Practice sessions (Coventry)

I reckon every lure angler in the country has been waiting for the predators to get out of their spawning funk which seems rather prolonged this year by the up and down weather. I for one have really been looking forward to them getting back on the feed as I have recently freshened up my lure selection with an injection of custom lures from John Maher @ J.M Soft Baits and I have been gagging to throw them at some proper hungry fish. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever think that custom lures would be within my grasp until one of my fellow England CRT team members put me in touch with John who has produced for me a whole load of Grubby shads in special colours that look amazing and just have to catch fish!

With the upcoming League competition section now out of bounds for a pre-match rest I opted to stick on the Coventry but have a practice for the up coming Romanian Angling Associations spring predator race which I intend to fish in a few weeks time. This seemed the perfect opportunity to road test Mr Mahers handy work..

Venue = Coventry canal @ Hawksbury

Total = 277cm

Well it turned out to be one of those sessions where you drive home looking like you've taken some kind of smile inducing drug. From the outset I knew it was going to be a good session. I arrived early and the water was in perfect condition. I was instantly into fish with an early zander which I followed up with a hard fighting spawned out perch. Things though were going to go from good to brilliant quickly when I moved into an area I rarely fish. On my second cast I watched as the lure dropped through the layers in the deeper than average area. Suddenly the drooping line tightened and I reactively struck into a big fish which after a suitably epic fight turned out to be chunky 65cm zed. The zeds were back on the feed in a big way and after following up the big one with another chunky 52cm zed I plundered the shoals of little zeds where I could find them All in all it was a great practice session and the mixture of species, large and small fish was very pleasing to see and really left me feeling very buoyant for the upcoming matches.

A Jobber's point collecting job.

When I decided to take part in this most recent fishing challenge, I said to myself it was always going to be a case of just doing what I wanted to do and collecting any points that came along as a result of my captures, unlike in previous challenges where I have gone off searching for specific points. My good intentions though lasted all of five minutes, after I decided to go on a point collecting mission and head down to one of my favorite sections of canal to try and catch a few decent examples of a few different species. 

The idea to go a fish the canal using some old school Sensas ground bait while fishing worms over the top had popped out of my brain goo a while ago.  As it's something I rarely do on canals nowadays I wondered what the reaction on this highly populated area might be. So after settling on a favorite fish holding area I plumbed my float up two inches over depth and baited a small area about a foot square with four hard golf ball sized balls of Lake black ground bait, laced with a few broken worms, and threw in one loose ball to break up on the way down. Then while that stewed away sending of waves of scent down the canal with the tow, I got comfortable.

I reckon worms must make up a huge proportion of small zanders diet as I regularly catch them on worm sections and because of that I wasn't surprised to see the first fish that pulled my float under was a sprightly little zander.

The next bite came not even minutes after the float had settled down to only the orange tip. A quick dip indicated the lob tail being sucked in and the float then slid away as something moved out of the swim. My light rod hooped over severely towards the water as I tried to man handle the fish away from my spot to the side of the swim so as not to spook any other still on my bait. It turned out to be a nice big perch. Wanting to weigh the fish I kept it in the net after unhooking it and nonchalantly just threw the bait out into the water. As I was faffing around with my scales I notice the rod nodding down towards the water. After picking it up I was once again playing a powerful fish and moments later a brace of big perch lay side by side in the net ready to be weighed.

I wished I had bought a keep net along as the sport had gone from zero to frantic instantly and I could just saved the weighing of the fish till the end. But having not bought a  keep net I just persevered and the next fish that needed weighing came along immediately after a quartet of pound perch. With no hint of an impending bite my float zipped under, I struck and straight away I knew I was playing a different sort of fish. With a dogged thumping fight I knew it was a roach and as per normal for this area it was a big one of well over a pound in weight

Before messing around trying to photograph the roach I took a moment to top up again and hopefully prime the swim. So two hard golf ball sized balls of ground bait went in followed by a single loose ball help spread the scent. It worked too, as first put in a small bream took the bait, followed by two of it mates up to nearly three pounds.

