Practice sessions (Coventry)

With the second round of the Tusses freestyle league fast approaching and me being a substitute for the Lure Witches team I felt I needed to get in a bit of practice so as to hopefully be of more value than just making up the numbers. Considering how well I know the Coventry canal from the city centre basin through to Hawksbury and beyond into bandit country (Bedworth), I really know very little of it beyond the border into Nuneaton. As a result this was really going to be a venture into the unknown for me to get an idea of where and what possibly, I should be doing once the match commences.

On this outing I joined up with Ashley Dixon from the Boinging Baggies team as he too wanted to familiarize himself with the water. I think we both knew it wasn't exactly going to be a fish fest and that the reality of the situation was pinning down areas that held fish...any fish.


Venue = Coventry canal/Hartsill area

Total = 100cm est

After initially deciding to venture in one direction from the starting point we eventually began fishing in some very fishy looking water and early on I pulled up a small sub 20cm zander which let go of the lure once at the surface. We worked that area hard with little to show but a few plucks to Ashley's rod and looking back probably spent a little to much time working the area. Once we moved on though, things changed when a few casts into a new spot a very large pike engulfed my lure and tore of savagely before severing my leader. A little way down the stretch Ash landed a very nice spawned out perch over 30cm and after leap frogging him I rooted out a long lean pike easily over 65cm. Bar few more fruitless hits we didn't land anything else in that productive area.

Our next bit of action came when Ashley began getting some interest off some tiny zander fishing a marginal feature. By this time though the boats had begun moving and any water clarity we had early on soon went as the shallow canal became more turbid. With the sun high and hot and the water conditionings deteriorating we had to change tactics to stand hope of catching any more fish. Going onto an old faithful lure helped me land another zander this time over 30cm for my final fish of the foray.

As expected this was a hard session with some of the fish still preoccupied by reproduction. Happily though it seems like little by little the predator spawning is coming to an end and with some ideas of fish holding areas this might mean the upcoming league match might not be as torrid as the last one.

Practice and Tusses Freestyle league round one.

Earlier on in the year when I first heard Tusses Lure Division would be running a league on my local waters I was very keen to take part. However it wasn't until I started looking at the calender and at the upcoming matches I wanted to fish combined with other fishing targets for the year that I concluded it was going to be too much of a commitment for me to make. But even though I was unable to commit I decided that I would still like to be involved even in a much smaller capacity if possible. So I put it out amongst the people I knew that were fishing that I would be more than happy to be a substitute if anyone needed one. Low and behold it turned out that Greg Bafia from Team Realistic shad was going to miss the first match and his partner, my old friend David Warren, soon asked me to fill in.

Considering I live very close to the stretch this first match was to be on I really don't fish it at all. This is largely to do with it being a bit of a rough urban stretch that is notoriously clear and snaggy. I have done a little bit though here and there and already knew this was by no means going to be an easy event. With little time available my only chance to get out for a practice was for a very short pre-work session the week before the match and surprisingly things went very well...

 Practice - 1 Hour Basin match stretch

65cm

30cm (est)

Total =95cm

The basin itself proved rather fruitless for me even though it did look good for a few hits, but it wasn't until I went walkies outside it that I found myself a couple of hungry predators. The first was a spawned out young female pike which I found lurking close to the edge and the second was a nice match sized zander which was lingering close to a brick wall. Ninety five centimetres in under and hour was a bit of a shock to be honest, but things would be very different in the match with thirty plus other lure anglers jockeying for position.

Tusses Freestyle League round one.

The morning of the match the car park on Leicester row near the basin was full of anglers when I arrived. I recognised most of them from various competitions and events and seeing them all, knowing this stretch to be a hard water thought this was going be a beast of an urban competition. Myself and David had already discussed a rough plan and after the complimentary bacon butties were eaten the event began with a staggered start. Even though we had drawn an early number we were the last team off as David was officiating and that meant we were the last ones away.

As predicted it was a torridly hard affair and we searched so much water in vain, catching very little for our efforts. The fish were very cagey all round; the few small perch we winkled out were really on the small side, the bigger ones near impossible to catch as they were still to spawn. My idea to gamble on taking a pike outfit turned out to be a bad decision as the only pike our team encountered came to David's rod, biting him off in an instant and as for my heavy rig, it pulled nothing but large branches out of the canal. Along with that pike bite off I had one better perch follow my lure right to the surface before turning off and we had handful of very unfruitful nibbles.

The saviour of our match had to be David's spectacular final capture where he dropped a lure straight onto what was obviously a nesting zander which in a savage act of defence tore into the lure and proceeded to jump out of the water like a tarpon. Once landed it was the most magnificent dark fish you're likely to see.

At 44cm this fish was very close to turning the biggest zed prize into a three way tie. Even missing out on that it still served to add vital species points to our score just before the sheets had to be handed in.

Total + species bonuses = 138cm  

1st place - Steve Wilson and Derek Homes (No wasps) = 277cm

2nd place - Phil Kenny and Jacob Stone (Bennett Pred pro team) = 258cm 

3rd place - Slawomir Mikolajczak and Daniel Osinski = 254cm

As for us... we were unlucky to finish in 11th place in this first match just outside the points. Literally one tiny perch could have made the difference for us in this one.

Personally I think I made a big mistake in taking along that second rod as I feel it distracted me far too much and should I have levelled that concentration on just fishing the light outfit I feel sure we could have added a couple of valuable fish to the score which may have made quite a difference to Team realistic shad rankings (Sorry David and Greg). However I already may have my opportunity at redemption in the Freestyle league after being recruited straight away to fill in for another team in round two - the all female Lure Witches team.

