An Indication of Syndication

At the end of last term's Bloggers' Challenge a very prominent loose end was left wafting in the breeze

The end that was loose related to the next undertaking, the next challenge in fact. Whilst usually the alternate season away from the competition is welcome, when I came to look the letters had crumbled from the signpost

Disatisfied with the limitations of local known river fishing options my mind started to wander, followed closely by the F,F&F bus and then my poor old feet

As it happened I ended-up spending the close season seeking-out new venues, mainly rivers and, initially, mainly my (now beloved) River Leam

Somehow it was almost as though each landowner I approached had never had the idea before and, in what seemed like just a few bewildering days, rights were acquired to some lovely waters all of which have one thing in common - exclusive peace and quiet. One massive plus of a small Syndicate, admittedly with higher fees than your average Angling Club, is this factor. You know that it is hardly ever going to be a race for a swim. So, after extending the angling antennae, there were soon ten like-minded individuals on board and, if everyone fished the whole range of venues on a given day, on average we'd still only see one other angler and we'd know him anyway.

At least four of our number are Bloggers and thus "Warwickshire Bloggers Angling Syndicate" was born...WBAS

The latter was an idea three or four of us had previously floated briefly when the Saxon Mill stretch became available after Warwick club relinquished rights, but at the time we concluded it was a difficult venue, being generally too public

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I must confess first thoughts were to try to gain access to as much of the Leam as possible as most of it is not fished and those areas that could be are slowly shrinking away. Godiva have lost half of their water and much of Leamington A A's is inaccessible.

Once it had dawned on me that I couldn't fund the whole venture myself I started to ask around and before we knew it there we were all sat round a table next to the weir at the Saxon Mill, with that unmistakable cologne of treated sewage that pervades the intimate areas of the Warwickshire Avon mistily perfuming us like an air freshener working in reverse. We ran through the venues and after some polite arm-wrestling with landowners I think it's fair to say we are all still pinching ourselves with what we have managed to achieve so quickly.

Part of the initially evolving idea was to gain control of the remaining North Oxford Canal and possibly also some of the more accessible combined Oxford and Grand Union Canals but it transpired this was probably my own dream and no one else's(!) so we quickly dropped that idea and concentrated on rivers and the search for a pool.

Sean Dowling (Off the Oche, Down the River) was full of suggestions and came-up with some crackers that came to fruition, with more that we didn't have the wherewithal to follow-up.

The landowners have all proved very amenable and open-minded, within their obvious business limitations, and each venue has it's own quirks that we have to work within, one of which, by way of example, limits river access to winter months...no problem, it's weeded-up in summer anyway!

What could be better? Exclusive access, no other anglers, way off the beaten track, peace and tranquility, unmanaged river banks, no litter, good fishing, new locations to grapple with, great variety. Nothing beats it.

Perfect.

So here we now sit with options as varied as the Warwickshire Stour, River Leam, Warwickshire Avon and a picturesque, comfortable, sheltered pool. The latter being the subject of a long-term project to create a tench and crucian fishery, and for which we are opening membership to ten others to share the challenge.

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The Tinier Inhabitants of the Warks Stour

The one magical thing about these waters is their mystery. The majority have not been fished in anger for years, if at all, and the potential is thoroughly engaging.

We've set-up a WhatsApp group to share findings and shallow-off a potentially steep learning curve. This also helps to quickly and easily disseminate more strategic messages without time-consuming meetings. Something I think we all welcome even though the amount of messages inevitably becomes a touch unwieldy at times and WhatsApp Fatigue (and known disorder!) can kick-in.

For my part, my first visit to the Stour stretch was my first visit to the Stour, the only contact I'd had with it previously being running my finger over it in BAA Handbooks as a teenager,  enthralled by tales of deep holes and giant bream. Fish that I never felt capable of catching I should add, assuming they were snared either by accident or by smelly, bewhiskered men with ivy growing up their legs in the way people currently nurture tattoos. This at a time when my modus operandi was to stand in the water wearing a thick jumper and tie, fishing the roach pole, like the late Ray Mumford (who I once watched openly cheat in a match on the Great Ouse by the way, a moment that quickly changed my wardrobe. What a magisterial name for a river that is, the Great Ouse, capturing it's scale, history, latent power and piscatorial magnitude in but two small words, and yet, I look back at them on the page in a reflective, Miranda-type, way and think what strange words they are).