In little over an hour I had amassed a very nice catch, that any match angler fishing a canal match would have happily swapped this catch for his right nut I know. After the last bream it turned into a perch finale until the sky clouded over. I think my feeding of broken lob worms over the ground bait kept a few lingering around and every so often one would nip in to have a feed. I quickly figured what the perch really liked was taking the worms falling through the water, rather than picking them up of the bottom. Once I'd clocked this I was constantly lifting the bait up and dropping it down. By doing this I kept busy right up until home time catching another twenty or so fish topped off with a very nice near two.

Apart from amassing a weight of fish that would have won a match on pretty much any canal, I easily totted up a few points for the challenge whilst having thoroughly enjoyable evening. I reckon I might do a few more of these point collecting forays through the year, especially in the late summer when these perch should be in prime condition and maybe that bench mark two pound roach might be a little more attainable.

End of the same old same old.

Its been a while since I have had chance to post anything and that's not down to not fishing, but is rather due to just not having time. I never thought I'd be this time poor, but I am right now. Fishing though, I always can shoe horn in some of that! To be honest I've not been that motivated of late, I really feel like I've been doing the same old things for the same old species every time I am out at the moment and am ready for a change of tack.

 I've done plenty of light lure fishing and caught plenty of plump spiny perch...

I even had a go to try and locate and catch by design a canal chub. Turns out the species my rigs best designed for were roach bream hybrids, of which I caught three nice examples of on my cheesy bread baits...

Somewhere in the middle of my canal bashing I did sneak an afternoon session to try out my new compact carp outfit. Sadly the carp in the pool I visited were more interested in sunning themselves than eating, and the only action came from the mini tench in the pool which seemed able to repeatedly pick up my baits without getting hooked. In the end I did hook one tench which was followed by a small bream. Neither put up any kind of fight on the heavy gear, so both were freed without even lifting them from the water.

Although frankly a bit sick of canal perch fishing I did conclude to end this self imposed monotony with an apt finale where I would go and fish one of my all time favorite perch haunts on the Grand union, and pile in the bait hoping for a big haul of kippers. The haul was big but the average size of the fish was low. Normally here you can expect three of every ten fish caught to be over a pound. On this occasion though I had to catch nearly twenty fish of around 8oz before anything big turned up.

When a bigger fish did finally show up it was quite obvious that they were gorging heavily on the chopped worm I was liberally plying into the murky water.  The first fish over a pound was spewing bits of worm out of its stomach and out of its gills.

The zander to were out and about in the sunshine looking for an easy meal. I had brought along the now ubiquitous dead rod and cast half a roach out into the centre channel. The float hadn't moved an inch for an hour whilst fished to my left. Once I moved it to my right though it soon shot off as the first of a trio of zander took the bait of the same spot one after another.

Having quite a large amount of worm at my disposal for this perch finale I kept feeding heavily and along with what seemed like hundreds of small fish the bigger ones homed in onto the baited area. I lost a good one as it rolled in front of me and it's escaping heralded a lull in the sport until another decent fish hovered up my hook bait along with a load of freebies. It wasn't over the standard 2lb mark which become common in this area but it wasn't far off. I turned out to be the last perch of the session and looked very nice in the setting sunlight.

This area is a very strange bit of water as both the perch and zander feed viciously through the daylight hours, peaking quite often around the brightest bit of the day, Whereas the witching hour once that light goes, is useless fishing. What that is to do with I don't know and frankly I ain't going to find out until possibly next autumn as I am very ready to draw a line under the perch fishing till then. Now though the carp gear is coming out and I am starting to once again try and locate and catch some proper monster canal carp.

Go big or go home.

Of all the facets of light lure fishing it's the dropshot that intrigues me most. By that though I don't mean it's the only method I use, as I have grown to understand that every method has its moment and I am just as likely to cast a tiny crank bait, jig or Carolina rig when I believe it is appropriate as I am a dropshot. But all those methods have one single thing in common that the dropshot doesn't, and that's that they are predominantly retrieval methods where as the dropshot to all intents and purposes is generally conceived to keep the lure in one area, or at least retrieved at a snail's pace.

