A Soggy Situation

The Prologue.

In the F, F & F post "The Ring around the Bullseye" somebody claimed the biggest of canal roach to be 'loners'.

Whoever that was clearly didn't give the statement due consideration and must've drifted into blogging autopilot.

It can't be confirmed as a fact without aqua-vision and as such must surely be complete speculation but what ejit would write such drivel?!


What I intended but didn't put across accurately was subtley, and yet at the same time fundamentally, different to the message that Jeff Hatt, that currently idle angling idler, picked-up and ran with. The key word I actually wrote was that really big canal roach, and by this I mean those of 1lb 10ozs or more, are "...loners".

Mr Hatt took that, quite rightly, as meaning they lived alone but, equally rightly, pointed-out that roach always live in shoals and that he had himself observed small groups of truly big canal roach loosely accompanied by a few of around a pound. In my case however, with the canals I fish being murky and therefore visually impenetrable, there is no such experience to fall back on but I believe he is right and that it is unlikely that those fish will be loners in that sense. Certainly when on those rare occasions that fish fitting the category above have graced my life I have, every time, harboured a feeling that there may just be one or two more to be caught immediately thereafter.

So what did the word 'loner' mean if not that?

What I meant, but lazily failed to convey, was that they have all been loners when caught. There would be no others following them into the net. Thus the prospect of catching another appeared to be nil. That is not to say they weren't shoal fish but somehow the likelihood of catching more than one at that size was negligible probably because they would have been irretrievably spooked by their lifelong school mate's frantically sudden disappearance.

If The Boy Wonder manages to perfect his aquatic filming we might get some proof. At present it's tantalisingly close but not quite there.

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Friday evening.

Having just nipped-out for the obligatory beef curries there is a shroud of autumnal sharpness shrinking over the country side. Not cold enough for frost, damp enough for fog, or sufficiently overcast for rain but, quite distinctly, autumnal.

The weather in the morning should be cloudy with the prospect of rain from 9-ish for maybe a couple of hours but with the wind turning to south-east from easterly.

This forecast confirms that the stretch of GUC I visited for the first time and took the first prize roach of the campaign from will be in ideal condition as the last two weeks before the clocks change run down.

----

SATURDAY:

Perfect.

Mild. Overcast. Still.

Up the Junction?

'Peaked early and sat ready to pierce the surface at first light and in this peg one needed to be.

A canal junction. Once it came alive it would be mayhem.

The fish knew this too.

The first half hour was more frantic than usual though, as the fish, apart from one individual prime roach (not a loner, two others primed as tackle was set-up), made desperate efforts to get caught before the tell-tale tug of the water drawn to left or right commenced.

Firstly bronze bream to 1.14 and then hybrids up to 2 pounds 6 ounces (they sure do fight!) slipped over the rim and gave up.

Somewhere in that lot is a roach of 1.4.6, taken second fish of the day

After the two biggest hybrids the action came to an abrupt halt. I fed again but then that dreaded tow started and the arrival of the first narrow boat was signalled.





What a picturesque spot this had been though. Surveyed by typical canal architecture the junction with its weeping willow and neatly trimmed verges was certainly a joy to be part of.

The Kingfisher peeped, mallards scrapped and swans hissed in search of fragments of my bread. All was normal on the cut.

Passing that rarest of canal inhabitants, an angler, as I wandered back with rain cloud confusing the horizon, I was regaled with enthusiastic tales of carp. So that's another target for the future that HonGenSec might just find appealing.

----

SUNDAY

Rain forecast from 7 or 8am

It was a rush to get there and set up before it started. The cloud was thick in the direction of travel but with the orange glow of impending sun still evident to the north. I stuck with the plan to head east and as I got out of the car it started spitting.

I tried to find a suitable swim but so many moored boats sent me back to the car and onto Plan B, a plan that didn't exist until that moment.

Arriving at my peg in the cutting it was so dark as to be a literal headache to see the float and with water clarity probably a touch too deep I did wonder whether a soaking was worth it.

It was also likely that there would be no chance to move swims once camp was built.

Mash was introduced and the rain drops grew larger; enhanced and supplemented by huge drops from the over-arching tree cover. A few leaves adorned the shimmering berippled surface but by 9.30, when the downpour had peaked, autumn was confirmed as suddenly, their leaf nodes strained beyond holding by the weight of water, the branches lost grip of their life-giving attachments and began to recoil into winter.

It took a few minutes but slowly bites started and ultimately, in no rush, 5 bream, as peas in a pod, made a nice net of precisely 10lbs to the ounce.

