A Fleeting Reflection on Ice

In the night it was minus five (apparently). Today, it did not get above a balmy freezing point all day. 

Can there be enjoyment in this, well yes, but success?... 

Winter has rarely been a time of waterside angling excitement. Being 'out in it' can produce the most enthralling of times but ordinarily there's far more hope than result. 

As a youngster, I've only recently recalled, we scarcely went fishing in winter. Apart from the infamous 'Swan hits HV cables' Xmas Day blank. I guess The Old Duffer had more sense than to risk aching knuckles as time progressed, unlike his dozey progeny.

A taste for Winter Leagues and then a few tremendously cold Winters in the 1980's however changed that and fishing through canal ice became a regular thing. 

I drew next to an established and respected angler as a teenager the first time I encountered ice, armed with the equivalent of a toothpick in the face of a 'berg and watched-on in 'towpath please subsume me' trepidation as he cut himself a slot of clear water and I, nauseated, saw my match slip away before my very eyes. Kindness though was not his weakness and he gave me his breaking kit once he'd done his peg and explained how to go about it. I don't remember what we caught but I do recall a quickly establishing pattern, particularly on intermittently frozen match lengths, of the fish always being under the ice rather than the, often inexplicably, clear sections and that the fishing was actually better with ice than without. 

These of course were the days of bloodworm and joker winter leagues. Leagues that banned such baits were usually suspended in such crusty circumstances, locally at least.

Such events became the norm and over time a series of different steel weights with a screw thread attached to a chain and a decent rope became standard kit. I've seen anglers with sash window weights, lump hammer heads, bricks, etc., to do the damage but, for a little fella like my dearself, carrying the additional heavy weight on long walks in big matches was a drag, almost literally. Over time though, the method was perfected such that, on occasion, given the right thickness of ice, it was possible to cut a single rectangle out and slide it under the main sheet. This was far preferable to removing a thousand chunks and shards with a, soon to be shredded, landing net.

The worst occasions were those commencing with the heart-sinking pinging and twanging of the ice floe being pressurised and crushed against steel piling by that first boat and then kept fluid by the ensuing flotilla on inexplicable busy days of traffic. Days when the majority of the time was spent recreating fishing space. The best days however were with just occasional boats, sufficient to keep the water in a tinge of colour, following the initial commotion and stirring of silt caused by the ice breaker itself hitting the bottom. 

These were the days of ruffe, gudgeon, perch and, for the more skilled, bonus roach. We picked-up a number of tips along the way from the stars that used to frequent the matches we poured our hard earned money into and yet when those match fishing boots were hung-up for the final time I'd have to confess that bloodworm and joker were baffling to the end to me. Much to others' amusement the method just went straight over my head and yet I was told it was so simple. 

There was a particular day when all team mates were otherwise engaged that I decided to attend a match on the Wyrley & Essington Canal. An out and out 'joker job' for small fish. There must've been other things on as it wasn't a huge turn-out, maybe 40-odd anglers. Anyway I drew where I was lead to believe the winner would come from, with spare pegs both sides, and, with an hour to go, I thought I was well clear of the field, with about 3lbs, catching behind a log laying on the edge of the far shelf! 

Well, with half an hour to go, there was a commotion to my left and matey boy, who had previously had very little, has only hooked a carp! 

That was as close as it ever got in bloodworm and joker matches against top opposition. On most other occasions it would have been simpler have put £10 on a runner at Warwick, selected by pin and blindfold, and taken my chances. 

I've waffled about little gems falling from the mouths of others before and in the bloodworm stakes there were many, but, it being a method I would come to endure rather than enjoy, it was, rare that these nuggets were put into positive practice. 

There was a time when a top angler was catching better stamp roach, we gleaned, on a single joker using a bristle waggler and a slow fall with 3no13's spread down the line. We tried it, and the roach didn't feed, anywhere. 

In another period it was the thing to dump a load of worm down the middle in the hope of snaring a skimmer or two later. That failed miserably and I also recall big roach being caught six inches to a foot off bottom late in the match and that didn't produce a bean, let alone a roach, for the FF&F net. 

Anyway, needless to say that 'the blood' did not flow in this angler in the same way that a grain of hemp or a pinch of bread could get it racing through the veins when they worked! 

The Pre and Post Christmas Rush

PRE-CHRISTMAS

Sinking into the marsh, subsequent steps no deeper than before but each consistently sucked in by the peat-like soil, slowed the walk but did not diminish the enthusiasm as the river was to be at a high level and, with the summer weed now ripped-out and flushed through by a month's heavy rain, the opportunity to apply pole feeder tactics in slack water was irresistible

'Anything that swims' would be in order, as the first priority is to avoid a blank, but there would be that Peter Stone-style aim to pick-out a bigger fish, as always

Choosing a slack below a bridge where the main flow hurtled to the far bank, toward the overhang of hawthorns, the water appeared steady with barely any flow and, closer in, flowed against the main torrent but, there was an 'eye' to this back eddy, centrally, where the water stood still

The essential of offering an attraction of feed on the river bed in such circumstances is limited to a bait dropper or swimfeeder and, with the most recent rain at that time having been cold, this needed to be in limited quantity. The introduction of a single chopped lobworm plugged with a minimal but heavy mix, containing a sprinkling of worm extract, would be introduced and only for the first three lowerings of the rig, after which the ear would make decisions on the state of play