The other day I actually went out with the sole intent to fish the dropshot on a section of canal so rife with structure that it would be easy to think it was built specifically for the method. I had with me pretty much the entire spectrum of dropshot lures, from tiny Mebru shirasu worms right up to E-sox Lobworms, but it was the latter sized lures I intended to use... You see I have become adept at using all sizes of lures drop shotting, and see that by using scaled down tactics, micro hooks and tiny lures you can catch tiny predators all day long. Occasionally these mini methods tempt bigger fish, but honestly in my experience they do lean heavily towards small perch, or wasps, as people seem to be calling them in lure circles.

Now although I do not believe that the bigger bait catches the bigger fish, I do believe that if you offer a fish something that is too good to pass up they will more than likely eat it. It's like when you are trotting maggots on a river; once the fish are focused on the maggots that are moving towards them they have to make an instant choice - grab the maggots or let them pass by where they will be lost. Transpose that onto lure fishing and think of it this way; if you drop a tiny lure into the vicinity of a big old perch on a freezing cold day, if it is big enough to catch her attention then she is going to work out instantly if it's worth being bothered with or not and she might have it, or she might not. Now replace that tiny lure with a lure three inches long and suddenly it's a feast not a snack, and when you're weighing up energy expenditure verses reward, bigger baits have to be better, right.

So rather than mess around with 2lb line, mosquito hooks and maggot sized worms set up with a much larger rig intended to fish big lures. Given that the Grand Union was quite clear I chose a core few very natural looking lures, like the Wave pumpkin Tikki monky which looks rather like a newt, the E-sox lob worm which is a great replica of a lob worm and the now ubiquitous Savage gear 3D bleak to concentrate on through the afternoon.

In the past I have had some great results with the Tikki monkey creature bait, but even after working that hard in every conceivable manner around loads of structure, I had exactly no interest in it. The same went for the E-sox lob worm and even the 3D bleak was striking out fished under the rod tip. At this point the thought occurred to me that although the structure offered cover to the resident predators, maybe they were actually in the deeper water looking for warmth. So I resisted changing onto a jig rig to search out the open water and stuck with the drop shot rig so I could work the lure really slowly across the bottom. I knew there was a good chance I would lose some gear fishing this way in a snaggy area but the risk was worth it.

After casting onto the far shelf margin I gently work the life like little fish down the shelf into the trench the barges carve out. I worked the lure slowly down across and up the contours of the canal until finally I located a willing taker close to my own bank just were the shelf began to rise up. There was no doubting it was a fish, there were no plucks, just wallop, as a nice size perch engulfed the lure.

That same area produced three almost identical in size perch in consecutive casts and showed me exactly how tightly these fish were grouped in the clear and recently thawed and still thawing water.

I had my doubts that the zander might play ball at all in the clear conditions, but after working a few more areas over diligently, I targeted a patch of dead rushes on the far bank. Zander I have found can be very subtle taking lures, unlike perch and pike which seem to thump and tear respectively. I have often thought this might be because they sometimes seem to grab the lure and either stop or move forwards, which doesn't give a definable hit until I reel or lift the rod with something on the end. This was exactly one of those occasions where I felt no hit then reeled, the line went tight and the fish moved, then I struck. Considering how far in the mouth the hook was, anyone would have thought the fish had really hammered the lure which was just not the case.

The rest of the session passed by quickly with me working hard to find localized shoals of perch which all seemed to be lurking in similar areas around the bottom of the near side shelf, and I even found couple more small rouge zander loitering amongst them. My confidence in the 3D bleak lasted all day and every fish landed on this session felt the lure of this realistic replica fished as if it was a struggling injured fish, was too good of a meal to let pass by. 

Every single perch absolutely nobbled it and proved my decision to go big or go home right on this occasion. Although I feel I would have probably caught fish on smaller lures, I don't think I would have caught as many or as higher quality perch as I did. I ended up catching twelve good sized perch of between 20-25cm perch and three 25-30cm zander for a rough overall length of 3.5 meters, which I am led to believe is a respectable length of fish from any canal and happily I lost no gear as well.

A success or not?

Really I am struggling on whether to label my most recent sessions a success or not. Time and weather conspired to limit my bank time, and with only a fleeting amount of hours fishing in what should have been ideal conditions I can't decide whether what I did was perfectly pure or just a total failure.

