two catching rudd whilst regularly flicking in some leftover maggots and pinkies, before then trying out the breadpunch line down the middle.
There were rudd everywhere; barely did the bait get to the bottom before it was snatched by fish between half an ounce and 3oz. I actually find catching fish shallow quite irritating to be honest, as I think it makes the fishing become a bit predictable. But that's not to say that quality fish won't show, and on about the fifth put in I brought a podgy 1lb rudd to the net. When the bait did occasionally make it to the bottom, I would catch a roach or silver bream.
An hour and a half later, I could resist the temptation of the chop and caster line no longer, and shipped over to fifteen metres with two halves of a dendrabena on the hook. The first bite, within a minute, was so positive that I didn't really expect a tench to be responsible, but a steaming run through the weed, followed by a few metres of elastic, told me that one was. This was quickly followed by five more in consecutive chucks, mostly on the small side compared to Exeter and Tiverton Canal fish. Not that I was complaining
Jason then started to find some bonus fish of his own on his chopped worm line at thirteen metres. First to show was a pound-plus perch, which was joined a bit later by one slightly smaller, before the first of seven tench, for a total of around 20lb at the end of the session.
I rested my tench line occasionally to drop in on the bread to see if I could find more roach, but the rudd were still there waiting for it in the upper layers. The tench kept coming though and the only thing that stopped me catching even more was a trio of kayaks ploughing through my far line and disturbing it, but most annoyingly completely reshaping the weedbed which I was fishing to, making it difficult to drop in over my feed.
It took a while to get things running smoothly again, but it seemed that the more I fed, the more the tench responded. I landed my first nine but then lost three of the next nine I hooked, leaving me with an end result of 15 canal tench in five and a half hours fishing. The smallest was around 1lb, with the best being up to about 3½lb, so we estimated that there was somewhere in the region of 40lb of tench.
An imminent shower saw us packing the kit away as quickly as possible at half three, but unfortunately it reached us before we could get our tackle back to the car dry. We then wasted the remaining hour or so walking around wobbling small deadbaits, having pinched a couple of rudd each for this purpose.