I've drifted.

The Stour was, is, everything the Leam should be, were it not for the extent of its clay geology. Similar in width; shallow then deeper; rushing then still; weeded then clear; shaded then sunlit; devoid then infested; untouched yet touchable and with wildlife abounding. I actually flushed a little owl from the bankside field margin midday while roving with rod, net and bumbag full of the usual. The first one I have seen away from one known nesting site for some years, since their decline in lowland Warwickshire.

Natural Beauty of the Warks Stour

Both Warks Avon stretches are a totally unknown quantity and when access commences to the Upper reaches on October the 1st, it being five minutes from Chez Nous, there's no doubt where I'll be.

As for the pool, well, there's work to do to meet our expectations. Currently it's overrun with small rudd, roach, perch and various hybrids so the long-term aim is to thin those out to give the preferred species growing potential and to remove the carp under double figures so that they become a treat rather than a certainty. It will take time but it has all the potential we need to create an estate lake without the mansion!

I'll keep updating on our adventures via this portal I'm sure but, in the meantime, I was driven to prose while basking in the glory of a deep pool on the new Leam stretch at the end of the hot weather:

Flowering Arrowhead on the Leam

Many a step from a road, from buildings, from fellow man; an oasis of water, giving life.

As I sit, the sun, awkward on the eye, floats imperceptibly higher like a lemon pip gently lifted by the bubbles of a fizzy drink.

The irritated churring of the great tit in a mixed family flock of animated baubles, complete with hangers-on of numerous fattening chiffchaff, breaks through the now strained-for rustling of leaves on a gradually rising breeze as if in a relay without rules.

Fulfilled without false entertainment, the rod tip still, I watch as the flow grips specks of duckweed in its movement and tweaks them, drifting like tiny skaters, spinning and careering in perfect natural chaos toward their own overpopulated metropolis awaiting them in deriliction of decay downstream.

Surely no finer experience is to be discovered than by the stream.

In between Times

Living in the Midlands possibilities for roach of such magnitude as to make one wonder whether it's really worth having another cast, or whether the bewildered state should somehow be embalmed and taken from the bank, are few.

Revisiting Mark Wintle's excellent roach books, it being autumn now, in "Big Roach 2" was to be found a statement by Pete Shadick pronouncing that 2lb river roach are at least 14" from snout to cleft of tail.

Out came the measures and, by deduction using ratios from photographs, the second of my two lifetime two pounders, a canal fish of 2.3+, measured at least 14"

This was of some comfort as, being the doubting sort, even casting aspersions on my own old records, I do sometimes look back at those fish and ask whether a mistake could have been made.

Well not in this case it seems.

Comfort is drawn.

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So, The Boy Wonder "TBW" decides it's a fishing weekend and his favourite location is agreed upon.

The Res has been good to us this year from roach in the frost early-on, through rudd, perch, tench and even a proper crucian but, since the Challenge commenced TBW had not seen a tench to his own rod

The imaginary Golden Maggot would get an airing too

Weapons were chosen for the duel:
TBW - 1 rod - maggot and hemp feeder at 30m
F,F&F - float fished bread at 2 rods out (and a sneaky chopped worm feeder down the inside on the wand)

The level had dropped and colour with it

Standard Custom and Practice ensued...
I catch my biggest fish first cast and TBW casts his rig off and spent the next hour in state of general faffulence

Yes that first throw of the flake and up pops the float to reveal the clutch screaming surge of a 4lbs 5ozs 8drm male tench, but that was that

Total Bloody Womble "TBW" eventually gets into the swing and as per usual proceeds to tease two decent tench of 3.3 and 3.5 with a bigger one lost on his last cast to pluck the total weight prize from my grasp with some excellent counter-attacking. Draw the opposition out and into a sense of security then hit them hard. Perhaps Jurgen Klopp could learn from this boy Womble

Result:
TBW - Total weight 6.8; total species 1; number of fish 2. Points 1
FF&F - Total weight 6.0; total species 2; number of fish 4. points 2
Never in doubt

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My staple water the North Oxford Canal is very poor at present. Few fish, much colour and boat traffic high.

A move to the short length of conjoined Grand Union and Oxford Canals, even with its essential bow to stern flotilla from 8am or so, has been far more productive and a new area of attack has offered surprising all round  quality.

The wind could have been awkward hence the choice of an east-facing bend which was inevitably capable of offering shelter whichever forecast one favoured.