I had it in my mind that the river with a deluge of rain would be in good condition to try and target zander on the lure in the slacks around Warwick. In truth upon seeing the water lapping at the wooden platforms when I arrived I felt I might have got this a bit wrong. Still though I persisted and endeavoured to chuck a few dark heavily vibrating soft lures in the eddies behind several fallen trees.

Maybe I might have stood a chance if I hadn't underestimated how heavy a jig head I needed to pull a six inch shad down in a turbulent river. Even the slightest of flow would catch the under weighted rubber lure and send it five feet left or right for every foot it dropped. As an experiment I punched the lure over the flow and literally in twelve feet of water it made it back to my own bank before hitting the bottom.

Luckily the rain and wind saved me from persisting any longer than an hour and a half, because I know if it hadn't I would have stuck it out probably to no avail till God only knows when. Though I still reckon fishing lures for zander on coloured rivers on warm days has some mileage, I do now realise that waiting for the river to start dropping might be the course to take in the future.

Now that outing alone would have easily marked these sessions as a flop, but the night before I snatched an impromptu few hours back on the Oxford canal. This session too returned little by the way of fish, and after losing a small zander not long after hooking it, it too looked to be a pretty shitty out come. That was until dusk fell! Like all anglers I probably stay a bit too long and make far too many last casts when really I should have been driving home.

Somewhere in the falling light, around that point when you lose sight of the orange of a float I was retrieving my ever faithful clown cannibal shad slowly across the trench of the canal using a short lifts followed by long pauses. Not far from my own bank I lowered the lure on a tight line to the bottom and felt a hard thump. Next thing I know I've struck and the rod is bent double.

The fight on my light lure outfit was sporting, with the unseen culprit stripping line from the spool and me retrieving it. The fish made powerful runs, but declined to come thrashing open mouthed to the surface which confirmed this was no zander. Even with hardly any light I spotted a big spiky fin piercing a bit of reflection on the canals surface beyond my net, just before a big perch was engulfed in the nets folds.

This fish was immaculate from nose to tail, and it's with a hint of confidence that I say it is very unlikely that it has ever been caught before, as the stretch of canal I was fishing is really out there, overgrown and the one resident that lives there says he has never seen another angler bar myself fishing thereabouts for many years.

And this is what brings me to my quandary! For whatever effort you might apply, is one possibly never before caught, picture perfect perch around two pounds, enough to make your time a success. Because weirdly I feel right now that this was one of the purest captures I have made in a long time. Saying that, it may have felt different if I hadn't have walked away immediately after the capture due to the lack of light. I dare say I would have greedily thrashed the water to foam to probably catch one a quarter of its size if had had only another half an hour of light.

Drop dead dumb Jig.

I don't think there was any doubt in my mind that I would be going back to the newly discovered honey hole on the canal. I'd tried to hook up with Jeff but he had prior arrangements for a date with Martin on the river. This though did open up the door for me to go back and use some slightly different tactics. With so many predators in the area I really wanted to have a go on the lures, but I think this is a very disruptive method and repeatedly casting around is just not fair if someone is float fishing, so going alone was perfect.

Luckily I had a couple of mornings free and decided to use both to try and plunder the stretch. Not wanting to possibly ruin my chances, I decided to go softly softly at it and on the first day went back to fish the drop shot in conjunction with dead baits and the results were brilliant...

The previous session I figured out there were a few snags on the far bank, so kept well away from them and targeted the trench and near margin using some black and white fox micro fry Mick off of Piscatorial Quagswagging had kindly given me. The water again looked quite clear and I felt everything looked right for a few hits, and I was right for once. First cast working the tiny lure back across the trench and I got hit really hard by a average sized canal zander.

After releasing that one I began working the lure along the bottom of the near side shelf. I hadn't gone ten feet before I found myself playing a nice perch.

I am religious about taking perch well away from where I have caught them and after returning that one a really good walk away from where I was fishing, I made my way back to start again. Not knowing it at the time, something weird happened next. I had carried on working the line I'd caught the last perch on and gone quite a way before I hit a second pristine perch which fought equally as hard the first.