Bites would be expected to be early and consistent, if they came at all should there be any fish in the slack, and sure enough this came in the shape of a rare river gudgeon, and a surprise boost in Challenge points. The marker quivered and disappeared with a disproportionately positive vigour as compared to the size of this tiny mottled brown visitor, which weighed in at just 0.54 ounces on the mini-fish scales

Adding challenge points at the time of year, and with such weather affecting all possible options, is largely an exercise in luck, most of it bad, but the great thing is that the flood, if it produces anything, often produces pleasant surprises, unseasonable species being one of them but also bigger fish than we might anticipate

Ones natural reaction approaching such a situation is to think that anything will do and therefore be happy with a little fish of any species simply to rescue the day from a blank but regularly this can be found to be a negative and pessimistic attitude. That's not to suggest that big fish will be caught from each and every slack. Indeed, some of them won't appear to hold any fish at all but on average it seems every other trip might throw up something a little more interesting. This past week, for instance, a chub of 4lbs+, an eel of over a pound and a string of pristine hand-sized roach have sprung from different swims on various days

For a few weeks the canals locally had been like milky tea, the lakes shocked into the dormancy of winter by the first cold weather and rivers in and out of the fields with varying degrees of turbidity, pace, level and temperature

The most recent rain, a brief but violent downpour on a Friday, of the increasingly prevalent 'climate change'-driven type, was warm, as the weather turned, and, although the river was rising, it was not now carrying much debris. Consequently the fish were more obliging. Simply more hungry, and, thankfully, a series of chublets and roach came to hand in the ensuing couple of hours accompanied by the incessant twittering and wheezing of starlings on the wires, and the occasional whistling of teal

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POST-CHRISTMAS

Rocky Res would be the location as temperatures were expected to be steady and mild for a couple of weeks

Bleak Midwinter, and windswept at even the most enticing of times, this was not a place for the tentative, sensitive nor indeed the unprotected angler

Visits must be preceded by careful analysis of wind direction and speed plus the likelihood of rain, otherwise the most uncomfortable, nigh-on unbearable, sessions are bound to be endured

The first visit was to be the now standard winter stillwater roach approach of maggot feeder and closely positioned two inch heli-rigged hook-length, also loaded with maggot, usually double but part of a constant merry-go-round of hook-bait options in search of a 'killing' combination

HonGenSec beat me to it on the first trip, as usual (albeit biteless at that point), but, even though there were a few carpers and pikers ensconced, swims were going aplenty

Ultimately it became apparent that my negativity in hook size would come to haunt me, catching four fish and losing five due a surprising interest from tench in just 5degC water temps [no one tell Len Head!]. The best roach was 12ozs, for each of us

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Next trip and HGS was well in front of me and had 5 or 6 roach to 1lb before I'd even turned-up.

The approach was to be different this time, and new. I recalled having a tube of 'sticky mag' in the bag and, combined with a slider rig, this was to be the challenge of the day fishing into 10' of water at around 20-25m. How this would take me back!

Never having used sticky mag it was a bit of a challenge to even get it to work, but it did, and very effectively too. It was easy to roll 20 gentles into a ball and fire them out with a standard catapult. It did require a bowl of water to swill the fingers in, as the stickiness was staggering. I had imagined it would be like a cornflour-type thickening agent but in use it seemed more like powdered toffee, or the like. So adhesive was it that the bait became rigid under its power

My recollection of the slider rig (it had been a while) wasn't the best and I did suffer with tangles, however subsequent seeking of advice from experts, a couple of errors with shotting and casting technique are now resolved. I think the hook bait was attached directly to the float for 50% of the session! Not good, but maybe you gotta make mistakes to learn sometimes (I keep telling myself!)

The upshot of the session was that HGS kept trotting along showing me roach of ever-increasing size, to over the pound mark, in fact, while I kept plugging away. It was during one of those chats that I actually had a bite and landed a very respectable perch of a pound thirteen. Later came the light-bulb moment that this might even have represented more unexpected challenge points

It did, sixty-odd of them!

Another 10oz roach followed but then the dark set-in early with heavy cloud and mist. HGS had by then quit for the heated car seat option but his catch of nine roach, all over ten ounces, for a total catch of around seven pounds, would do more to keep the home fires burning than any amount of hot food

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Next day, the third visit, there could be no excuses. I knew where the bigger roach were, the rig, the slider episode was out of the system and I had doubled-up an eleven foot 1lb t.c. rod prior to the holiday and matched them to alarms and bobbins. The heli-rigs would be back in action!

Arriving just after sunrise, the light southerly would again be from behind the chosen spot, if it was free. Again there was total cloud cover (very much akin to the Dutch 'Total Football' but without the game itself being in anyway involved...unless a perch was caught, obviously) and no one else there, (a Saturday!), again, the water was around 5degC

Pilfering a few rocks from the bank, the rods were set-up perfectly (this time). Maggot at first, then a few flavours proved nothing until bites started to emanate. Inquiries at first then full-blown backdrops; never frantic but regular and generally hit-able

Firstly roach, in fact the first fish was over a pound and followed by a couple of twelve ouncers

1.1.5

Then the tincas moved in, inexplicably smaller than the average summer fish initially, at two and half pounds, but cracking fish to take in Christmas week

Not one, but two bailiffs, approached me at various times to see if anything was stirring and both were genuinely pleased that the answer was, "Yes", as the lack of bums on seats bivvy bed-chair thingies demonstrated that things could only have got better

Then a passing couple or two. It was a dead-end. They had to come back so it was easy to lose count, honest. Suspected as angling husbands and non-angling generally frozen partners suffering the event in the hope of ending-up somewhere warm later, maybe?

