Both Dominic and Jeff Hatt should be commended for compiling a list of UK canal records based on evidence gathered from various sources. I have found myself on there too, for a rudd I caught a few years back from the Grand Western Canal in Devon. It weighed 2lb 5oz; a specimen I doubt I will ever have the pleasure of topping. But I feel that there simply must have been bigger rudd caught from our canals, and probably those in the South-west. Not many of the other records look all that vulnerable, but I have been quite confident for some months now that the Taunton to Bridgwater Canal holds silver bream in excess of 2lb. The canal record is only one ounce heavier.
The problem that I have encountered with tracking one down has been a completely different one to that of Jeff Hatt, and a few others who target canal silvers in the Midlands. There, any silver bream from the canal is a notable capture, but here the canal is stuffed with them, only they have been much smaller. So far my staple offering of breadflake over liberal helpings of liquidised bread has brought fish to about three quarters of a pound, but I have taken hundreds of smaller ones. One obvious solution would be to use pellets, perhaps four to six mil and banded, however to catch a big silver bream from a canal on such a bait would be sacrilege.
One approach I have considered has been to use baits like hemp, wheat or tares. Indeed, I have caught some decent stamp silver bream on elderberries on a previous visit. I had a few hours to spare this afternoon so dragged Beth along to a hotspot I know, where I have often imagined my record-breaking silver to be lurking.
I travel very light nowadays unless I am planning to use the pole, so all I had with me was landing net, cheap seatbox, and a waggler rod. I rigged up a 3BB Drennan Glow-tip waggler with most of the bulk around the base of the float. I then spread out some number eight and ten droppers for a slow fall of the bait, as some of my best fish have come very shallow indeed. For bait, I had quite a selection, but my attack was to revolve around hemp and tares. To get some fish in the area I lobbed in three fistfuls of liquidised bread and followed that up with a couple of hemp, and a few tares. I started by loosefeeding hemp and tares over the top, both of which I'd stewed at home myself. A word of advice if you go down this route; keep a bait tub of water nearby to rinse fingers after feeding as the oils from the tares will leave your kit irritatingly sticky.
I tried breadflake to start with, but could not get through the rudd. Just as well that the reaction to the tare was immediate, in the shape of a 4oz silver bream. There is not much of interest to say when playing the numbers game like this but I continued to catch every cast for about an hour and a half, with fish up to about the 10oz mark. The number of times I had to use my landing net for these silvers was unprecedented. I decided to try something different, increasing the depth to present a tare almost touching bottom. I waited much longer for a bite, but when it came, a much more powerful fish pulled back and I was convinced that I had hooked a tench.
The fish stayed deep and heavy under the rod tip before surging to the right. The Taunton to Bridgwater is a weedy canal so I was conscious of the risk of a hook pull, however I had tackled up fairly heavily (0.12 bottom to a size 14 B520), so the balance was in my favour. The fish relented and in the clear water I could make out a bream coming slowly to the surface. In spite of the fight and the forty or so silver bream I had already taken, the possibility that this might be of the silver rather than common variety had not occurred to me. As soon as it hit the surface and I could see it clearly for the first time, the landing net was out in a shot to scoop it up.
On the scales the fish weighed somewhere between 2lb 4oz and 2lb 5oz, so I called it the lower weight. I have sent the details over to the Angling Times and am quietly hoping that they might consider it for a Drennan Weekly award, not that this capture was as a result of some remarkable feat of skill, as it was simple waggler fishing, but it would be nice if canal fishing and traditional baits and methods were recognised alongside long-stay angling and self-hooking rigs as viable options for specimen fish.
It was a red-letter day for quantity as well as quality. I lifted the keepnet out after four hours to find somewhere in the region of thirty pounds of sizable silvers splashing around. Some of the better fish were easily over a pound and I would have weighed them had I not already set such an outrageous benchmark. As it was I released them all without any photos or messing around, and contended myself with just a few pics of the big one.