It wasn't until I looked at the picture on the computer that the similarities between those first two fish became clear. Then I looked closer and saw a tiny red spot just above the anal fin and it dawned on me that it was definitely the same fish and not just that, but it had fallen for the same lure on the same line probably back on its way back to its holding spot. So either my technique was pretty spot on or I had caught the dumbest perch in the Midlands.

After adding a further four more nice perch and bucket load of micro zander to my tally I finished off with a perfect finale. I was happily playing quite a big perch with my little Sonik lighttec bent double into the canal when my dormant dead bait line sprang to life. A bit of extra pressure got the perch in the net and then after grabbing the other rod I was playing a small zander. It was the perfect brace to end another brilliant session and also helped to prove that these predators were just as up for attacking lures as they were for eating worms.

The second day proved just as fruitful; only this time I went back aggressively and swapped the micro drop shot rig for a much bigger jigging rig just to see how up for it they were. In short, fishing a 7cm salt and pepper Fox zander shad did the business in the again clear water and I quickly tricked a trio of predators into my net. 

Worryingly as the morning wore on the ubiquitous micro zander turned up and the better fish seemed to disappear. Once these tiny terrors switched and started nipping at the lures the fishing became quite frustrating. Moving put me back on the perch, but the ones further away from the holding area were literally a quarter of the size of the previous days fish.

To most people it might seem insane for me to say that's it for me and the honey hole spot, but that is the case! Now I have had a confirmed recapture I am beginning to suspect there could have been others and it makes me realize that even though I suspect there could be bigger fish around or even move into the spot, that there is not an infinite amount of fish in the area. Having to recapture them again and again just on a hunch to wheedle out the mother of them all would just take shine away from them in my eyes and ultimately be detrimental to them.

Perchtopia.

Peering through the mist, I trudged on looking for the shape of a man on the tow path. It looked a perfect morning for a spot of perch fishing, but first I needed to locate my companion for the session. Jeff had been mysterious about his instructions and said little more than "walk down the canal". He was right in saying this spot was a bit out there, as I'd been walking for what seemed like ages along the tow path and was getting worried I may soon arrive in Oxford.

Finally, what looked like a hunched figure appeared in the mist sitting on the edge of a bend. As always the banker swim looked exactly like every other bit of canal you ever see, tow path, twenty four inches of patchy dog shit infested grass, sixteen meters of questionable water and a hawthorn covered far bank. The only difference between this spot and any other was the presence of Jeff and as he like me is a avid canal lingerer, it must mean there was a reason for him being here setting up his fishing pole.

It's weird seeing Jeff pole fishing! I am far more used to him sitting behind rods pondering the water whilst twiddling his moustache, rather than him sitting upright staring down a pole waiting for whisp of a pole float to dip momentarily. I suppose the best comparison I can make to seeing him pole fishing is it's like seeing a donkey smoke a cigar. Saying that after watching him do it for a couple of hours I can't deny thinking he has really taken to it, so much so that I can picture him clad head to toe in matching sponsors clothing, sitting atop a fishing box not dissimilar to the Tardis wielding five grands worth of carbon fibre; then again there's probably more chance of Jeff becoming the next Doctor Who than turning into a match man.

Bar Jeff starting to put a match winning weight together and me catching a very cute little ruffe, the banker swim was not really producing any dividends. Once I got itchy feet it wasn't hard talking Jeff into a move and after a short jaunt we found a little bit of far bank cover we both fancied.

A pot of worm chopped fish heroin later and the session turned into a blur. I remember thinking Jeff was in the hot spot when he instantly hooked a skimmer followed by two big perch off the hull of a moored boat, but then the square meter I was concentrating on sparked into life.

I've fished my own secret perch squirrel hole enough to know when you've struck gold and this was gold, pure gold. I quickly realized it wasn't the odd nugget either when I hooked a really chunky near two pounder.

Then followed it with another...

This area was alive with big perch and amazingly none of them seemed to be small at all. Quickly it became a case of adding more bait, waiting a while and then another hard fighting perch came along. Then somewhere amongst the perch insanity the zander turned up to the party and the bulbous zeppler float toddled off along the canal.