My final visitor however was actual angling royalty in the ever-upright form of 1960's England International Hubert Noar; now in his seventies; still match fishing on canals; still seeking bigger fish than the youngsters, albeit more so with perch than roach these days, it seems, and still drawing more than his fair share of what we used to call 'coin', I suspect

"Didn't expect to see you here!" he said, binoculars at the ready in case the regular passage migrant from Norfolk, a bearded tit, should emerge from the reeds

We reminisced

Old names, old techniques, preferences and, as always with anglers of this stature, a couple of nuggets; gems, if you like. Apparently back in the heyday of the middle Great Ouse, when anglers from Rugby Federation, it is fair to say, dominated, it seems Hubert used to come to Rocky Res to practice the unique long float technique into surface drift-affected deep water rather than driving for ninety minutes to the actual venue between matches. It paralleled my own experience, teaching myself to fish bread punch in readiness for a Grand Union Canal NFA National in North London by using the Leicester Arm of the same canal, it would be similarly clear, in the early mornings at the very least, and, sure enough, it worked in that manner too.

Suddenly - resounding bleeps on both rods at once

I struck into what was clearly a better tench on the left-hand rod combined with a solid drop-back on the right-hand rod leaving the alarm bleeping constantly. Hubert was desperate to help-out so I let him pick up the r.h. rod and he held it until I had netted the tench and soon it was joined by a good roach in the same landing net

A quick weigh put the tench at 3lbs 8ozs and the previously unmolested form of the freshly minted roach at a cracking 1.5.3, and (just) more unexpected Challenge points

Best tench of the day

"I expect you'll be doing a film about this place next then?!", he enquired. Very much matter of fact

"No, I think there are plenty of people who know more about this place then I do Hubert", came the reply. His response was indeed flattering, yes, but, I have to say, very much wide of the mark

According to my build-up of notes (no keepnets allowed) the catch comprised 5 roach and 4 tench for a total of exactly sixteen pounds with the smallest fish again eleven ounces.

Quality fishing at one of the best stillwaters in the area

Best roach of the day

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all, let's hope the fishing is on the up at last!

BIG CANAL ROACH and the WINTER CHALLENGE - An Update and Summary.

When big canal roach first became the object of the new found angling affections some four years ago the old match fishing bread punch methods had initially been employed but it needed something more selective as the prospect of racing to catch three or four pounds of middlin' fish on the pole had lost its gloss long before.

Larger baits helped although the white crumb feed still meant smaller fish would whittle the bait down until it fitted their sub-hookbait-sized mouths.

The same pole floats used all those years ago happened to be perfect with their long cane tips and body-down shape allowing good bite detection and sufficient bulk shotting to enable the traditional, Fred J Taylor type, lift bite method to be employed for unbeatable sensitivity.

Then research into roach fishing history suggested mashed bread might be the answer as feed. What appealed about that was the likelihood that smaller fish might be choked-off by it. This proved generally to be true and in, perhaps naive, pursuit of the option on canals even the crusts were mashed to a degree ensuring offerings of sufficient bulk to interest and hold a shoal of passing pound-plus fish could at least provide enough of a lull in their ritualistic activities to pluck one or two from the midst of the shoal before they collectively continued their instinctive wanderings.

This certainly worked and soon it became apparent that the target fish could be extracted before the rest were either spooked or simply drifted past.

There were issues with the pole though. The scale of the hook-bait determined the hook size needed to be 16, or 14 in coloured warm weather water, and to sink this hook in on the the strike required reasonably strong pole elastic (for roach on canals) at around no.6. There was an issue here though in that the fish could then go berserk in the feeding zone on the strike.

Others were using rod and line but initially to the, then unflinching, indoctrinated match fishing mind, this could never be as good...until the certainty dawned that presentation couldn't be any worse, as the method was so indelicate as not to require a pole to present it. This was something if a breakthrough in many respects:

- less kit to carry

- the prospect if roving

- no cold hands in heavy early frosts

- no handling a wet pole in the rain

But, most importantly, the ability to strike and draw fish immediately from the shoal combined with benefits in the more inaccurate approach, which enabled the idea of spreading feed more widely to form. Whereas a match angler will be looking to concentrate the fish by feeding tightly this was no longer necessary as often only one fish would be expected and so it helped the prospect of multiple catches resulting in the fed bait being thrown in a metre diameter ring rather than all in one spot.

At this point the peak size was 1lb 4ozs and the average of those over a pound was, unsurprisingly, a touch above 1.2

I knew that bigger average sized fish were being taken on whole lobworms in the depths of winter but with sessions of around two hours available early mornings the thought of sitting freezing awaiting one bite, or no bites, that might easily be missed, was no choice at all. More action was required than that!

One morning in winter a risk was taken, but it was no risk really, if it went wrong it was only one swim and session wasted, and another peg could always be tried. Three or four handfuls of mash were introduced at the outset. Enough to render a winter match peg stone dead with immediate effect....but it worked. Not only was it successful in producing more target fish it also increased the average size to 1.5.10 and the ceiling rose to over one and a half pounds, then further topped by what at the time seemed a freak/fluke fish of a minnow under two pounds four in 2013. I say a fluke because it was fully ten ounces bigger than the next best.

During this whole period the hookbait size was a 15 to 20mm punch but with the advent if greater initial feed quantities came the realisation that a bait that cut out pretty much all fish below the twelve ounce mark would not be detrimental in any way and would undoubtedly pick out the real target, being the biggest fish in the swim. 

