The Extremes of Frosty Days

How often do we venture out into the wild early or late in the day and witness something for the first time?

On consecutive recent days events have been enjoyed, brought about by conspiring circumstances, that I don't recall experiencing previously, mostly influenced by the effects of temperature

First I decided to visit a stretch of canal I hadn't fished for around twenty years, and, going further back, probably 13 years before that to the previous visit. A good catch back then, believe it or believe it not, was high ounces so the prospects weren't great set against that context. However the zander-induced proliferation of big fish in the canal generally ensured that it was likely to be one bite, one fish wherever I went on a morning with clear skies anyway, so what was to be lost by trying this place with the better haunts either too coloured or too often visited recently? Very little.

The path went past a small boatyard, small by modern standards, where boats were moored two and three abreast such that some of them edged into the centre of the canal. It was very tempting to set-up here and, when a genuinely surprising number of small roach started topping as I wandered past, I thought more than twice and even came back to the spot before continuing. Pegs beyond the boats also had topping fish and a 30m long reedbed opposite was just too enticing, especially as, beyond that point, the prospects appeared some what less than exciting.

The fishing was interesting but unexciting, marginally eclipsed by the bird life (and almost by the continuous dog life)

It was cold. No frost on arrival but then it formed on and around the kit as the morning took hold. To my right in the marina mouth I watched the ice form, there only, through the mist of my own breath but, with a decent pull on the cut as it discharged the rainfall from a fortnight past into the Avon, no ice formed in the narrow channel I had chosen.

The promiscuous dunnock showed its true self with three individuals singing and frolicking in the dead ruderal & hedgeline opposite, at times passed by a variety of tits, finches and thrushes. Most of the time the peak of a thermally-lined cap cut-out any potential action above eye-level but for no known reason I did at least once lift my gaze briefly at precisely the moment a probable wader flew rapidly by and took a steep right-turn through the hedge into an industrial estate and a small stream behind me. No great distinguishing features on this middle-sized bird which left me perplexed, maybe it wasn't a wader, anyway I'll never know and sometimes that's a good thing; keeping the uncertainty of it all to the fore.


A few small fish and a bumped specimen later and my enthralment in this long-lost stretch started to wane with the deathly chug of a narrowboat emanating from the gloom past the boatyard. The boat cut through like a non-Newtonian fluid and swept past me taking a million pieces of wafer-thin ice with it. Minutes later every speck of ice had gone; pulled cleanly to the west on the flow, and, to the 11am dog walker, it would simply have seemed a perfect mild sunny morning as the temperature crept up to a peak of 7 or 8C.

'Never watched that unfold before


Next day saw me back. I'd deposited some bread 25 metres to my left and was set to give it a go but this time when I arrived the marina was already frozen in part and spread across the whole patch during my stay

The bread from the previous morning really did the trick...crayfish heaven! Twitch after twitch after twitch soon had me scurrying for another peg safe in the knowledge that all the crays were piled-up in one spot. The second produced two small roach before the lure of the birdlife again had me drifting-off shrub, tree and skyward as the gentle 'pheep' of a male bullfinch aurally illuminated the frost, accompanied by his rich rose-red barrel-chest, high in a hawthorn

The temperature rose more steeply than yesterday and soon the ice, which was threatening to creep toward me, started to subside and by the time I headed back to see if my car had been clamped or ticketed it had been completely consumed back into the body of towing water and, by then, probably, dumped in the avon (the ice that is, not the car)

'Never seen that before


Unperturbed by a lack of angling success, that same day I had to shake-off a residual river fishing desire on the Leam. It was about half a metre up but starting to show signs of clearing after the melted snow. My footprints were the first to appear in the deposited silt of a river that had been over 2m above normal a few days prior and whole lobs presented in numerous swims for a few minutes each produced little other than an increasingly serious shortage of swan shot and hooks!

Eventually, as dusk fell, I settled into a swim where a gentle glide had formed following substantial bank erosion caused by the preceding floods. Tap, tap, tap-tap was the best bite I had and, an hour after dark, the distant honking of geese was accompanied by the sudden shocking brightness of the phone screen indicating the The Lady Burton considered it time we had dinner, and she was right.

As my eyes became re-accustomed to the dark, and the 'one last cast' ritual undertaken in plummeting temperatures, I was conscious, as I often am on this venue, of a passing tawny owl. They had been tooit too-ooing as usual for some time and had now become active. A massive bird flew past me above the river and commenced that typical bird-like rapid braking with its wings as it headed into some dense trees...'CRACK' came the sound and, within a split second, a loud splash as something hit the water. '**** - the owls gone in', I inwardly exclaimed as I leapt to my feet and trained my now faultering head-torch on the murky surface only to see the branch it had obviously tried to land-on float swiftly by! The owl, unseen and probably smirking as only owls can at my panic on its behalf, had itself floated off to seek out another perch...which is more than I managed

Sunset over the Leam

'Never known that happen before!