We had only been in this new spot for an hour or more and we both looked like we were in shock. Probably the only thing that was more shocking that the amount of action we were getting would be what the underwater scene must have looked like, with big perch mooching everywhere and a shoal of zander marauding around. No wonder we weren't getting any small fish with that lot down there, as anything less half a pound with half a brain was far away from this predator orgy. As long as we had worm to hold them the perch just kept coming.

With barely a feed worth of worm left I got myself in a right old mess. I'd had a very fast run where the float was literally shooting across the surface of the canal. After connecting with a spirited zander and fighting it for only seconds the hook had pulled, sending my float back onto the bank along with a load of line. As I tried to make sense of the mess the trace and hook found their way into my lap. Draped in line I noticed the float on my perch line spring to life. I struck out of instinct but was still trying to clear the line from around me and as I did somehow pulled the hook right into the groin of my trousers. Still playing a fish covered in line with a hook uncomfortably close to my genitals I did my best to keep my cool. But when a huge stripy flank rolled mid water I panicked. Luckily Jeff had also seen the fish and was already grabbing for my net. After a short but careful fight a big perch skimmed over the cord of the net. It turned out to be the biggest of the day at 2.6lb and given its young appearance it won't be long before it's a three.

A couple of hours over our allotted knock off time we both ran out of worm and not long after that the capture of a sub pound fish heralded the end of this enlightening adventure. I finished with seven perch between just under two pounds and a bit over. Jeff had four by my count bringing our tally to eleven good perch. Add into that a few lost fish and it ended up a pretty special session. The only question that remains in my mind now is how big do they grow, if on my first session this was the average stamp of fish in the area. I know the thought of all those perch is etched into both mine and Jeff's minds now, but I also know the next time we go back those amazing fish might well be like ghosts.

Back on track with a triple.

I don't think I have ever seen the Midlands canals so full of small predators as they are right now. Yes it is possible that my view is a little skewed as predators have been my target of choice for the past god knows how long, but even taking that into consideration there's still loads of them. The bottom of most canals is paved with small perch all of the time, but right now the small zander are catching up and never before have I caught so many jack pike in the canals. Up until this year I was beginning to think the common canal pike of my youth might be an endangered species, but this lure lark has set me right on that matter.

My first prolonged session since becoming a parent seemed the perfect opportunity to check out a section of canal which I used to fish as a child which has recently popped onto my radar again. It's weird because I have been fishing sections either side of the section in question quite a lot this year. A few weeks ago some wonderful tow path info was dribbled into my ears like honey and that tit bit contained my most favourite of phrases 'Big perch'.

Apparently the area in question is very heavily populated with both prey fish and crayfish and after a few enquiries it turned out the area did seem to be producing some nice fish over 2lbs. At another time of the year when the boats were a bit less of a hindrance I would have just gone down toting nothing more than my lure rod, but recent experiences reminded me that if I wanted to be fishing later than nine in the morning a bit of bait might be a good idea.

So with a few worms and a float rod as well as a lure rod, I hit the tow path early hoping to confirm a few rumors were true. I arrived to see the centre canal alive with silver fish and given the dense cover hanging far out over the water all along the far margins, it was hard to pick any particular feature. Luckily I had a spot I fancied might make a good starting point.

Before digging in I had a quick search around with a tiny lure just in case, but that produced nothing but a wind knot in my braid. With so many fish topping I felt sure I would get some serious interest in the worm and quickly plumbed up and baited a spot just off the nearside shelf. Interest I did get, but not from any big perch. Hordes of tiny perch quickly found my broken worms and even a few micro zander turned up as well.

When the water erupted with scattering silver fish, which is unusual on the canals, I was instantly reaching for my lure little Sonik lure rod. Whilst watching the float I'd stripped out the wind knot and tied on a larger 3gram jig and in no time at all I cast my favourite cannibal shad tight into the cover. Two bounces of the lure later something hit it and shot out into the canal. After a spirited fight predator number one, a little pike went in the net.

Straight away after taking a photo and releasing the small pike I cast again tight into the cover about three feet further down the bushes. This time the lure made it into the trench before I felt a sharp tug and struck into predator number two which turned out to be a small zander of a couple of pounds. 

I already had a mind to try for the triple and when the third cast into the bushes produced a subtle but definite fishy vibration, I was elated to swing a small but very greedy third predator to hand.

