Back to back fishing

I was lucky enough to get two full days both Saturday and Sunday this week due to Jacky's work commitments, so after dropping her off Saturday I headed down to Welford upon Avon to meet up with my mate Rob to have ago on the deep wide slow moving river above the weir. Rob had tipped me off that he had been pestered by eels when fishing meat for barbel and chub so I couldn't resist giving the eel point another go before the weather gets to bad and they shut up shop for winter.

After trying one fruitless swim up river we eventually found ourselves facing the lock that takes boat traffic around the weir, with a huge amount of seriously deep water in front of us. Why this bit of the Avon is so deep is beyond me, but right under our feet was between twelve and fourteen feet of water straight away. Though I was after eels I fished one rod with worms on and the other was cast out with a monstrous feeder full of halibut method mix and pellets to tenderly seek out any possible beards or chavin snooping around.

Of course my my first bite came from none of my intended species but instead from... Yes you've guessed it my old friend Mr Bream. I had already verbally predicated my first fish would be a bream to Rob moments before this just browning fish took my worm bait.

Not impressed!

It was all in all a slow day even though the river looked in good condition from the previous days rains. When the cloud came over the smaller fish started plopping around and my tip once again trembled. After ages of waiting the tip finally went and a definite eel was hooked. Though it wasn't a monster and only weighed a pound I foolishly decided to record my capture of my first Avon eel this year with a photo and handed rob the camera to do the honours.

For your amusement Daniel Everitt will now try and hold a fresh caught Avon eel for a photo. Enjoy!

After three attempts and getting covered in slime the little bugger slipped out my hand and sulked back to the depths. No more eels turned up but a while later a similar sized bream to the first took my bait.

I was getting no real action to the feeder line that I was casting upstream of my eel rod so giving up on the pellet attack I swapped the hook link to a smaller lighter one to fish with maggots In the hope of doubling my chances for eels. After only five minutes in the water the bait runner sang its merry tune as something very serious charged of across the river with more force than I have felt this year at all. There was no stopping this fish in any way. The clutch on the reel was not set anywhere near well enough and I had no choice but to quickly flip the bait runner back on and try and brake the fast disappearing line myself. After surging unstoppably towards the snag filled area under the buoys that stop boats going over the weir I had no choice but to try and stem this daunting run. Applying the slightest resistance caused the line to fall slack... I had been turned over, around and royally spanked by whatever it was. The only thing missing was the fish jumping out the water a razzing me before diving back in. As I turned to Rob his face said it all, that was definitely the biggest most powerful fish I have encountered on the Avon to date. 

Settling back down with my heart still thumping the discussion began to the possible identity of the culprit. The two top suspects were a big barbel or a big carp. Rob has had a few good barbel from this deep water stretch and confirmed that they tend to hang in the water for a moment before slowly powering off. The instant reaction to being hooked to me seemed like the shock a dozy carp gets when its munching down and suddenly finds a hook in its mouth. Ether way it was big, very big and it is my belief that it had probably been on the bait for a while. If it had taken the pellet on a stronger link I may of landed it but the introduction of a bunch of maggots on a light hook link more than likely fell under its radar.

These are the sort of things that make us anglers come back again and again for more punishment in the hope that one day we land that unseen line stripping monster.

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Like Keith I to had seen the sacred word Ruffe in Andy's blog last week and after a text message to confirm the exact location of his capture I took the second shift fishing in the pissing rain at the canal off cathiron lane.

I wasn't sure I was going to get there at first as after pulling into a petrol station the fill up the car I had heard the metallic scraping of something hanging off the car. A detour to national tyre who had just changed the exhaust a few weeks ago confirmed that the heat shield between  above the aforementioned exhaust and the car floor had snapped off it brackets and was now only inches off the floor and it was something that would need to be sorted on Monday elsewhere. This was not going to stop me getting out so I set off at the speed of a half blind pensioner driving home after Sunday lunch. 

Finally I arrived after an unusual journey in which I never broke the speed limit once to a soaking car park.

I headed into the area Andy had pointed out and set up my stall. 

Somewhere deep inside me is a match fisherman wearing some really gaudy clothing that I keep locked up in a secret place. Every so often when the need should arise for me to do some pole fishing I let him out. 

So for the second time in two weeks it was a pole fishing session on the canal so I let him out. Unlike last week this time I had brought along half a kilo of dedrobinas and a a couple of pots of lob worms. Upon arriving I had collected a  fresh mole hill or two to add to the chopped worm.