Tusses Freestyle Warm Up friendly.

I'd been really looking forward to the Tusses warm up friendly for quite a while. These friendly get together club matches have a great vibe about them with anglers of all nationalities that love lure fishing coming together for a good time. The only fly in my ointment was the fact that nine days prior I'd had some long awaited carpel tunnel surgery on my right hand to cut the transverse carpel ligament and release the pressure on the median nerve. Thus I was left with a stitched up wound at the bottom of my right hand and the ligament that helps the thumbs movement severed. Prior to the event I had a little experiment with a super light lure rod and found that although I was able to fish I couldn't really cast as such. A second experiment with my left hand had me casting like a drunken toddler so I concluded that in the approaching match was going to be strictly limited to fishing under the rod tip dibbling style.

Luckily for me I was green lit to drive by the quack a few days prior to the event and after a wary drive through dense fog I arrived early to see plenty of competitors readying rods in the car park near the Greyhound pub at Hawksbury junction.

I think everyone had trepidations about the fishing as the recent wall to wall sunshine and high temperatures had probably had little effect on the water temps, so the fish would probably be quite cagey still. This was even worse for me given my limited range; I would be scrabbling around on the shallower shelf rather than being able to search out the deeper water. With this in mind I opted to travel out a bit to find a spot of unchallenged canal where I knew there was deeper water close in and things initially started very well when I hooked and landed a high scoring jack pike early in the match.

After that things went very sour for me. I was intermittently locating single fish that I was just about persuading to bite. The problem I was having was with my hand strapped up in a brace for protection I was just that bit too slow to connect with these very subtle fast hits. I missed or lost no less than ten small fish, most of which I felt vibrating for a moment before they just disappeared. Psychologically it was very damaging as I knew that in what was going to be a tight match I lost what could have been a metre of fish. Towards the end of the match I finally found a decent perch lingering in a bank side snag which tore so hard into the lure that even I wasn't going to miss it. At 29cm it was a very welcome addition to the score card.

My final hope lay in a bridge at the end of the stretch that I had been fishing. Most of the year you can pick one or two fish up around its deep structured margins and I had saved it deliberately till last just in case. My final half an hour saw me work every reachable inch of it again and again until finally I connected with a small zander which looked no bigger than 20cm when it came up to the surface and let go of the lure in one final insult.

Total = 79cm

Once back at the meet point it became evident things had been hard all round and most people had struggled to return any decent scores. Though a few anglers had done very well and reports of a big pike and a few decent zander helped make the difference between the top three and everyone else when the scores were tallied up.

1st Place = Stephen Coldicott 261cm + Biggest pike 79cm

2nd Place = Cautis Tiberius 215cm

3rd Place = Greg Bafia 132cm

Biggest zander = Salwomir Mikolajczak 55cm

Biggest perch = Daniel Everitt 29cm

I couldn't be to disappointed with how I'd done as things were really against me on this one with my hand not being one hundred percent. I was a little gutted that I didn't bank at least a few of those small fish to bulk up my score. Had I have been on point then I am sure I could have added close to a meter to my score which might have seen me possibly placing. It was however a nice surprise to get the prize for the largest perch and win a load of Realistic shad lures to try out before the next match.

At the end of the day though I had a great time as did everyone attending which I must say is down to David Warrens hard work organising the event, and I can't wait until the next open Tusses event in a month or so time when hopefully I will be able to cast further than my rod tip.

Practice sessions (Coventry canal).

I had a spare session on my hands so I headed to the Coventry Canal to try and keep abreast of the ever changing fishscape ready for any new year matches and I was about to find out that although winter is mild this year, the fish are beginning to get into winter quarters.

Venue = Coventry canal - 5hrs

Halfway through this session I got the impression I was being watched even though I was all alone. As you do, I had nervous look round the trees lining both banks of the canal only to see this staring at me from behind. I don't mind admitting the sight of this eerie black silhouette got the old ticker thumping and it took me a few moments to comprehend it wasn't some giant demon hound eyeing its next meal but was instead a black pony!

Total =170cm

Now this session has me wondering if fish populations move or if the topography of the surrounding area combined with the weather is the major factor on fish feeding. You see I worked a very large section of canal that had a month or so ago been very productive, only to catch nothing. Then after getting super mobile and working lots of water and catching only a single oversized jack pike, I located loads of feeding fish in a very sheltered section of canal. Now I can't figure if that previously encountered population of perch has moved into this sheltered section or if there are fish in both areas and only the ones in the sheltered area were feeding.

Practice sessions (Ashby).

With the lure fishing match season well under way I really wanted to start focusing on pinpointing some good areas on the local canals for any upcoming matches in the near future. Hopefully by keeping abreast of the areas that are more prevalent I can save time on searching out good areas and concentrate on catching fish instead on the match day. With this in mind I went to the Ashby canal for a practice session to try and confirm if it has any potential. I should say at this point that I have actively avoided the Ashby as it's a local focus point of the ill founded attempts to stem the spread the local zander population (something you will see is totally pointless later).

Venue = Ashby canal - Marston junction up - 4hrs

Total = 278cm

This little foray was very surprising to me. Certainly there was distinct lack of zander on this heavily persecuted SSSI area, but what it lacked in zander it certainly made up for in quality perch and on a searching foray I was over the moon with nearly three meters of fish. It has definitely given me a few areas to target and a bit more concentration on those areas in the future could make some very nice lengths in the future. As for the zander zapping you can see I caught one little zander and I should mention two other similar size one came adrift before I had chance to land them and given that those three are probably just the tip of the ice berg, you can see how little effect culling them has as this area was supposedly cleared less than a year ago.