The local farmers were flat-out flattening-out the fields for winter fare. It seems but yesterday that the dust of the harvest clogged the airways but now there is no sign; the reaping, rolling, ploughing, tilling and drilling all complete in perfect linear patterns.

When everything else is failing revert to what you know. In this instance mashed bread and chopped worm. That approach on two rods produced a marvellous catch of just over ten pounds in two hours this very morning.

It was not the overall catch however but the size of the best fish of each species that made the eyes bulge, like Marty Feldman on speed.

The trend of the sequence caught with this approach when bream are present usually goes: bream/hybrids then a roach, or maybe two, then when that dies (by reverting to the worm rig) it's perch and the odd zander.

This morning followed the protocol to the letter with five bronze bream to 2lbs 2ozs followed by the best roach of the campaign yet at a cracking 1.10.0, albeit a fish of two halves with the anterior of a definite two pounder and a posterior that suggested a pounder, then five perch to 1.13.13 plus a zed-let.

That hard fighting roach would sit proudly in the top F,F&F canal roach list and, without checking, probably at around 6th or 7th.

It's 10am now and, the morn only having been sufficiently light 7am, already it's bums on (heated) seats and foot down heading off for a breakfast but not before a triple take as the last of today's many less than immaculate narrowboats chugged through...two years since we'd spoken I'd estimate...and there he was, a little changed by the passage of that time. Duncan, a good former angler, now operating on the dark surface of the water - with the odd dabble when the mood takes no doubt.

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The Bloggers Challenge is at an odd stage.

Many of the summer species are tabled and those that passed many of us by, largely those of flowing water, are not feeding due to a lack of rain.

For my part then it's purely a case of enjoying the fishing with no particular target other than whatever occurs, or at least for now.

This Autumn Mourning

Mourning the passing of summer. Celebrating the coming of autumn. I sit in my small corner.

Anticipating movement.

Four days ago the sharp chill of early morning signalled that change. Bang on time. The afternoon sun still has the capacity for uncomfortable heat in its glare but this will diminish unless an Indian summer is to provide a thermal boost.

Rivers again run clear and are unapproachable in daylight hours. The canals awash with ignorant fools.

The option therefore? To enjoy some late tench fishing in the hope that something unexpected might trip over the bait too.

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So we have settled into our oft peaceful, always still corner of the Res for the dusk period on an all-but daily basis.

Large comings-together of hirundines are now evident in favoured locations and soon they will be gone, swifts long-since departed, with the current massing of gnats to be replaced by their northern cousins capable of survival on arboreal fruits.

Tiny furry mammals, at their most numerous and industrious at this time, forage and squeal underfoot - and sometimes over it. The company of bank and field voles, water and other shrews, stoat and rat has been enjoyed in recent weeks.

The decreasing temperature and increased humidity would initially suggest an associated drop-off in fish activity but the water remains warm to the touch and, like the sea, this will be maintained while the air gets colder. Cloudy nights will assist. The fish 'know' that the time for feasting is upon them and until the winter sets-in they will be at their most vulnerable to the angler.

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For now then the corner has been both comfortable and comforting. It's a snug little spot and for the last hour of each visit has produced precisely three tench to bread over a bed of hemp together with a smattering of roach up to just under the satisfying pound.

The hoped for unanticipated capture to take symmetry to asymmetry went awol through the steady string of lifts, occasional sailaways, dithers and crayfish interruptions but tench are never to be ignored, so obliging are they in the biting and fighting stakes, morning and, in these cases, dusk.

The green Goddesses and Gods were in the two to three and a half pounds bracket on the first two of three trips but, for no fathomable reason, the third brief session proved the best float caught FF&F tench catch ever with fish of 4.1, 4.4 and a hard fighting 5.3 last cast. All fish were taken on bread flake in seven feet of water late in the evening.

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Daniel Everitt has been tantamount to camped here for the past few weeks but, coincidentally, has now vacated in search of flowing water fish with the changing seasons.

Sunday evening, the fourth session and ninth and tenth hours of effort, took place under heavy skies and through light drizzle.

Inundated with passing visitors, as though they knew something I didn't, the lake was otherwise quiet in an angling sense.