Species list:
Bullfinch, goldfinch, chaffinch, dunnock, blue tit, great tit, robin, song thrush, blackbird, magpie, carrion crow, woodpigeon, collared dove, mallard, mute swan, lesser black backed gull, black headed gull, tawny owl, pheasant, canada goose. Rabbit. Roach, roachxbream hybrid, perch.

A Roach Trip goes wrong. Very, very, wrong.

Saturday, 6.15am, snow

6.30am, snow

6.45am, snow

"Aah, let's go anyway, it's the only chance I'll have"

...and go I did.


A few weeks ago during the New Year mild spell a couple of unseasonal tench enlivened proceedings on a wide North Oxford Canal bend never before fished; well, others had fished it, but I hadn't

So yesterday, in the snow, I ended-up there again, albeit two or three pegs to the left

I had recalled some big fish crashing in this area, the culprits unknown but probably not roach, however I still fancied there might be some big roach in the area and, being without any lobworms, it was to be bread all round

Plumbing-up offered a pleasant surprise for, though the depth was not as great as the narrower stretches, it was deep well across against the far shelf at around 11m.


Water clarity perhaps a touch better than could have been expected with visibility about a foot down  

Bread flake had not been presented before at this distance and it was likely to prove tricky to get the bait out there without it falling-off from under the initially snow-covered green mushroom I refer to as a brolly. 7m out was also fed, that being the deepest point, and, after 10 minutes on that line, I was soon tempted across after a large fish rolled just one peg to my left but again not a roach, so what were they? I had been tempted to think chub, as a few lived not far from here many years ago, but, although that seemed unlikely in the cold light of morning, no other obvious options presented themselves from experience

The bread I had was a touch stale and it took three attempts to get a hookbait over the feed but a couple slices I had steamed did the trick and straightaway I struck into something hefty. In fact I have only experienced this phenomenon once since returning to fishing and that was the very first time I tried the lift bite method and large flakes of bread on the pole when a bream of exactly three pounds had risked a nibble; the strike hit a fish so large that when I lifted the pole the float stayed where it was and the elastic just stretched...and stretched!

Battle commenced. No fast, furious fighter this fish but clearly a heavyweight for this canal. After much aquatic chugging, burrowing and plodding-around the defendant became somewhat more animated when close to the net and it took a good while to drag a bream over the landing net. 3-1-0 it went, and a North Oxford PB by an ounce...good start

At this point a small brown bird alighted on some dead willowherb opposite and slightly to my left. "Troglodyte", I thought [Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes)], and as it proceeded to strip seeds from the plant I very quickly had to backtrack. This was no wren, an out and out invertebrate devourer, but at the same time I could not see any diagnostic features and so took a series of long telephoto lens shots for later scrutiny

A redpoll. If anyone out there in blogland recognises this as anything other than the 'lesser' variety please do let me know



Regular tremors of the float occurred throughout the session as well as outrageous bites as bream came to the net at regular intervals together with two that slipped the hook and they all fought with some gusto it has to be said, which is often true of canal bream of course

As an old friend not seen for at least 20 years, who passed by, commented, these were largely old fish. There was certainly something 'funny' about them but I couldn't quite put my finger on it; something that made these fish, in varying degrees, not quite bronze bream. Two of the two pounders fought with that additional vigour of hybrids and the scales were, well, more roach like in places; and then there was the Roman nose-like mouth shape of the big'un; something is bugging me about them but, for the time being, they are bronze bream until proven otherwise

Not a roach to be seen but the catch certainly knocked all previous bream records for the canal, for my part and my memory at least, into a cocked hat. The 5 chunky fish weighed 10-14-0 and the prospect of a big bruising redfin in their company remains to live on as a hope for another day, as certainly it is not unheard of for such a dream fish to accompany nets of bream and such like on occasion

In case you thought I was fishing a touch heavy - that's not a yellow-tipped float giving some scale to the fish! The 'bream' on the right in hindsight is probably a hybrid explaining why it fought like one

