The Film - the Truth of the Matter

The feedback on the Big Canal Roach video has been very encouraging. So much so that we're about to set-out on the next escapade, but, before so doing, I must right a wrong.

----

The making of this project was underpinned by two key rules that Eric and I set before we started that were strangely coincidentally cast in stone for both of us:

~ First and foremost - no product placement (even though my compadre is irritated in the extreme that we consequently did not state the hook or bread makes!).

~ If the quality we sought couldn't be achieved, or it seemed insufficiently engaging to us and our Guinea pigs, we wouldn't proceed.

It would be an ordinary angler, going fishing. 

What doesn't come across in the film, because it is primarily about the quality of roach to be found in predator-affected canals, is where the inspiration came from to pursue this ongoing venture chasing pound plus fish, and that must be put right immediately. 

Long suffering readers of The Flannel will know that, without any doubt the most accomplished and inventive coarse angling blogger yet, Jeff Hatt, was the first to prophesise that local zander affected canals were capable of producing roach of 2lbs.

This claim would seem wild and fanciful were it not for the fact that Jeff, his blogging keyboard and glow-tip floats now hung-up for the foreseeable future, could back it up with hard evidence of fish snared in the depths of winter at just a fraction below the magical weight. 

We made contact and started to collaborate to the point at which we shared an online spreadsheet populated with our big roach catches to see whether, over time, any unforeseen patterns might emerge. 

Sadly, not too long after this, Jeff lost the urge after life got in the way of his fishing, although his blog is thankfully still there as a resource of wise words for the angler looking to make sense of a situation. 

For me though this brief meeting of minds has been unquantifiable in its importance, with the basis of the method we depict and describe coming from Jeff's inspirational words.

It was he who re-resurrected the lift bite method Fred J Taylor had already previously brought to prominence from even older sources in more classic situations, including pursuit of Estate Lake tench, and applied it to canals at a time when match anglers were still reeling from their decline due to the advent of a lack of small fish and continuing growth only of the relatively few fish remaining.

Coupled with that favourite chalk stream specimen roach bait, bread flake, it proved an unbeatable combination that was and continues to be the best big roach method due to its crudity making it counterintuitively supersensitive. 

When Jeff's writing via the Idlers Quest portal first influenced my thinking I had caught 4 or 5 one pound plus roach from canals, all pre-1995. I'd returned to angling around 2011 with no purpose and no goal. I was going through the motions of fishing in a match style without the matches and it was inevitable that this was unlikely to be sufficiently enthralling to keep me active in the process. 

The experimentation with Jeff's technique was instantly successful with two roach of a pound and a three pound bream all falling to its temptations on the first brief trip attempting a similar approach on the pole. 

Over the following years, subsequently ploughing a lone gongoozling furrow, the method and, particularly, the feeding and hookbait size has been, dare I use the word, refined and various little alternatives have come and gone or occasionally become part of the arsenal of choices to suit circumstances.

However, one thing has remained constant and that is Jeff's influence. I think it's fair to say that barely a session goes by without me thinking back to that collaboration for one reason or another and it's sad to think that what exists may be its whole backcatalogue, but, as I always feel, be it in respect of otters or whatever, we must embrace the change and take on those new challenges with an open mind.

Of course I'm not the only one who wishes Jeff hadn't retired from the angle and it's, never so eloquently, written word at his apparent peak but he's in fine company in taking that route with sportsmen like Lennox Lewis, Nico Rosberg and Pete Sampras all choosing that option as champions in their own fields. 

----

So, yes, the film wouldn't have been made at all without Jeff's influence and, as I said to him only yesterday, had he still been active we would undoubtedly have contemplated discussing the prospect of producing a video on this subject with Eric together.

WINTER CANAL BIG ROACH SEARCH (1)

Drama on the Cov Canal?

The conclusion has been reached that, for now, with the usual temptations of canal and small stream ahead until mid-march, the Blogger's Challenge can be intermixed with those delights and any incidental points scored along the way will be exactly that

The prospect of targeting specific species through that period will be difficult but hopefully some chub points, combined perhaps with roach and dace, might just come along and, in the right conditions, pike can hopefully be added too with nothing more than a micro-specimen to show for the season thus far

So, the past couple of weeks have involved a brief obsession with a certain stretch of canal which I visited with Jeff & Russell on Zedvember 54th when the change in weather overnight had been little short of horrific in angling terms - from an extended period of exceptionally mild autumn weather to a burst of cold rain then a strong frost and no prospect of reaching 4degC all day. Not the best of circumstances for Jeff and I to take up the 2lb canal roach challenge nor for Russell to have his first taste of big roach fishing on the Oxford. Needless to say that little sortie had nothing to commend it

The Zedvember fest itself however was most enjoyable with the Boy Wonder and I having a brief dabble and then a chinwag with those bloggers we'd not met before from far and wide in various shapes, sizes, accents and interests. All with a tale to tell, largely involving plenty of schoolboy humour of course!

