I almost ended up on a commercial fishery this morning after a succession of setbacks whilst trying to make it to Exeter Canal for the first time since March. Obviously rivers were out of the question for today's trip after all the rain yesterday, but unfortunately the accesses to the two most fancied areas of the canal were completely flooded too. This is the first one I tried, on the way to Turf Lock. As you can see, it was completely impassable:
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That involved reversing for half a mile over speed bumps on a narrow lane, and I had to do it all over again when I tried to get to the Lime Kilns. With sun forecast for much of the day I didn't really fancy that the Grand Western Canal would fish, and was contemplating fishing Upton Lakes closer to home. In the end I brought up the Exeter & District Angling Club website on my iphone (thank God for smartphones with internet and 3G signal), and located another access point by the Swingbridge.
I parked up and took a walk along this stretch. It was very weedy and there were not many areas where you could set up easily. I did stumble across one opening where there even appeared to be some fish as a cluster of bubbles hit the surface. This was reasonably close to a pylon, so I weighed it up for a few minutes before deciding to give the swim a go. I paced the overhead cables at around 25 yards away on my side of the canal, although the pylon was closer than that on the opposite bank, crossing the water as it did diagonally. It was a very tall structure though and on such a sunny day I decided that it would be safe to fish. Perhaps an overreaction to be so concerned, but then I guess you can never be too careful, especially when waving up to thirteen metres of pole in the air.
It was then a case of raking the swim and making a large enough clearing to not only present a bait and land fish, but also allow plenty of room for a keepnet. So it was that all these things combined to mean that my first cast was made at twenty past nine, after I had woken up at 5:30 and left home a short while after that.
My primary concern was that, having raked the swim so comprehensively for the best part of three-quarters-of-an-hour, that any bream in the area may have been spooked by the commotion. I've not found them to respond very well to the rake on the Grand Western, but then it is far shallower than the Exeter Canal.
Although I landed three tench on pretty light gear last time I fished this canal, there was much less weed around, and I anticipated that the fish would be far more powerful this time of year than they had been back then. It may seem crude stuff, and certainly not conventional pole fishing for a canal, but my rig today comprised of a 0.18mm hooklength (about 7lb) to a size 12 Kamasan B920 hook. It has long been an issue for me, finding a reliable bream hook, as they tend to come off far too often, but since trying this pattern I have barely lost a fish. It is also very, very strong, and I don't think that any tench, however big, would be able to straighten one. Of course with any strong hook there is the conundrum of added weight, as a heavy hook means less natural bait presentation and a hookbait more difficult for fish to pick up. Far more important for tench than bream, but then there is no point hooking a specimen fish just to lose it by having gear that is insufficient, so I am putting my trust in this size and pattern of hook until and if ever I find something better.
I started on three red maggots and I also hook these differently when using a large, heavy hook, obscuring most of it by threading the first maggot up the shank. If you squeeze the maggot and do this carefully, then as long as your hook point is sharp then you should be able to do this without damaging the grub. Expecting lengthy waits for bites, I decided to use a pole rest for the first time in ages. I didn't actually have to wait long as I had a quality 8oz roach after about five minutes. Well if bait presentation is good enough for roach then it's usually good enough for bream, and a further ten minute wait saw me latch into my second fish on my second put in, this time a dark old slab of 5lb 10oz, my first proper bream from this canal. Other than perch and rudd, those were my last fish on maggots. I changed to worm and caster and had two immediate bites, bringing a couple of 2-3lb tench, before things slowed up and the sun got hotter, higher and brighter.
During this time I noticed a rudd scooting about just under the surface, so I lifted my rig out of the water and made an effort to catch it by dapping the maggots on the surface. It was obviously in feeding mood as it made several attempts at grabbing them before eventually getting hold. It turned out to be - as I had suspected - a golden rudd.