Duncan (the passer-by) informed me that he had noticed more bream in the canals recently but cited stretches of the Grand Union and conjoined GUC and Oxford canals rather than the North Oxford per se. So I think I can quietly risk remaining justifiably pleased and, at the same time, more than mildly staggered by this catch. I recall very rarely more than a bream or two in catches since the days when Hillworton Wide was the place to go for the species pre-1980 before boat activity took it over and the stand-out catch of skimmers in a match taken from a different wide bend in a short evening competition was just 6lbs, although, as anglers familiar with the canal will know, 6lbs was quite some match weight from the North Oxford in the past

The activity in the swim was equally surprising with numerous feeding fish betrayed by much bubbling and blowing and, had I not been restricted, as I was, to bread I feel a bigger weight was quite possible but that will now have to wait for another day

Plenty of width but an otherwise unremarkable swim alive with bream

This is a good spot for a good bird list too and the first drumming great spotted woodpecker of 2013 was heard to the north together with bullfinch and green woodpecker in an almost forgotten incidental list when concentration on avian fauna was not at all high on the agenda

So the start to 2013 continues in a rich vein interspersed by blanks and the next brief two-hour session this very morning saw me wandering an unbelievably boggy canal bank I had never before set eyes on in the hope that I could track down that elusive roach in excess of 1-4-12. January and February had always been something of a nemesis with some seasons not a pound of fish registered on any day in their whole length. Again, unusually, an early bite resulted in yet another 2013 12oz roach, tempted of course on bread flake, coming to the net and two missed bites. Incidentally, on this trip, I trialed a Warburtons extra thick (green) loaf but it was just too thick and doughy, I'll be back to the blue in no time but if you don't ask the question you don't find out!

BIRD LIST:
Lesser redpoll, bullfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch, long-tailed tit, robin, blackbird, song thrush, starling, dunnock, magpie, jackdaw, carrion crow, woodpigeon, feral pigeon, mallard, moorhen, mute swan, cormorant, black-headed gull  

The Inside Line on Bread



Having set-out options for 2013 the year had not got off to the greatest of starts what with the snow, ensuing high water levels and suspended sediment in rivers and canals punctuated by a number of blanks in the first few trips so it was with some relish that this last weekend offered a few opportunities to try the approach I had decided would suit for 2013 in earnest and unencumbered by too many constraints

Late Saturday evening a trip to the North Oxford Canal just before dark, and, it was hoped, after the last boat, enabled the widely accepted peak time to be tested as darkness descended and took hold

A splat of thawed white crumb from a home liquidised loaf started the session as the inside line of the outside of a bend was targeted. I waited over an hour for a bite and didn't have one but, on deciding it was time to quit, I lifted the float out to find a hard-fighting fish on - my makeshift beta-light set-up had actually precluded me seeing the bite! An interesting battle in the dark was won by the no.6 pole elastic and a roachxbream hybrid of fourteen ounces was admired in the headlamp glow and slipped back into the murky depths 30 yards to my right. Buoyed by that capture another few 'casts' were made but nothing exciting followed and so I departed after introducing the remainder of the bread mix on that same line and vowed to return at dawn to make use of this rather feeble pre-baiting ritual

While sat there in the dark I was conscious of a white shape coming towards me from the left. Then there was a crash as if a pile of wooden poles had fallen to the ground, at which point the white shape stopped dead. Soon however the shape started coming closer again and as it approached it took-on a more square form in the gloom until a man in a red coat carrying a large white box appeared slipping and sliding all over this particularly swamp-like towing path! We exchanged pleasantries and to this moment I can only assume he had been shopping for some kind of electrical item and misjudged the time it would take to get home...we'll never know the truth of course, but it certainly was an odd one...if the crash really was him falling over or dropping the box I do hope he'd bought plenty of glue

Next morning the water looked somewhat more 'bready' than the previous night, visibility had improved to about 5" below the surface and that greenish tinge that our canal often takes on in the winter was about it. Two lines were attacked; one replicating yesterday's on bread and another at 8-9m with lobworm. I also introduced some crumb into a swim under an overhanging tree 30m to my left after I had been there half an hour but started on last night's bread-line without feeding for 15 minutes 'just in case'

Again it was an hour, almost to the minute, when the first bite regsitered on bread flake and it was a really pronounced unmissable lift at that. The strike met with a really strong fighting fish, much as the night before, but more so. Eventually a flash of bluey/silver broke the surface and I was for that moment convinced that this at last was that roach over a pound and half I had been seeking for much of the previous year...but it wasn't done yet. I was fairly confident it would not be a 'two' and when it appeared again I was somewhat deflated to see it's more bream-like shape and dull fins - another hybrid of 1-10-0 was confirmed on the mud-covered bank


An unintentionally soft-focus hybrid, a steamed lens and no cloth were responsible...and not a roach