Nowadays the hookbait varies from 20mm diameter upwards and is doubled-over and hooked through the thick outer curve created, such that the hook is subsumed within the floating glob of soggy bread in the water.

Bites usually come within about fifteen minutes, sometimes as long as 45, but if it is necessary to wait that long another peg has usually already been primed for the move.

A concerted effort over the past winter has resulted in 27 one pound-plus roach from the Grand Union and Oxford canals, taking the total since returning to the angling fold, and since this particular obsession commenced, to well over 100.

 

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WINTER 2016/17 BIG ROACH CHALLENGE - Top 10:

 

1.15.5
1.9.11*
1.7.6
1.7.3*
1.7.0*
1.6.8*
1.6.8*
1.6.3*
1.5.13*
1.5.3* 
 

Others: 1.4.10, 1.4.6, 1.4.6, 1.4.2, 1.3.6, 1.3.6*, 1.3.0, 1.3.0, 1.3.0*, 1.2.5, 1.2.5*, 1.1.14, 1.1.10, 1.1.10*, 1.1.10*, 1.0.10, 1.0.8.

[GUC unless *NOXC]

 

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All-time F, F & F Canal Top 10 Roach:

2.3.10*

1.15.5
1.13.0*
1.11.8
1.9.11*
1.9.11*
1.9.4*
1.8.5*
1.8.5*
1.7.6

So what does this show?

- Firstly that canals with an established zander presence have the capacity to be some of the best big roach waters outside the pits and lakes of established specimen repute. 

- Tiny hooks, fine lines and careful feeding are not the way to consistently catch the very biggest roach on canals.

- That there is no substitute for experience, research and implementation in achieving a goal and then extending the boundaries of possibility.

- That the quantity of big roach present is staggering, having only once knowingly caught the same fish twice.

- It is possible to have multiple catches of four and five fish over a pound in one short session.

- 99% of these fish have been caught within 20 minutes of home.

 

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F, F & F - THE NEXT GENERATION(?)
 

TBW has generally had a tenancy to seek perch on worms and so last weekend he decided it was high time he had a go for his first pound-plus canal roach.

From my own efforts over the previous fortnight it was clear they were 'avin' it and as the weather had remained steady the likelihood was there.

In the 1st swim we both fished either side of the feed zone, our unfathomably large flake torn from a medium slice wafting three inches off bottom, floats set to burst through the surface when dear old geriatric rutilus lifted it's head and dislodged the anchor shot.

Could he get a bite? Four fish to yours truly for no valid reason whatsoever including one at 1.3.6 and a surprise rudd. Then his float tows off and a 4 ounce roach is swung to hand!

An old fish with loose scales, this one

Swim 2 had caused me a nightmare a week prior. Ten bites, 2 fish...but they were there and three of 'em had somehow been bumped-off the hook...biorhythm imbalance or something.

It went much the same, 2 lost fish, both good ones but unseen, and then, after a boat had reduced the perhaps over-clarity of the water a touch, he was in.

A deft playing of the fish on his new rod and centrepin, and, with no hiccoughs at all, it lay sparkling in the net, TBW'S teeth to match.

1.2.10, target well and truly hit and last bite of the morning as the boat traffic grew heavier.

It's not often one catches the target first time but this boy has the knack. I think this is the third time; 3lb chub, 2lb perch, now a pound roach!

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FOOTNOTE:

For those wondering (we hope there are many!), Russell and I are due to make a detailed announcement on the Bloggers, Challenge in the next week or so in plenty of time for a May 1st start.

 

From the Murk, Diamonds

The limitations to fishing on highly trafficked relatively shallow canals are obvious to those who have experienced the dubious pleasure but perhaps to those more used to lightly-used, wider, deeper venues it may be difficult to comprehend.

Canal fishing life revolves around two main factors, the weather and boat traffic; and to benefit most from the undoubted pleasures of the cut decisions need to be made based firstly on water colour and then wind direction.

My angling backyard, as regular readers will be somewhat sick of reading, is the Oxford Canal north of the conjoined Oxford and Grand Union's from Braunston in Northants to north-east of Coventry where it meets the Coventry Canal. The majority of the cut is in Warwickshire, an area of largely clay-based surface geology, and consequently the incoming run-off or flood water from fields and ditches leaves fine beige silt behind.

Fishing early morning has become more critical during my lifetime and evening fishing is all but pointless with narrowboats active often until dusk.

The couple of hours one can often enjoy before the boats can be, at certain times of year, of quite unbelievable angling quality. Spring and autumn are those times and currently, with unseemly weather conditions prevailing for the past month, we are experiencing one of those periods.

The average weight of fish to be caught in these heady days is usually between three and seven pounds an hour with the number of fish in a catch usually averaging around a pound each.

Sounds great doesn't it? Imagine a five hour canal match in which one could take fifteen to thirty five pounds of fish based on those averages! Well, as you might gather, it isn't quite like that. The canals are not overstocked commercial fisheries after all.

Two things influence that catch; the fish population and the first boats of the day.

The North Oxford, or 'NOXC' as I have come to abbreviate it, averages around five feet, six inches deep along the boat track. Some areas are a touch deeper, others shallower. The width varies from just 8m to perhaps 20m-odd, but the average is around 12m. The consequence of these limited dimensions, heavy boat traffic and an unsurprisingly commensurate lack of weed growth is a dearth of natural food and an associated low fish population.

Fishing can therefore be challenging outside these peak times and within them one to three hours' action is as much as one can expect to enjoy.