Admiral Fudge and Ollie the greyhound; Committee Keith with Buddie the terrier and then Joe the bailiff. During which time (first cast) a roach of one pound eight ounces was a surprise capture followed by two sub-pound fish but it wasn't until just after Joe returned with bailiff no.2 Pete (I can be a handful), and we'd exchanged pleasantries and tales of woe, that it happened.

By way of a change I slid the BB tell-tale shot up to pop a piece of crust up 5" just above a thin layer of Canadian pondweed fragments littering the bed.

Minutes later the float dipped and lifted and the strike met with decent resistance. The fish moved off right and then treated me to a juddering sensation reminiscent of an eel but less insistent. I immediately allowed myself to dream. Then the rotund side-plate shape confirmed it.

"I've got a crucian guys"

Back came Pete and Joe in a hurry.

The fish had ideas of escape however and took a while to subdue even on the specimen float rod but at the second attempt a geriatric crucian skimmed over the rim to be consumed by mesh.

An old fish.

Battle scarred, with split dorsal and otter-ravaged caudal, this beaten character (in both senses) was to shatter the p.b. set in the height of summer by a 1.2.6 fish.

Pete estimated "Two and a half". I didn't venture a guess but hoped it might just exceed that. Joe fell silent. In fact both did when it came to the maths.

The roach had gone 38 ounces with the net but this magnificently ancient individual would, with 14ozs to deduct from 56, reset the bar at 2lbs 10ozs.

Photographs were kindly taken and the boys said their goodbyes.

Danny was able to confirm via the ether that this fish was caught twice in 2016 at exactly the same weight give or take the loss of the top of its tail in the meantime. I declined giving it a name but if I did 'Grand Cru' would seem appropriate

Darkness fell a good fifty minutes earlier than normal due to the weight of cloud cover somewhat bizarrely requiring an isotope to complete the session, but, with no more action, the car beckoned and we, that is myself and the memory, hit the road...floating on air.

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It is now the two day 'anniversary' of the capture and it barely slips my mind at any time. Compared to a specimen roach it is admittedly not quite there but otherwise perhaps the most satisfying of captures. In this Bloggers' Challenge year personal bests have fallen regularly with the commitment to try to load as many points on the board from all available sources within a range of about 30 minutes travel. There have been the river bream, barbel, carp, etc., but the smaller species never cease to give me greatest pleasure. Somehow they just seem that little bit more difficult to catch. If I were to list species in order of personal significance it would go something like - roach, silver bream, crucian carp, rudd, tench, chub, perch, etc., but this is splitting hairs really as any species is good to catch if it proves to be a challenge.

Searching those Stillwaters

The pursuit of 'summer fish' on stillwaters does not come naturally. In fact, apart perhaps from roach and tench, the pursuit of any fish on stillwaters does not come naturally.

The otherwise dormant inner matchman wants to burst out, grab the catapult, and feed, feed, feed.

Today it actually happened.

I had been warned. There was no excuse.

But first were the times, or the day at least, when it was a worthy approach.

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In pursuit of 'those fish' the favoured method has been to fish whatever bait was the selection on the day over a bed of hemp.

This had brought forth a burst of p.b's set against the context of a canal angling background and the need for bloggers challenge points this season.

Almost all of this fishing had been with a static bait; employing feeders, alarms, rod pod, the works and prior to small fish becoming active in May. Yes, maggots have been off the agenda for a couple of weeks now.

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It started with (a kiss) decent roach, rudd, tench and perch. Nothing outstanding but quality fish and solid points.

Tench over 6lbs, perch over two and roach close-on a pound and a half. The latter two could be followed-up on in autumn and winter but, unlike the 2015/16 challenge, those species that become tricky in winter needed to be dealt with now.

Leamington A A control a few stillwaters from which the majority of those fish might be taken.
Carp, certainly.
Rudd, within limits of size, yes.
Silver bream? Probably not.
Common or bronze bream, yes, and to, potentially at least, a good size.

The lakes also offer interesting wildlife. Birds, invertebrates...only today there were five marbled whites to be seen and small skippers at two different venues plus a good variety of dragon and damselflies

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The past two weeks and half a dozen sessions on a variety of those venues have been fruitful and while these are not commercial fisheries they are well stocked and hold some nice specimens very much of the nature this particular angler likes to target - the bigger fish in the swim, regularly and by design.

Of course the list of p.b's remains paltry, being very much canal & stream orientated until now, but the opportunities, with ever-growing knowledge, are vast and consequently it is inevitable that with an inquiring mind and experience to call on those records are going to fall regularly until the target, maybe, becomes ever bigger specimens.