Soon after, a roach of 12ozs came from the same bait and then it went quiet so I re-fed and tried the lobworm line which produced something small immediately followed by something quite meaty both of which pulled-out on the retrieve for no apparent reason, I may not have given them time to get the piece of lob down. So I re-fed the lob swim and headed off to the overhanging tree

As the tree hung so far out into the canal it only took 7-8m of pole to drop a piece of flake under it and no sooner had the float cocked and the shoulder sunk below the surface, leaving the red tip visible, than it suddenly returned to the shoulder and a strike into another twelve ounce roach proved the only bite at this location in two visits during the three and a half hour early morning session

The main swim was good for third 12oz roach, a 3oz'er and a 6oz perch on lobworm before boat traffic put paid to the level of excitement


3 roach of between 0-11-11 and 0-12-11 and yet the photo makes them look so different 

 This was the first time I'd tried these baits 'in reverse' (lobbies across, bread close) but this is likely to be dictated by whether the swim is on the inside or outside of a bend...or good old gut feeling of course!...but it worked quite well resulting in six fish for 4-10-0 including four for four pounds

'Happy with that. I think this method will be worth pursuing for a while and see how it evolves


Later on Sunday I couldn't resist an hour at and after dark on the falling, and very slightly clearing, River Leam to the tune of another roach of 8 ounces, again on flake and a number of tappy indications. Frost in the morning - nine degrees in the evening, the climate is out of control.


A river roach with colour washed-out by the flash and the flood

Woodcock and two tawny owl added to the entertainment after dark, brilliant!

Winter struck

Today was a first, a multiple first

Having just celebrated the big five-o the family clubbed together and instructed me that, with the proceeds, I was to buy something special for myself. Very little encouragement was necessary and, after brief mulling, delivery of a J W Young BJ centrepin was inevitable, and what a beauty she is - all gunmetal, silver and gold in enviable precision

On the irrefutable basis that noteworthy things occur in threes the temptation to go small river fishing in the snow also gripped me, having long been enchanted by traditional photographs of chub against the white background

Whether the third event was to follow remained to be seen

The tackle had been pared to the absolute bare minimum, in fact had it not been for the fact that I'd need something to keep my backside out of the snow a single rod sleeve and my pockets would have sufficed!

Conscious of the potential to lose the ends of extremities under such conditions I found myself in an unimaginable sweat by the time I'd flushed a gangly heron from the winding watercourse and ambled to my starting peg but, a few zips later, the steam released and with the task settled in to, the balsa was running through quite neatly, supporting a bulk of 3AAA with a BB dropper, as the air filled with the sound of nuthatches twittering to each other in separate woods on the far bank

The reel was little short of a dream, so much so that when I struck into a surprise bite after about 20 minutes I remained so besotted by it that I entirely forgot to pressure the not inconsiderable adversary out of some nasty snags and the presumed big chub left me with rather less gear than I'd cast in
 

Another hour or so gently teasing pieces of flake and crust through the particularly comfy swim produced not a touch and the decision to try another spot further downstream took priority

Fishing in lying snow was quite different to my only other experience from the former life about 17 or 18 years ago when fishing an Angling Times winter league semi-final on the Bridgewater Canal at Sale. On that occasion I was using a 13m pole when huge lumps of snow started falling heavily and trying to see the tip of a tiny wire-bristled float through it was disorientating to the point of nausea, very odd

The second swim was considerably shallower and more snaggy than the first and a spell with the same rig, and later a link leger, gave no positive indications from fish if any were indeed present

A sign of the desperation that sets in under such climatic circumstances was played-out in the wood when a beautifully plumaged buzzard suddenly swept down to the ground in pursuit of female blackbird but, unsuited to such attacks, the raptor failed miserably in its brief attempt to stave-off hunger. The escapee exited with a shrill alarm call and the dejected chaser alighted on a high branch to contemplate the whereabouts of its next snack

Another hour or more passed and saw a return to the first swim to run through the repertoire again, but to no avail. Pheasants were flying up into small trees to my left as darkness started to fall. By this time I had been out far longer than I was either intending or expecting, such was the level of contentment, and as a pair of ravens struck-up their individually recognisable kronking in the wooded hillside to my right, before they flew along the rise in front of me to roost in a single tall tree, the feeling that I had outstayed my welcome descended, together with a hint of a probable ensuing drop in air temperature. This was not an evening to fish into dark

The snow seemed somewhat wetter on the return journey as the various footprints of mammals and birds entertained the mind. Certainly the peg from which I had wiped much of the snow with my irreproachable thermal boots had turned from dry snow to mud while I was there.