Being little deeper than the length of the narrowboats' tiller the disturbance by the first boat of the day is often devastating, such that fishing-on if the boat passes at any great speed is the least desirable of the two options available. The settled silt overnight prior to an early start will leave the canal with a certain turbidity first thing. After long frosty periods and reduced boat movement some areas can go almost perfectly clear but this is unusual and the majority of the time a certain amount of colour is present due to suspended sediment in the water.

The two baits I tend to favour most these days, bread and lobworms, both work better when the water isn't too heavily coloured but thankfully if some stretches of the NOXC are blighted by a complexion like milky tea after downpours there are usually other (elevated) sections that will remain sensibly fishable.

Yesterday at 09.50hrs this happened...

It is possible to appreciate the water colour prior to the boat going through by looking at the undisturbed patches of water on the far side but within minutes the canal would be like pea soup all over, the fish scattered and the likelihood of more boats would then far exceed the possibility of sitting it out successfully for more fish worth catching.

Prior to the first boats however this happened:

and then this:

Note the water colour at this point.

and there were others...

Three roach of between 1.1.0 and 1.4.0. A hybrid of 1.8.0 and string of perch to 12ozs for a total weight of around 7.8.0 from a surprisingly shallow peg.

The effort is indeed worth it

A Future in the Past

Decades ago The Old Duffer, now officially retired from the angle (unless I can tempt him from time to time), used to take me to all manner of mysterious venues. Most times legally, sometimes questionably so

A vast cauldron of bubbling tales sit as yet to be rediscovered in my mind but they would range from being peppered with buckshot by a shooter oblivious to our presence but nevertheless, one would assume, aware of the towpath; through my falling-in to various parts of the Great Ouse system three times in one week at the age of around 12 years and spilling the beans into the grass when knocking them off the camping stove, scraping them up and eating them; to crashing the car into the back of a van when I was supposed to be ‘off sick’ from school and advising the WPC when I was interviewed that I thought we were doing, “About 40mph” after being strictly informed I should only answer questions I knew the answer to otherwise, “Just say you don’t know”. It was a 30 zone

Never did a week go by without an event and of course those happenings, and often mishap-enings, were compounded on club bus trips to far flung glamorous and grim locations (in equal measure) under which circumstances the frequency of perfectly-baked recipes for amusement in half-baked situations would beggar belief in today’s hermetically-sealed world

The Boy Wonder and I are now able to take advantage of those experiences on a regular basis. This past Saturday for instance we decided to travel a little out of Feldon to a stretch of canal that I used the frequent on a weekly basis, initially for pleasure and then for matches and practice. Some excellent times were had back then but this blog has never been about self-promotion and it isn’t about to start now, so I’ll stick to the point

The venue was always good for some not-so-easy-to-catch roach in the 2 to 5 ounce bracket, perch around the same size and occasionally the odd skimmer would show-up. Most pegs could produce between one and three pounds of fish and four to five pounds would usually be enough to win a match, or, perhaps, around two pounds in an evening competition

One area though was rarely pegged for a number of reasons and it was this that we would sometimes head for when pleasure fishing. I do recall not having the best of ‘luck’ there myself as, being a relative novice at the time, bream fishing was a little beyond me as I was much happier snatching smaller fish from the two margins. The Old Duffer though was quite adept and appreciated the laying-on technique and feeding necessities for skimmers

When we tried to quietly roll-up at dawn on this revisit we were a tad early and so went for the easy option of the known parking arrangements and the best peg from years ago, which we would share. This rather than risk being unable to park at the target bridge and missing prime time

This was TBW’s first dawn trip of the season and it was something of a test. Anticipating a potentially good day with the water the ‘right’ colour of murky green, cloud cover and boundless optimism we piled the bread mash into the channel (my job) and worm feed down the near shelf (his job).

From first cast it was action all the way as quality roach, then the occasional hybrid and then bream to just under two pounds followed in processional order to the net. In fact we were taken aback when a two ounce fish had the temerity to get in the way!

Soon the boats started to get active and The Boy was overwhelmed with a need to find out what was lingering over the worm feed before it was too late. The answer was crayfish, and certainly there had been plenty causing false action down the middle earlier-on. Soon though he managed to connect with some stripeys but they weren’t huge with the biggest around the half-pound mark. Good canal points for him though to go with his best roach yet of 8ozs

Packing away, and on the way back to the car, thoughts and conversation turned to that school boy and ecologists favourite…poo. We somehow managed to avoid quite a number of bank deposits either side of our shared pitch in the semi-gloom. Quite some luck as it seems there was a dog poo bag shortage locally. As we walked back however the larger specimens had been sprayed bright orange which we figured was a way of embarrassing the dog owners that had placed the offending lumps the day before.

“They should spray the owners orange”, we exclaimed, almost in unison. Hopefully this tactic will have some effect but it's sad to say there are certain areas of canals which are easily accessible where it is nigh-on impossible to find sufficient gap to sit in but, on the bright side, the schoolboy humour would have been absent without the dollops.

Dogs bottoms aside we hung exactly fifteen pounds of mixed species and sizes under the scales after three hours fishing with TBW adding points for roach and perch to The Bloggers Challenge

Sunday was an odd one

We didn’t fancy getting-up early again, so, with The Lady Burton otherwise engaged for the morning, and the only other excitement packing boxes for the house move we sloped-off down ‘our bit’ of the Leam

Setting-up in the swim that produced a big perch for him last winter, Parps got on with the task of dropping lobs into the six foot deep hole under, unusually, an overhanging hazel. Meanwhile, as has become standard practise, I struggled to muster even the slightest hint of a bite elsewhere.