By now the rain was so heavy as to preclude the walk back so I amused myself talking to passing dogs. Quite a collection today. Cockers & Springers, a giant Jack Russell (more of a Jonathan Russell really), mutts, mongrels and Co., but thankfully only Ollie showed any interest in the bait and by then it mattered not.

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AUTUMN/WINTER CANAL ROACH CAMPAIGN (TOP 10):
1.15.5
1.7.6
1.4.10
1.4.6
1.4.6
1.4.2
1.3.6
1.3.0
1.2.5
1.1.14
(All Grand Union Canal)

A CLOCK & A HARD PLACE

(A blog out of sequence on the North Oxford Canal)






Light was already fading as I approached the water, flushing the obligatory pair of mallard into a syncronised vertical take-off (& yet a harrier is a floaty bird of prey?!). Sunset was to be at 6.27pm and camp was made at 5.50pm

The increased acceleration of a narrowboat could be heard penetrating the arch of the traditional brick humpback bridge as I emerged from the muffled sound within the car. The impact remained visible closer-to with clouds of silt swirling a channel like cold tea. 'One lump or two?' I murmured, as I took pole position two swims east, and concluded 'probably none!' with only a few minutes until dark and little time to build any interest

Such a long time away from such a scene had erased the memory that Friday evening was the antithesis of pleasure, as would be Saturday morning, with instant narrowboaters charging back to madly multiplying marinas at full throttle for changeover to the next...and end of school term imminent

Undeterred, I assembled the minimised kit having discarded all manner of, now pointless, competitive attachments and fry-seeking enhancements in the back room to gather dust until the Lady Burton could explain the machinations of 'sell one like this' to me

Selecting a rig from the myriad multicoloured bars of the 'gaudy fishing heaven' tray was a challenge...all too light, until I found one I could make do & mend with and attached an 18 to take two maggots

A regime of introducing 3-6 wriggly carrots & turnips every few minutes commenced, the gable of a building opposite served as a perfect target as the effort concentrated in the gap between a window and the alarm box in its reflection






Things were always going to be hard, this was at best a location from which I had occasionally mustered two pounds of fish and at worst a place to avoid an unequivocal water-licking but I was there & approaching a potentially good time of year

The water pulled left then right and refuse to settle, with locks 2 miles west and 6 or 7 miles east to battle over the water volume; the tug of war continued into the gloom until, at the point when I had again blanked-out the possibility of further disturbance, a second narrowboat with headlamp blazing chugged out of the bridge arch to my left, slowing-down as it passed - the cafuffle thwarted - but at an optimum time to terminally delay the likelihood of a bite

By this time a precious hour had passed and I reached for a headlamp to illuminate from above. An ultrasound device, seeking out the night's first common pipistrelle at around 10degC gently glowed next to the piercing brightness of my phone clock while the headlamp bizarrely picked up the reflecting white back of a common frog's eye as it passed the blazing float tip. It moved as if breaststroking against the grain of a ploughed field toward the near bank and out of view






The bat appeared at 7.10, with its slappy sound somewhat distant and fleeting, accompanied by the probable pre-nesting nocturnal peewit-ing of green plovers in a meadow to my left, abruptly returning later to forage briefly nearby and depart as instantly. 40 minutes after sunset suggested the flying marvel was a long way from its roost given that they tend to emerge after just 20.

The water continued to pull to the right and by now I was seriously beginning to contemplate the prospect of another trip without any fish on view but with the steady trickle of free maggots continuing and the float held back against the flow with a hookbait 6" over-depth it was still possible that a monster of the not-so-deep would trip over the bait so I told myself 7.30 would be the deadline

A few tiny fish had been topping just prior to dark together with the hint of a couple of their larger brethren beneath the surface but insufficient evidence to give cause for confidence as I started to chill and drew a soft fleece-lined collar over my neck

More mallards continually quietly muttered their irritation at my presence when at 7.29 the float seemed to have disappeared. I looked to the right of my float to get that additional focus of the natural human night vision ('searches schoolboy biology memory bank - rods and cones?) and became certain I struck up and left and the blue elastic extended two feet then more accompanied by the momentary suggestion of hooked heavy debris when a motion reminiscent of piscine digging commenced, after alternate spells of kiting and more digging the predicted perch appeared a deep green in the lamp beam and slipped into the net






On inspection this footballer was remarkably brightly coloured for a murky North Oxford Canal inhabitant, and notably rotund, sure enough this female fish was eating for hundreds! At 14ozs she was probably 4ozs overweight but would soon return to fitness once the excitement of spring was over






Fifteen minutes later the call of the square section potato we know as chips overwhelmed me and the scene was deserted, next time I'll remember to avoid the prime boating periods!


[Species list: Jackdaw, lapwing, mallard, robin, great tit, fieldfare, common frog, common pipistrelle, perch]