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In this short fortnights' spell the bronze bream best has risen to 3.13, then 4.1 and, today, to 4.6.

King carp to 9.6, 12.12 and...

Most pleasing however was to catch a net of crucians topped by two over a pound and landing three or four p.b's in the one session which now stands at 1.2.6. I had not fished for this magically beautiful and powerful little fish since early in the 1980's and then in a local overstocked shallow farm pond where the stunted fish rarely exceeded eight ounces. Regular feeding worked with these excitable fellas.

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One thing is certain. These are not newsworthy catches but the most important thing in angling is enjoyment and the pleasure is immeasurable when, firstly, the careful plan works and then it feels as though one has succeeded (even if in reality it was pure fluke or coincidence, but who are we to know that).

That is until today.

I planned to go to try to catch a decent rudd and, driving toward that crock of gold, developed an urge to go elsewhere, and followed it.

Bream became the momentary magnet.

It seemed incredible. After an ounce roach first cast I had a visitor, returning to angling from a decade break, seeking advice (from me, on a lake, I ask you!). As we talked, a 2lb bream came to the net and, as he got just four pegs away, another of 4.6, quickly followed, just as he disappeared out of sight, by a tearaway fish.

Now initially it didn't give much away, holding it's fins close to it's chest. Once it knew the game was on however I feared for my 16 hook and 3.5lb fluoro link.

The clutch shrieked...and shrieked...and shrieked.

The rod bent to that familiar complete curve

1 peg away, 2 pegs away, and into the third.

This fish was going to be lost. No doubt.

The hand-me-down, and excellent, 13' power match rod, the biggest fish it had previously landed being a tench of 4.7, expressed itself in a manner I could only have dreamt of, but the fish would be victorious.

Pump by pump, it started to come back my way. Over and over again it tore off and slowly, but somewhat increasingly surely, it was drawn back. I would come off the though.

It went round my second rod but I untangled it. There was no way this fish would be landed.

It tore right, then left again. Brushed the underwater roots to my left and shot forwards into the fed swim.

It would break the line. The hook would come off. A knot would give. Something.

I had it's head out. A mirror. Another surge. The clutch squealing again.

Again it surfaced but I couldn't quite net it and once more it drove maniacally, vertically, down into the deep water. For sure this fish would not be beaten on inadequate tackle.

Up and up it came, onto its side, gulping air.

Scooped!

Hahaaaaar!!!

No one else was there. It was ok to scream madly.


Exhausted from a good ten minute engagement, we regarded each other. The fish and I knew.

Thirteen  pounds seven ounces this beauty went.

Oh!...and a personal best too of course.

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Henceforth he catapult became attached to my right hand. Feed, feed, feed.

I knew not why.

At this point I noted the jangling song of the corn bunting. Now a rare farm bird and a joy to hear after such a long period of famine extending to over a decade but today the other wildlife seemed not to be there, such was the thrall of the angle

35 to 40 roach and perch later, and not one over three ounces, this would be enough.

A few more challenge points; the head cleared for Monday and a thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

The Year Ahead. What will it Bring?

Having openly attracted public humiliation by sharing canal fishing species PB's in the previous post; although readers (if there were any) have been too polite to comment along the lines of, "Well actually I can beat all of those. Where have you been fishing or did you only pursue it as a small child and without any help?" (Maybe there weren't any readers!); it is time to make some use of the list

There pervades a certain wish to have a general go at it ALL, having been somewhat blinkered for the past year, and of course the benefit of the canals being a trifle crusty at present (and no sign of let-up according to the forecast) certainly offers an opportune time to set some goals and have a proper target for the year

One thing not mentioned previously was the staggering number of species caught from the Grand Union which included species like Dace & Bleak, out and out river inhabitants, but which were excluded on the basis of size and suspected accusations of lunacy ,whereas genuine canal species were included, even if quite uncommon, such as the humble (yet gorgeous) crucian, a fish I have taken from canals on at least three occasions in the 'dim & distant'

Roach have had a limited pasting in 2012, not that I used paste you understand...and anyway the wallpaper would float...and so I may perhaps back-off that a little; and the brief dalliance, not to say 'dangliance', with lobworm at the very end of last year has set some kind of other urge and thought pattern running which needs to be satisfied