“I’ve got one!”, he called, just minutes after settling-in and a quite beautifully deeply-coloured perch just under the pound nestled in his landing net when I went to see.

What seemed like seconds later I heard some attempt to communicate another event and clambered up the bank again. As I reached field level he staggered out of the shade of tree and now wilting nettles, mouth hanging open and arms away from his body in a fixed shrug. Dazed.

“Wassup?”, I queried

“I just had a great big pike on and it’s bitten my hook off. It took the worm but why would it take a worm? Pike eat fish don’t they?”

“Well, yes, but they are predators and will take anything that moves and looks edible. It won’t have gone far he’s probably still in the same place. So you’ve a good chance of getting him again”

Back in went the worm but slightly too far from the fed area so he wound the wriggler back and just as it was about to be lifted from the water, sure enough, “Crash!”, the monster carnivore took it again and soon enough it was in the net.

There in its mouth was the first shiny hook it had acquired which gave us the distinct pleasure of removing both and returning him, all one pound eight ounces of him, and TBW’s first ever pikelet, unharmed to the stream

Who says Crabtree is fiction? Not in our house it ain’t
 

Kids and Fishing (Chapter MCMXXVI), and Other Stuff...

There was an air of change.

In a period of a few increasingly short days waterside green had tended to straw and higher up some trees displayed shades of red.

Soon carpets would be suspended by that unfathomable phenomenon, surface film, perhaps as multi-coloured running contorting in the twists and turns of increased flow or caught as decaying rugs in a bay or against a fallen log.

The feeling of being fully alive as the chill takes to the air coincides with migration in birds and, largely throughout the animal world, hunger. This marks September to November as the time the coarse angler expects. Yes, autumn is peak feeding time for most coarse species.

Personally I had set the summer aside to add a few stillwater fish to the Blogger's Challenge scoreboard, in a season I usually avoid, thinking this would give me the best chance of whatever success I could muster but, with only one species to show for it and a handful of canal and river fish from May and the past few weeks, that tactic seems to have been somewhat high-risk. On the upside, there are two or three fish there that will take some beating locally but I am still too short in the stillwater department at a time of year when I will be inclined to fish canals if the rivers are too low and clear through to the season's end. I fear I may have to fit in some more stillwater sessions yet and rely on a more concentrated approach to the other two options later while stillwater fish remain likely to respond.

The Boy Wonder for his part has been unable to fish until the past three weeks but took his first ever ruffe amid great excitement after we discussed free-lining lob tails a fortnight back only to feel that nauseating sensation when he realised a guaranteed twenty points would be precisely zilch upon noting that the species is ineligible!

His high jinx continued to influence my own luck as I blanked that same ruffe day and also this weekend when he caught a two ounce chub in his first session touch-legering (a new method for every occasion this lad!). As we strolled back to the lay-by, inadvertently late for dinner, we pondered how many points this chublet might have been be worth and, assuming the chub record to be around ten pounds, figured ten points to every pound would be somewhere near so surmised one to two points. Tiny result though it was he was chuffed that night, as we filled in the table last thing before he went to sleep, to see that he no longer propped up the leaderboard and had at least five anglers behind him on the river chart.

 

A happy chap he was as I sat back with tipple in hand recalling his thoughts immediately after the points conversation.

"What would happen if you caught a new record chub? How many points would you get then?".

"Well, if you equalled it exactly you'd get one hundred as it would be one hundred percent of the record. So if you caught, let's say, to keep it easy, an eleven pounder how many points would that be worth?".

"Err, a hundred and ten".

"Yes, plus ten more for catching the biggest chub of the challenge...until someone caught a bigger record of course, then they'd get the extra ten".

"Okay, that's what I'll do then", he replied. Matter of fact.

I'm uncertain as to whether he meant the first record, the second or both, but it's gonna be fun finding-out!

We may need a bigger landing net.

In between being jinxed by my now returned companion, I did managed to increase my own river perch from a few ounces to one pound three last week from 'our stretch' of the Leam on a free-lined lob and then increased that again to 1-12-0 just yesterday a mile or so upstream using a 'new' traditional method to me, that of laying-on with a whole lobworm on a 6 hook and a large shot nailed to the bottom. Traditionally of course this would be balanced against a crow or porcupine quill but, in the absence of those, I was employing a thirty year old Max Winters stick float (anyone remember him?)...which I then duly lost on a snag later. The bites were un-missable and totally contradict everything I thought I'd learnt match fishing with, for instance, squatts on 26 hooks and 0.055mm bottoms.



One, three.

 

One, twelve.

Prior to this I had my own one-pointer, a perfectly-formed micro-pike!, and a lovely river roach which couldn't quite tip the scales at a pound, try though it did as I weighed it.

Don't ask

 

The undoubted highlight of the past between posts period followed the sound of crashing below me on 'the day of the ruffe'. The river was bank to bank with rushes downstream of the hole I was dipping tail ends of lobs into without success and as the noise became closer I expected the resident family of swans with four maturing cygnets to appear in series as they reached the open water I surveyed so it was with no little surprise that when ripples started to emanate across the pool nothing appeared to follow them. Until, that was, I became conscious of what could only be described as an intermittent double-snorting or snorkelling effect. Whatever was making the disturbance was tight under the near bank, out of sight, beneath overhanging rushes, nettles and grasses but it didn't take me long with my standard process of elimination to discard whale and dolphin and get to otter as a conclusion.