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I've been thinking a bit about this capture and it has hardened my resolve to try and concentrate solely on natural waters this season. A fish like this is very rare from a canal and much unappreciated where it is a bait-snatcher in commercial waters. What with the rainbow trout from the River Culm the other day, it has been a weekend of fluke catches. I'm starting to think that I should perhaps see how many species I can catch from rivers and canals this year. The next fish to show was a first for the season aswell, an eel, and the biggest one I have had for some time, weighing around 1¾lb.
In spite of overhead conditions that were not ideal, I continued to get bites on the worm, ending up with another tench and a further four bream, in between whiles picking up a few rudd on the whip. Eventually the bream stopped feeding and there was a period of inactivity lasting almost two hours as I waited for some cloud cover. The bubbles returned but the bites never, until a change to corn saw me latch into a strong fish which weeded me and came off, no doubt a decent tench. I thought I had found what they wanted and would get a few bites on the corn after that, but it wasn't to be. I packed up more than a little frustrated that there were clearly more feeding fish in my swim that I couldn't catch, but ultimately very satisfied.
As an aside, one of the tench had a very nasty wound on both flanks, definitely not caused by a pike, and I would suspect either inflicted by a cormorant or possibly even an otter? There are certainly a number of cormorants that fish in the area.
Although I landed three tench on pretty light gear last time I fished this canal, there was much less weed around, and I anticipated that the fish would be far more powerful this time of year than they had been back then. It may seem crude stuff, and certainly not conventional pole fishing for a canal, but my rig today comprised of a 0.18mm hooklength (about 7lb) to a size 12 Kamasan B920 hook. It has long been an issue for me, finding a reliable bream hook, as they tend to come off far too often, but since trying this pattern I have barely lost a fish. It is also very, very strong, and I don't think that any tench, however big, would be able to straighten one. Of course with any strong hook there is the conundrum of added weight, as a heavy hook means less natural bait presentation and a hookbait more difficult for fish to pick up. Far more important for tench than bream, but then there is no point hooking a specimen fish just to lose it by having gear that is insufficient, so I am putting my trust in this size and pattern of hook until and if ever I find something better.
I started on three red maggots and I also hook these differently when using a large, heavy hook, obscuring most of it by threading the first maggot up the shank. If you squeeze the maggot and do this carefully, then as long as your hook point is sharp then you should be able to do this without damaging the grub. Expecting lengthy waits for bites, I decided to use a pole rest for the first time in ages. I didn't actually have to wait long as I had a quality 8oz roach after about five minutes. Well if bait presentation is good enough for roach then it's usually good enough for bream, and a further ten minute wait saw me latch into my second fish on my second put in, this time a dark old slab of 5lb 10oz, my first proper bream from this canal. Other than perch and rudd, those were my last fish on maggots. I changed to worm and caster and had two immediate bites, bringing a couple of 2-3lb tench, before things slowed up and the sun got hotter, higher and brighter.
During this time I noticed a rudd scooting about just under the surface, so I lifted my rig out of the water and made an effort to catch it by dapping the maggots on the surface. It was obviously in feeding mood as it made several attempts at grabbing them before eventually getting hold. It turned out to be - as I had suspected - a golden rudd.
In spite of overhead conditions that were not ideal, I continued to get bites on the worm, ending up with another tench and a further four bream, in between whiles picking up a few rudd on the whip. Eventually the bream stopped feeding and there was a period of inactivity lasting almost two hours as I waited for some cloud cover. The bubbles returned but the bites never, until a change to corn saw me latch into a strong fish which weeded me and came off, no doubt a decent tench. I thought I had found what they wanted and would get a few bites on the corn after that, but it wasn't to be. I packed up more than a little frustrated that there were clearly more feeding fish in my swim that I couldn't catch, but ultimately very satisfied.
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| Three tench and five bream. The bream weighed 5lb 10oz, 5lb 7oz, 5lb 13oz, 5lb 3oz and 5lb 8oz. I weigh them as I catch them to avoid bad handling at the end of the day. |
As an aside, one of the tench had a very nasty wound on both flanks, definitely not caused by a pike, and I would suspect either inflicted by a cormorant or possibly even an otter? There are certainly a number of cormorants that fish in the area.