The question really is whether to target specific fish or just target bigger fish; whether to set-out in pursuit of, say, a big perch or simply to fish positively for big fish generally using baits that perch, zander, bream, tench, etc., might ALL potentially go for and then enjoy the excitement of the possibilities and, that key angling ingredient, uncertainty when the bite is indicated; as opposed, I guess, to the disappointment of it not being the target species

Yes I think that would suit quite well, potential double excitement

On to places to target. The original intention of the blog was the compare the present with the past within a limited local geographical area, that being the landscape character area of Dunsmore & Feldon. Fortunately this covers a good chunk of the list of venues frequented in the past and, as such still fits the bill in an angling sense, even though a few of the bigger fish on the list were taken from the Grand Union around the Northampton/Milton Keynes area. It also however opens up some other locations not previously concentrated on at all which adds spice to the options and includes part of the Grand Union, the conjoined Oxford and Grand Union, North Oxford and South Oxford canals

...and there's still scope to pull in some rivers and the occasional lake by way of a change outside the main focus

Stretch of Grand Union with relatively high head of big fish. Tree-lined, wide and weedy

Specifically, within the recent canal quest, certain pegs have been searched for using aerial mapping. I've generally been looking for wide tight bends where boats will leave some part of the water unaffected even if it gets to be quite busy during the day and this has already shown benefits with the perch and zander fest and tench catches previously posted being two examples. Some such bends I could easily recall but there are areas of canal I no longer clearly remember, it's been so long, which may well benefit from such fish-holding, disturbance-shirking features and Google Earth is a real bonus in that respect

So I think it's very likely that a general big fish approach will be adopted keeping within the location originally intended as far as possible (it was never intended to be an absolute boundary after all) and, hopefully, the excitement at potentially approaching, and even perhaps beating, records of, until they are seen, unknown species will reach fever pitch on occasion! Well, at the very least, one can only hope


References:
Google Earth Pro

Chases to the Cut

Being laid-up for some time inspired me in more lucid moments to start blogging getting-on for a year or so ago, so being in the same situation again, has given me time to go back through old catch records and to compile species' bests from each, whenever the symptoms have subsided sufficiently

Some of those places didn't deserve to be logged in that respect as they may have been listed trips to poor stretches at only once or twice frequented locations selected by the opposition in knock-out situations simply because they were poor and, as such, the returns for species caught were often just ounces

What I have been left with then looks a little thin in some areas; to a specimen hunter would look absolutely threadbare (more like a child's list) and, to an angler fishing anywhere other than canals, pretty paltry too

However the list of canal bests isn't too bad for someone not given to fishing 'the hotspot' & thus, it being the start of a new year and all that, it is time to make use of it. The benefit is that it can act as a reminder of those records waiting to be beaten and, perhaps, instead of seeking-out roach every weekend, it might nurture some kind of wish to exceed a few of the other weights on the list too!

Over the past year lists of pre-2012 & post-2012 bests have been kept separately as they represent the two different worlds this conduit is trying to serve to compare, but in future they are also going to be listed annually like a birder might keep annual tallies if he were of such a mind...something I have never done (although somewhere a 'life list' does exist I'm sure, 'can't be certain where though)

Canal P.B's:
Bronze bream 3-12-0 (Grand Union 1993)*
Silver bream 0-11-0 (North Oxford 2012)
Carp 5-8-0 (Grand Union, Northampton Arm 1991)*
Crucian carp 0-12-0 (Grand Union, 1990)*
Chub 4-3-0 ('South' Oxford, 1994)*
Gudgeon 0-2-0 (North Oxford, 1996)
Perch 1-10-8* (Grand Union, date uncertain)
Pike 5-10-0 (Grand Union, Leicester Line circa 2002)
Roach 1-4-12 (North Oxford, 2012)
Rudd 0-6-8 (Grand Union, 1991)*
Ruffe 0-2-0 (North Oxford, 1990)
Tench 3-2-0 (Grand Union, 1989)
Zander 2-11-0 (North Oxford, 2012)
*Match-caught fish

Jeff Hatt is currently valiantly espousing canal fishing on his Idler's Quest blog and I can only agree that this somewhat 'angling in miniature' scene (if it yet is one again, I'm sure it will grow if it isn't) is well worth the effort especially if combined with a healthy distrust of the sensationlist elements of the angling media which, apart from having an undoubted generally negative affect on the sport as viewed by the outside world (and plenty inside the world!), bears no relation to most rational fishermans' views of angling and therefore, if ignored, this type of angling can be enjoyed all the more

It doesn't have to be the biggest, the quickest, the fastest, it just has to be a pleasure! The angling press lost sight of this somewhere along the way between The Greats of yesteryear, Bob Nudd & the current raft of slaughterers trying to lower the water levels of commercials with their two keepnets, and cruel & pointless methods and motives, which have quite clearly now seeped into many branches of the sport by osmosis.