Just as soon as I thought it relatively risk-free I ran on feet as light as I could make them and approached the ruffe hunter while telepathically praying he would turn round without speaking, which he thankfully did and I was able to give him the accepted 'silence' signal. We sat and waited as I pointed urgently downstream. Nothing. Then, slowly, an impression of sound. Then out came her head, oiled in arrowheads and pallid beneath the cutest of carnivorous chins. Sure enough a female otter in broad daylight. We watched her make her way under far bank hawthorns getting tiny glimpses here and there and all the time conscious of her blowing and then sucking in fresh air between each dive, occasionally punctuated by the crunching of snail of crayfish.

Otter bait

For me the otter remains the holy grail of native mammals and a sight I wouldn't have believed I'd experience locally in my lifetime until maybe five years ago, and now three in a year or so within a mile stretch.

Ripples of the passing otter

Sometimes life really can be so rewarding, it makes those sessions jinxed by The Boy Wonder all the more easily forgotten, until he reminds me of course...

...and when he's not fishing he makes a mean chef too!

Tench. Time.

Time is a strange concept i'n'it?

My whole angling life has been driven by relatively short sessions on a variety of venues, but groups of venues that have come in fads over the years. Warks Avon & Trent; The East Midlands/Anglian rivers and Lakes; Thames; South Midlands Canals; West Midlands canals and, now, various appealling waterbodies and courses of the Feldon landscape.

The earliest visits were often quite long by my more recent standards, perhaps eight hours or more. Then as club fishing kicked-in with the, then, Rugby Midland Red bus co. angling club, they reduced to 5 or 6 hours and, as time passed through open matches on canals in the East and then West Midlands to the past three seasons of increasingly short sessions around dawn and dusk, they went to four, three, two hours, sometimes even less...and rarely the same peg fished twice.

So the past month has seen a massive change of outlook and direction since the river season ended.

 I am now around 40 hours into what I hope to be a real, not fantasy, tench campaign without even so much as a nibble to show for it. Not consecutive hours I might add, but 40 hours' fishing the same peg in bursts often preceded by baiting visits the night or morning before.

They've been rolling and laughing at me, and the pike have been avid munchers of the inanimate as I've wound back in various contraptions of bait placement but not a proper bite to show for it

Metal crunching, feeder munching Automaton

When I first stepped-off the river bank onto The Stillwater the water immediately seemed quite 'warm' to the touch in comparison but I now realise that it had been heated by the sun in a manner impossible for a shaded, narrow, winding, deep stream and, in fact, to its inhabitants it was still inconducive to much feeding activity.

Now though, a month later, the water temperature is approaching that level at which it starts to be similar to hand temperature and, were it not at the same time wet, it would be undetectable

Comforted by the fact that others are not lowering the water levels by removing myriad tincas I have become, on the face of it, bizarrely content to watch motionless tips

Superficial this situation certainly is however as what this outwardly tedious, if not pointless, exercise has rekindled is my passion for birds. Having been a birdwatcher for as many years as an angler I have hopped-off the ornithological perch in the past decade, largely due to work and the boys' cricket commitments but, since the end of the so-termed noughties, also by an earlier resurrection of angling interest of course.

Here though, at The Stillwater, I have a specific view from the peg combined with the walk back and forth, and suddenly the local recorder finds himself inundated with sightings. Largely common or garden, yes, but the odd flashback to birds not seen or enjoyed for so long together with the returning migrants...and bats

Highlights thus far have been green sandpiper, the returning chiffchaff, then first willow and sedge warblers of 2015 for the location and flocks of twittering sand and, eventually, house martins interspersed by swallows, as well as departing goldeneye, regular barn owl foraging activity and then more arriving warblers such as whitethroat

Chiffchaff

Wednesday I was also able to wend my laden way back to the car park listening to the 'slapping' of common pipistrelles, the 'chip shop, chip shop' of Noctules, our biggest common bat at 16" wingspan (no, that's not a typo!), and the Geiger-counter-esque Daubenton's bat...that hovercraft of the natural world...as they fed freely over the water, margins, carr and treetops. Their calls interspersed by the raspberry-like 'thrrrrripp' of the feeding buzz on contact with tiny and not so tiny prey

The, close to, two days of wider natural study has rekindled this naturalist and I am sure my friends and colleagues are sick of me ranting about observations but sometimes it just has to be shared to extract true value. I know I've seen it, but sharing it and making use of it in the written record adds an extra dimension that's been missing for so much time.

Buzzard and mobbers

Yes, tench time has its benefits, even when they are not quite ready...yet

----

Mouse training update:

'Big set-back when Monica went stiff and had to be ejected as she was becoming food for Potty. Well, it's just life (and death) in the FF&F study

Subsequently Potty became less trusting but, only tonight, a breakthrough that took us back in time and fast-forward simultaneously to the point at which she clumb (that word has a wiggly red line under it, I wonder why?) completely onto my hand for a black sunflower heart...irresistable to Pot-Pot are those

So we're back on course and I'll be able to imagine taking her to school in my pocket again soon

----

Bloggers challenge diary:

Only 7.5 more sleeps to the starting cast

Still time to book-on at:
http://canalangler.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/blogger-challenge-who-in.html
and if you struggle with the link feel free to comment on this post accordingly and I'll happily let Russell and Jeff know