It kind of made sense that after landing three different predators and making a right old fuss that the swim went dead. So I moved down to another nice looking spot to try the worm. Things didn't go that well as the boats soon began ploughing past, but saying that over the next hour or so I did root out four more tiny little zander fishing half a worm just on the edge of the trench.

Honestly I have never seen as much activity on a section of canal and it does seem to help confirm that this could be a good area for big perch. But I have noticed as I have fished on the canal so much that large populations of both predators and prey fish can actually move from one section to another with the changes in the seasons. Both sections either side of the one I fished on this occasion aren't fishing particularly well at the moment, whereas in the winter both were very reliable. So I reckon if I want to track down these big perch in this area I will have to get back quite soon before all the prey fish that have probably attracted them filter off into other areas.

A bit of a huzzah.

Although I will be back very soon I fancied a bit of last huzzah on the canal. It's the opening of the season which inclined me toward one. With time constricting on me quickly with a baby due in four weeks time, I really want to dedicate some of my valuable time to a few lakes and rivers which I want to fish before junior pops out. I suppose it's a bit like that saying of you don't know what you've got till it's gone in a way, but I know what I have got and also know it will be gone or at least hampered quite soon.

If someone said to me I could only fish one last time on a canal before I die, I would chose my secret squirrel hole on the grand union. The big perch seem to have dropped in numbers a bit or maybe they've become clued up or quite possibly they have just moved on. Whatever has happened it is still as far as I am concerned the best canal fishing I know round these parts and I really thought that given I was taking a load of fresh Canadian lob worms and a float rod I stood a good chance of getting into those big perch.

As this blog has pretty much been all lure fishing lately, my change of tactic might seem a little strange. First I suppose I should say that part of my inclination towards lures was born out of the impending arrival in few weeks. My theory is that should any opportunities arise to get out once junior is here, having a simply light bait free set-up ready to go might mean I could be out fishing rather than trying to figure out bait. The other main reason is that as I have discovered since really getting into it, is that it's fun! Though this still doesn't explain why I, as a newly converted lure chucker, was going fishing with a pot rammed full of massive worms.

Well in truth I am developing a distinct feeling that the canal fish aren't feeling that aggressive towards lures right now. I reckon that there's a good chance that with the glut of warm weather there's loads on the menu and unlike the colder months they can frankly eat what they want. Though this was my main angle on this angling session, there also always remains the idea that the big roach might show and they have in the past been a sucker for a lob worm or half. Saying all this that doesn't mean I didn't take a lure rod along with me to the canal just in case and I was lucky I did!

Dug in the tow path way before the boaters began moving, my float settled just over the nearside marginal shelf with the worm settling just right, two inches over depth. A few lob worms were broken up and flicked in to sink to the bottom and serve as subtle yet positive attractors to what I hoped might be patrolling the drop off.

The early part of the morning really turned out to be a real numbers game. I was getting regular attention, but with the sort ungrateful attitude that would make a canal match angler sick with anger, they were all the wrong bloody fish. Turns out my few broken lobs were enough to hold a shoal of skimmer bream for well over forty minutes, in which time I landed no less than eight of them between 10oz and 2lb along with a load of small perch.

Finally I kissed enough frogs and something a bit special showed up. My strike was met by neither inane flopping of a bream or the powering around of a perch, but instead a dogged vibration of a big roach came juddering up the line. Soon enough I slipped the net under a pristine canal roach which looked closer to two pounds than one.

Even after catching such an amazing roach I was still a little perplexed on the whereabouts of the bigger Sergeant's. I had landed quite few up to half a pound, along with the odd near pounder thrown in the mix, but as yet the big ones were certainly rather absent. The boats on the other hand were really getting going and becoming a regular little convoy. Knowing my session would soon be cut short I moved over to the trusty lure rod to see if that could spark them into action.

After trying a variety of small jigs and all of my first choice lures I surmised maybe a bold statement was needed. I often get a bit like this when no smaller lures seem to work and end up coming to the conclusion that I need be at the total opposite end of the spectrum and fish something big.