The three events I had to be content with were the snow, the reel and the lost fish this time. Soon the snow would be melted and the River back up to the top of the banks and not difficult to avoid. As I sat back in the warmth with an Ardbeg Islay 10 year-old single malt I wondered how long before I actually banked a fish under such circumstances, hopefully the reel will have by then become a natural extension of the self and present every chance of beating any bruiser audacious enough to snaffle the bait

Bird list:
Goldfinch, long-tailed tit, robin, fieldfare, blackbird, buzzard, raven, indet gull, woodpigeon, rook, heron, pied wagtail, magpie.

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?

The First Year's Roaching, a Summary

The Quarry in Stereovision. North Oxford Canal roach in excess of one pound

Wracking the old brain, emphasising the 'old', reasonable confidence confirms that the match angling urge had burned out by around 1996 when being unable to fish at least three times a week coincided with a relative inability to compete at any kind of level

The return with any kind of enthusiasm in 2012 had taken a long, long time to kindle being preceded, as it was, by a short-lived false start in 2010/11. Other than that, just the odd session tiddler-snatching on the Upper Thames had been undertaken when circumstances suitably conspired

So this past year has seen quite a rebirth when set against that background but even then the actual amount of time on the bank has been quite small with two hour sessions the norm seeking to lasso the odd fish before either the boats start moving on the canal or a twilight session on the Upper River Leam fizzles-out at the temptation of the Sunday roast

In the whole year only around 85 hours have been spent fishing in 38 trips whereas in the past this number of hours would have been consumed in just 5 weeks in Summer

This 00-gauge approach to the sport had to have a target & apart from a few largely unsuccessful trips to the Leam and a couple of stillwaters it has focussed on attempting to catch big roach from the North Oxford Canal

The method of fishing popped-up bread flake on the float while seeking lift bites was gleaned from Jeff Hatt's admirable blog "Idler's Quest" and has been pursued through this period subject to various amendments as circumstances, hunches and whims dictated

The results are not amazing but they are at the very least interesting...


Of the circa 80 hours bankside, about 65 of those were roach fishing on the canal and in that short space of time it was the intention to catch the bigger inhabitants of the waterway by using significant chunks of flake or crust. Nothing smaller than a 20p-sized piece was deployed all through and often a larger bait was used

In the period to 1994, at which time records either ceased to be kept or the bug had been squashed, 4 roach over a pound had been taken with a North Oxford 'PB' of 1-3-12 in 1993. These were all fish taken in matches when just a few minutes in each three or four hour competitive burst would have been spent in pursuit of 'bonus fish'

In 2012 however, when small fish have purposely been avoided by choice, 14 fish over a pound graced the landing net and many also committed to digital memory. The PB has been nudged gently up to 1-4-12 by a somewhat misshapen individual with others in more shapely proportions weighing 1-4-10 & 1-4-6 close behind. The average weight of those 14 fish over 1lb has been 1-2-4 and, by simple calculation, one has been caught, on average, about every 4 & 3/4 hours


Canal PB 1-4-12 : May 2012

The latter point has been something of a surprise. No specific target was set at the outset but the notion that so many would have been caught so often would have been dismissed without further thought early in the year. In that period the same peg has been knowingly revisited on only two occasions, from memory, as a wider search area was preferred to constantly seeking out the same shoal

As has been noted before in these posts, the odd larger specimen would have been welcome but in hindsight very little time had been expended and, in reality, more time, and better focussed time, would no doubt have increased the possibility but the number of roach under a pound has been remarkably low due to the size of bait employed so it is undoubtedly a neatly targetted method

The prospect of a specimen hunting obsession growing out of this little escapade was always possible but, though it has certainly been a pursuit of larger fish, it has not yet turned fully in that direction; while the pleasure has been there to be had from this relatively narrow search the need has been well and truly satisfied, not least because of the supplementation by other interests

Certainly the choice to fish rivers more regularly would have appealed but the fact that locally they have resembled oceans for much of the year has done very little toward making that possible

So overall 2012 has been a success. The urge has not waned this time with the label 'angler' now seemingly appropriate again and, for the time being, the method and location continue to suit until, that is, the rivers become fishable and then the offer of greater contrast will be even more attractive. That the year included incidental silver bream and zander PB's made it all the more rewarding although the range of species was very limited due to the watercourse and approach

Here's hoping for a significantly drier 2013 when some of the additional experiments planned for 2012 might then be possible. Obvious things which spring to mind, and which have not been pursued as yet, would be fishing into dark, caster and hemp so there's plenty of scope...and, of course, other species to go at occasionally too!