 

While we were gathered Jeff's partner Judy arrived with words to the effect of, "Ooh. A bunch of fishermen. What do you call a collection of fishermen?" The only word I could muster in the circumstances was 'a blank' and, with no advances made, we stuck with it for the time being; albeit I'm not sure anyone actually did blank but it felt as though most of us had

B.W. and I had intended to stop to eat but the pub was so deceptively busy [the only person out front all afternoon had been Jeff (all afternoon) and yet the car park and the overflow at the back was packed] that we decided to leave it and tackle a bag or two of chips on the way back

The highlight of the day, apart from the obvious of course, was in running back to the car to get Russell's birthday card before he departed, misjudging the steepness of a grassy bank and falling headlong forward like some kind of poleaxed grandfather clock

Until, that is, on the way to the chip shop, many conversations later, this...

"I've got it", said The Boy, in mildy subdued exclamation, all matter of fact.

"What?"

"It's was a cast"

"What was a...? Oh yes! It's a cast. A cast of anglers. Now that is clever". The penny dropped and, yes, sure enough it was a cast of anglers, and some cast at that


Back to the plot from the cast:

The ensuing visits to the canaloid have been interesting, engaging and predictable in equal measure. That is about 1/3 of each

(Canaloid: A three-dimensional form with level top, rounded bottom, and indeterminate, often snaking, length).


A quick sojourn to the area that produced the biggest roach of recent weeks at 1.13.0 brought a few fish with a single specimen over a pound, coming in at 1.5.4 to be precise

Otter signs nearby suggested young ones to be present from the scat evidence but the entertainment of the day was a 'flick'(?) of 3 friendly moorhens (okay not as good as a cast, I'll grant you) which ran toward me at the prospect of bread and then retreated with equal gusto once they'd claimed a morsel each never to be seen again

Following this the first subsequent visit to the stretch alluded to earlier involved a couple of pegs being fished in the usual manner, bread down the middle and lobworm nearside, 10 yards to one side on the tip, producing two roach to 12 ounces on bread and not so much as even a sniff-let on worm

Peg two was a contrast.
No bites on bread but plenty on whole lobworms. A surprise chub, thought initially to be a rare carp, took a lob on the drop and tore-off along the far shelf, eventually being beaten and weighed-in at over three pounds. Soon after a smaller one was lost, which I didn't initially realise I had hooked, and then a real beast took possession of the hook and bait proceeding to surge from the swim eventually losing grip as I ventured to follow it along the towpath, an opportunity lost. Two perch on worm followed, up to 1.2.0

 

With no significant roach to show for that trip yet driven by some kind of disbelieving urge I was back at dawn the next day and mistakenly, as is usually the case with revisits, back to the chub peg which this time produced a couple of skimmers to 1.4.0 on bread and perch to 1.5.0 on worm. Moving to two other pegs again produced roach to just under the pound and numerous perch and small hybrids

The longer walk however brought into view even further pegs overhung a little by hawthorns and the like, plus some rushes and sweeping bends which were just too tempting to miss-out on and, it seemed, the odd topping fish too


So, Wednesday, there I was back again with a plan to work my way along those previously unseen
swims 25 yards or so at a time with bread only. If the fish are there we know they will fall to the magic bait within minutes and a twenty minute maximum was set unless a peg was consistently giving-up good fish of course

First swim opposite some hawthorns gave-up 2 roach to ten ounces

Second, on a bend with an ash tree overhead - 2 roach to 1.0.14 and a 3ounce hybrid

Third, again on the bend, but this time in the middle - 2 roach to 0.14.13

The 4th peg - I settled into but got boated-out before long and breakfast called with just two little perch in the net

This three-trip adventure told me enough about that stretch and it will be left well alone for some time now. Perhaps until I feel it is time to try to tackle some chub again


Over the subsequent few days the mild weather has returned with high winds and rain too. This has put far too much colour into the other more likely stretches of the Oxford nearby and so it may just be time to tackle the Leam again, perhaps with a few lobs into the more slack areas, which the postman kindly delivered out his capacious red bag this very day

Has Santa come early I ask myself?

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