On this occasion I opted for a three inch AGM crayfish lure that when fished by bouncing back in tiny little hops looks exactly like a scared cray trying to escape. It wasn't until I ran it right alongside the spot where I had been depositing the broken worms that I got some interest. At first I thought I detected a bit of pluck and in response slowed the retrieve and increased the pause in between movements. Sure enough only moments later I never felt the jig hit bottom and instinctively struck thinking I might be in. It was definitely a perch and it was definitely going mental.

These summer perch are long, lean and fight three times harder than they do in the winter. Even living in summer canal that has the clarity of a cup of horlicks it still retained some quite vivid colours. What made this even better and a fitting last fish for this huzzah session was catching on a crayfish lure, especially as I suspect that the crayfish have a lot to do with this sudden increase of perch size on the Midlands canals.

Rehabilitation sessions.

It always amazes me how quickly the countryside colours change in the warmer months. Through winter it always looks similar and even in differing light the fields and such are really just different shades of the same faded yellows and brown for months on end. In the summer though you can turn your back and look again to see the same vista looking totally anew.

In two weeks the land that surrounded the vole city stretch of the Oxford canal was nothing more than the new fresh green summer green. Now though as I stumbled along the bank, the waterway was flanked by meadows raging with so many butter cups that the horses walking among them looked like characters from a Doctor Zeus cartoon.

If that wasn't enough, the field opposite had turned from Warwickshire mud red with a hint of green into the dream scene from Ridley Scott's Gladiator. I half expected to see Russell Crowe walking wistfully amongst it fingling the wheat sheaves as he went.

Really I wanted to have returned before now, but nine days ago whilst putting out the bin I twisted in a odd way and something in my back went pop. Ever since then I have been delicately trying to rehabilitate myself from feeling like my top and bottom half of my body were not attached correctly to being able to hobble more than thirty feet in one go.

With only minimal recovery time off work and one very sedate session where I fished within eye shot of the bridge where my car was parked in a stance not that dissimilar to someone who had had an accident in their underpants, I now felt ready to return again. 

We all take walking for granted if you ask me and walking on an uneven tow-path with any element of a bad back basically wheedles out any weakness in your body, trust me. The previously mentioned session I barely got anywhere, and even with four more days of recovery I had only walked a very short way before my altered gate began to tell on my right hip.

Trying to forget any discomfort, I went about casting methodically along the reed lined bank trying to locate any predators lurking along the camouflaging reeds. I have to admit that I was under the impression that with the summers arrival the predatory fish would become vicious weapons of mass consumption and that they would be crawling up my line. The truth I am finding is not quite what I thought it would be! In fact although I do believe the fish are more aggressive, they firstly have more actual prey to become preoccupied with and secondly seem to be quite spread out on the canals. All of which adds up to summer lure fishing on the canal possibly being harder than winter fishing as far see at the moment. Maybe it will get easier as the time passes or maybe it's a case of tuning in to summer feeding fishes habits. 

Whatever the reason for the current state of the fishing I was in no doubt after an hour of casting that I wasn't doing something right, so quickly tied up a drop shot rig and began dobbing the ever reliable Wave tikki monkey along the near side margin and finally got a result by way of a chunky hard fighting perch. 

With the dusk approaching I left vole city and headed down to the spot where I had hobbled to a few days earlier. Although on that occasion I had fallen foul of the blank I did see at least three attacks on what looked like small roach that were taking something of the surface. I knew there were predators present and I hoped that arriving just before the witching hour would let me get the best of the area.

It took some time to come good, but in the furious hour after the sun sank beyond the horizon the small zander of which all the canals seem rife with came out to play. There seemed to be a shoal marauding around the area as every one of the four micro zander I landed and the one I lost were all within an inch of each other in length. The only lure that seemed to interest them was a three inch AGM black curly tail grub, which I suspect was showing up quite well against the clear sky as I bounced it across the bottom. Another hard fighting perch took a fancy to the grub just as I was about lift the lure to cast again and really gave me some stick on the light gear.

It was great to get out on the bank again and somewhere in the melee of action at dusk I actually for the first time in a while forgot about my niggling back. Now I am somewhere near full fitness I need to get back on it, as I have few venues I want to visit before the season opens again and my quickly dwindling time becomes even more stretched.