My belief is that this started with the big roach & bream catches publicised from Ireland & Denmark, probably in the mid-seventies from memory, crude tactics for a captive audience...some of you will still be able to picture a former world champion, who will forever be associated with a parrot, and 'southern stars' with huge bulging tunnels of, probably knotted or knitted, keepnets full of roach, rudd or bream depending on the country they plundered...I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time but surely in hindsight, as it did to me then, it appears barbaric and yet now, 30 to 40 years on, it is actively encouraged nationwide. If you are brought-up as a youngster on 'commercials' these days you must wonder, if indeed the brain is engaged on the matter, what is the value of fish?, and in the same sentence lies the answer, 'commercial'.

The death of a fish due to ineptitude has been a very rare event throughout my angling life, and usually this was due to a small fish swallowing the bait when laying-on & being impossible to neatly unhook, but how many of those irish fish must have been gull-fodder when returned to the water?...and the pirates wonder why it doesn't last. How many of those suffering internal injuries would die later?

No, canal fishing these days, and especially on those affected by zander, is thankfully not in that bracket and it strikes me that, apart perhaps from certain forms of river fishing, there is currently no purer branch of the sport. I may be coming across as 'born again', which I am of course(!), but to step away, re-assess and re-invent is often a means of opening one's own eyes fully to the reality. Not that I ever plundered those kind of weights, in fact I have never caught even as much as 30lbs of fish in a session preferring instead the challenge of getting a bite in a rainwater puddle to following the crowd to the current litter-strewn, bank-worn, lipless fish-filled hot peg.

Yes, canal angling is a laudible pursuit within its own limitations. Each canal, and indeed each stretch of the longer waterways, has it's own character and one might consider setting different challenges for each definable length. In the old days my own aim was simply to devise a method which would beat 9-11 other blokes trying to do the same to me (a match fishing section usually being of 10 or 12 anglers, 1 from each competing team). Now it is simply to enjoy it and try to catch a few larger fish rather than a few littl'uns. Sometimes with a keepnet, sometimes without

If you are a trout angler or perhaps the type who likes to take the odd zander for the pot, that's fine; that makes the the world revolve, it's not wanton, it's food. If other species of fish are protected from removal from waters why are anglers allowed to treat them so badly? No other protected species are treated in this manner with, in some cases, even their specific habitat protected too

I have photographs of catches of fish flapping about in fields from the past which I look at and cringe. Indeed I recently posted a picture of a nest of perch I laid on the bank in a gale and pouring rain which didn't look great but they all went back healthy and weren't crushed or injured

How long before a do-gooder takes action against an angler or fishery? Not on a canal they won't but obviously they do have their downsides. Certain cuts cannot be fished after about 9am in summer and I suspect the majority (sweeping statement...but it didn't stop me above!) are unfishable during the main daylight hours during any school holidays simply due to weight of boat traffic. Some canals, and most of the Grand Union being a broad canal immediately springs to mind here, are fishable regardless in terms of being able to get a bite, but the constant disturbance is irritating even then. Another snag I have discovered, quite literally, this year is that the towpath margins in recent times have been allowed to become overgrown for quite some while in some places (in fact this must have extended to years given the height of ash poles until recently present on the water's edge) but suddenly that undergrowth, or is it over-growth?, has gone (no doubt something to do with the change of control from BW and shuffling budgets) and where have they gone? Into the canal! Not ideal and not something new in principle, admittedly, but an extreme case neverethless. So if you recently fished such a stretch you will realise how long it will now be before you can properly fish it again. It would be nice to think that the canal-controlling powers that (now) be will take account of anglers as they used to in the late 20th century but that remains to be seen

In the meantime I too would certainly recommend you get out there and try out your local cut, some of the time you will be amazed, the rest you will simply enjoy...as long as it's not midday on a bank holiday!

Now, where are those beta blockers?