I focused on only one line on the edge of the shelf, away from the boat traffic which is horrendous on this bit of canal and cupped out a small pot of the chopped up mix. The float never even cocked before a small roach nabbed my single red maggot.

  

It wasn't long before the perch showed up and the first of many was landed which weighed 11oz.

Even though it was one of the worst days for weather I have fished on in ages the bites kept coming one after another for the next five hours as a string of good sized canal perch and a few other fish fell to ether a maggot or worm hook bait.

After only an hour I knew I was well on course for the perch point as just about every perch I landed was over 10oz, it only took eleven fish including a deep chunky monster of 1.9lb to make 6.3lb and secure the perch point.

After my second canal session in two weeks I have to say that I am astonished at how well the canals seem to be fishing for small fish. In my youth my local bit of canal would have loads of anglers racked up on its banks desperately trying to scratch a few fish out. But now they deserted by most anglers who prefer to spend there free time bagging grossly deformed carp at seven quid a day in one of the huge number of local commercials that litter the countryside. Sadly I find this a real shame as now more than ever the canals have so much to offer and hardly anyone is interested in this long forgotten part of our fishing heritage.

A contrasting session

After my last fishing session I could not have chosen a more contrasting place to fish than my local canal. Like another of my fellow challenge competitors I have a severe case of Ruffe obsession on the go right now that an early morning foray Sunday morning should have helped with, but... my first night back in my beloved bed after six nights in what can only be termed as the worst bed in England meant I overslept! So I left it alone until Monday morning which I conveniently had off too.

Before I go into the details of this trip I feel I should explain something. If there is one type of fishing I was meant to do in this wondrous life it is canal fishing. I was born in a hospital next to a canal, every school holiday from 11-18 years old were spent on the Coventry canal, many a fair Bedworth maiden was wooed by me along those mingin banks, I have swam, fell into and even rode a motor bike full tilt into one.
So with the genetic code of a born and bred cut dipper running through my veins I felt sure I could get into a few fish and hopefully at least one Ruffe.

Most of my recent fishing on canals has been after the larger fish that do inhabit them but today I was going old school with a bit of pole fishing on the cards. One thing I know from experience about this type of fishing is that if you want to catch small fish, or any fish, from a canal is that you don't need much bait at all and fish as fine as you dare.

Once I had located the sort of sandy area I was looking for I began my gentle attack by first cupping in a pot full of riddled mole hill with a little ground bait on to one line down the edge and a second down the middle in the trench. I would have gone for a lone line but couldn't be arsed to drag all the kit needed for long pole fishing along with me.

Giving my ground bait a while to stew I pulled out my top kits and plumbed up a couple of rigs both consisting of a light  drennan pinkie floats on 3lb main line with 1lb hooks links and size 22 kamsan hooks.

Now set up and ready with everything within reaching distance I swung out my first drop in. A top tip I will share with any would be canal fisherman is, when fishing on the marginal shelf swing your rig out into the middle and let it swing back onto the shelf, as any fish looming just off the shelf that know there is food up there but do not have the confidence to come onto it, will nearly always shoot out and grab the slowly sinking bait.

After only moments the float dipped slightly enough for my to hit into a small 1oz roach. Second cast again produced another bite from a 3oz skimmer.

After putting out a pinch of pinkies and rested the margin line whilst I had a look on the middle line. The bait never even got to the bottom before the float shot under as my first nice perch nobbled my slowly sinking double pinkie.

The perch had arrived and know were dominating the proceedings  and by rotating between the two lines I kept a constant steam of perch coming every cast. By now I was regretting not bringing a keepnet with me as I was having to scribble down the weight of each fish as the perch point was on the cards. Every so often my number 6 elastic would shot out of the pole as a bigger perch pulled away. The two best perch of the session went 11 & 13oz each.

I did lose one good perch of over a pound as I shook my head in amazement as two coppers took their early morning stroll along the canal. By the end of the morning I had put together over four pounds of perch in about 30+ fish - who says the canals don't fish! Though I didn't get any Ruffe I am sure if there were any around they would of had no problems getting in on the action with the perch and if this canal can produce those sorts of catches with just two or three cups of ground bait and a few pinkies just think what a chopped worm could do. I did really enjoy getting back to my roots and doing some old school canal fishing and now I have just received some info off Andy about the exact location of a recent Ruffe capture I am sure I will back on another canal very soon.