Bread head to Zed head

In the dim and distant, the short stretch of canal ventured to this dull dawn would occasionally produce a cupro-nickel adorned weight in local matches but it's rush-fringed banks flattered very much to deceive the matchman of yesteryear. The best catch I recall was around three pounds of silver skimmers and often in winter matches catches were limited to those in the range of twelve ounces to a pound and a half; summer ones were often won of the farthest end peg, with the colour dropped out of the water overnight and the nervy inhabitants pushed-along with anglers' footsteps

I have passed these pegs and failed to be drawn-in by their long forgotten potential ten, or maybe a dozen, times in the past 2 years but this very day lax and amnesic events, in equal measure, lead to camp being set-up slap-bang in the middle of that very place

A new pole, over-gunned with new fangled puller bungs and heavy duty elastic, was the draw to the canal as a post-purchase test waggle and the option to use the travel Avon quiver was there as back-up if the worms had survived a five weekdays in the car

The freak event was threefold. Last Sunday I managed to step 6 inches left of where I have sat many a time over the past two winters and went up to my left thigh in the River Leam. Fortunately it wasn't too cold and I managed to fish-on for an hour in wrung out clothes before the masking effects of three small fish and the flask started to wear-off and I felt it was starting to get silly. So the wellies went into the porch to dry and consequently were left behind when departing for the canal today, which with the benefit of hindsight was good, as I have since discovered they were still soaking. The result of this little distraction was that I had to walk to the peg in my Scarpas which was okay to a point; the point being reached when water started to seep in which also happened to coincide with the aforementioned rushy bend

As is so often the case now the banks were unfished and unkempt so a little gap was sought and one or two strategic stems bent over to allow access for shipping the matt finished, yet super-slippery, beast in and out, aided by a neatly positioned remnant of fence behind. Investment in end caps for all of the four largest joints enabled roving with the smallest pole for the job and even though we had inherited some savage looking elastic the experiment had to be completed to understand the difference between the usual no6 and this stuff, the like of which I last saw on It's a Knock-out (albeit everyone on that show may well now be banged-up for all I know, or care) whereas this stuff certainly wasn't going to be taking any prisoners if indeed the hook held through it's apparently fearful red power

Obviously to the pre-summer (self-imposed close season) reader the actual method wasn't going to change as big roach would be the initial quarry closely followed by perch on the worm if circumstances pointed that way. So three handfuls of mashed bread, crusts and all, hit the surface with a splosh and a splat 10m out and there the float sat with quite massive pastry-cuts of sliced bread on the hook and it wasn't until we'd got down to the 20mm disc that bites occurred you wont be surprised to hear. The first one pulled-out and I immediately blamed the elastic of course. Second one was not in the same bracket though and staunchly drew 8 or 9 inches out of the sadly stumpy tip (no1's still awaited). This was a fish with the right attitude but not that of hybrid, and not the slovenliness of a bronze bream. It certainly felt like a roach, and it was. A good one. It proved a worthy adversary as it hit the near shelf trying to take full advantage of every overhanging root, stem and branch in striving for it's William Wallace. It did fail, for the time being though, despite the lightest of hooking in it's upper, outer lip.



1-4-6 of battling beauty

The first boat passed at 07.30 just half an hour after dawn and this fish followed, closely chased by another at just under a pound, before the traffic rendered the channel a less than attractive option but, soon, a corvid-powered fracas drew the attention across the damp pasture to the far hedge where a female sparrowhawk was pursued my the mob until she found shelter within a suitably dense hawthorn and they resorted to gathering on nearby posts, wires and dead branches until they lost interest, and drifted back to their morning ground-level foraging as ravens wheeled and tumbled overhead

Four lobs were chopped and introduced under a nearside overhanging ash to my right and whole lobs on a size 6 with a single swan link dropped in after them. Bites came in an instant and it soon became noticeable that the fighters were down the shelf not under the actual bush

 

The first fish put up a tremendous fight, a perch of 1-6-14, and from that moment forward the tip was regularly twanging with perch and then a burst of lost fish when, every time, the lob had wrapped over the hook point! Soon though a heftier specimen with an altogether deeper, more doughty action and the, now familiar, rasping of line along it's erect dorsal as it twisted beyond sight. A zander predictably flashed at the surface and a p.b.-nudger it appeared too. Unusually in my experience of North Oxford Canal zander it indulged in some surface thrashing before flopping into the submission position for netting. These fish are always immaculately presented, confirming their rapid ascent to top predator role in this devastated, devastating and still evolving ecosystem

2-11-14 was 14 drams over the previous p.b. and it certainly made the
net for rounder fish forms up to 4lbs look somewhat inadequate 

It was clearly the case that these fish wanted a large bait and two lobs brought instant responses from the sail-finned mercenaries of murk. Two or three undoubtedly bigger fish simply let go of bunches of worms with the hook fully masked by flesh of worm, one of them was really solid but remains untroubled, perhaps to fall on future quests

Soon a flock of sipping and churring long-tailed tits were all around, then just as suddenly. silent and gone; leaving just the ubiquitous wren to fill the morning with his tnt-sponsored song

What started with the bread head on as a roach session to test the pole (and brought forward some very useful information) became an equally, if not more, enlightening zander event and has set the mind racing in the manner only the real world can

An experimental 10-15-0 mixed bag was about half the potential given the prey on (and off) the hook during the four hours' activity and should have blown the previous 13lbs-odd NOXC record well and truly out of the water, but the fact it didn't makes it all the more enticing and the p.b. zander with top ten canal perch and roach make me wonder why so much time has been spent on a low and clear river to date