Not sticking to the rules thank god.

A full day of boats moving round a busy junction of the Grand union canal and the water is going to be pretty murky, right! Well that's what I thought and I was totally wrong. I ventured a out a few days ago for a short session on a primo bit of the GU and basically ended up having a weird arse about face session where everything I thought would be the case was not.

Big perch were what I was after and as it was to be an afternoon into dark affair I figured, as I mentioned before, that the boats which are prevalent in this area would have ploughed the canal turbid by the time I arrived. Hence I had armed myself with a float rod and generous amount of worms to attract the fish in the poor visibility. I always do this 'peering over the edge' thing when I walk onto a canal to get an impression of the water conditions. On this occasion my initial peering was followed by a head shake, an eye rubbing and a second peering. Good god it was well past dinner time and I could see two bricks sitting on the shallow margin. The water did have a tinge of green to it, but shockingly the visibility was easily fifteen inches or more.

Even with the less than ideal conditions I pushed on with my plan and went in search of cover to target. Without too much elaboration, the plying of worms onto the canal was a total waste of time. The perch had no intention of moving out of wherever they were hiding to eat in the open. My only hope for this session was the drop shot rod I'd bought along just in case. Maybe, just maybe, by working lures close cover I could persuade any would-be attackers to burst out and hit the lure in the clearer than normal conditions. This is where it really goes against mores supposed rules.

Considering the perch were reluctant to feed I really thought the low light loving zander would never be switched on in such clear water. So how surprised was I when I manoeuvred a small Savage gear 3D bleak close to a moored boat and straight away something snatched it, I was even more surprised when the culprit turned out to be a zander.

I thought maybe that one zander was just some rogue fish that hadn't read the zander rule book, but when a few jiggles of the lure later a second smaller one hit, it began to look like the zander were actually on the feed in the clear water.  By the time I'd notched up three more little zander which all went for the drop shot fished 3D bleak fished six inches off bottom, I was convinced they were really up for it.

Although my original perch plan was well and truly out the window, it turned out that I was out and fishing on one of the wondrous occasions when the fish are hungry, the conditions were apparently perfect and I was using the right lure/technique. The random flitting and dropping of the very life like bleak lure seemed to draw the zander in like moths to a flame and every one which went for the lure got hooked perfectly in top of the mouth before zipping off like a torpedo.

It wasn't just the tiny ones that were up for it either; there were better fish moving around as well. Most were in that half a pound to two pound range and I quickly figured they weren't just tight to the cover. Fishing the nearside shelf brought me a few fish and even a random cast into the centre of the trench brought a hint of interest.

The perch though were just not around or if they were they were well off the feed, which possibly had something to do with the change in temperature. By the end of the short session the sun had long disappeared, the sky was glowing wintry pink as the last rays disappeared, smoke rose from every chimney of every narrow boat that lined the canal and the surface of the canal was like a mirror. 

Although I hadn't come anywhere near catching what I intended to, I had actually had a great session catching quite a few little zander on the drop shot. Had it not been for those zander feeding when they normally wouldn't there was a good chance I would have just frozen half to death whilst blanking. Once the weather has settled down I know for sure I will be back to try for the big perch again and I certainly will be bringing the dropshot rod and those lures along as well.

Lure fishing microcosm.

Since beginning my lure fishing journey I have learnt that the world of lure fishing is just as, if not more than, as expansive as all the other fishing genres I have come across before. It's not just the array of millions of lures, the vast colours that they come in and the different sizes that I am referring to either; every lure can be used in so many different ways and different situations.

One particular facet I have been intrigued by lately is micro jigging. I love casting jigs anyway and already had some tiny jig heads and tiny lures which I had not really had any great success with until recently.

I actually started messing around with this technique a little while ago, but it was only the other day that I went out to specifically concentrate on doing it. At first when I had a go a while back I made the mistake of actually casting the tiny jigs out into the canal, it was then that I concluded that beyond a rod length out you really lose all contact and control of the lure. Between under a rod length out to right under your feet they are deadly. Having the lure on a constant tight line and using a light rod means you can impart some pretty damn sexy movements on the lure with the slightest flick of the wrist. Fishing like this also changes the way you look at a canal, and all the normal distracting far bank features fail to register as you concentrate on the four feet from the bank which is now your microcosm. Doing so turns what to most seems like a small gap between two boats into the micro jigging equivalent of a ten acre lake.

Tiny is the order of the day and this Crazy Fish cruel leech mounted on a size 8 two gram jig head worked perfectly to compensate against the slight yet disruptive tow on this occasion. The little black lure wiggles like a hula girl with the very slightest of rod movements.

Although I only had a few hours to fish, my micro attack proved to work perfectly. I had to work along a bit of tow path until I found a concentration of fish holding tight to the concrete lined margin, but once I found them it was one fish after another with perch making up the majority of the captures.

What has surprised me was how many fish you could catch from one area. In a normal casting situation I have found you easily spook fish out of spot by hooking a few of their mates. Fishing these light lures into a shoal seemed to have little effect until I'd had hooked loads of them and been hit by even more.

The zander too seemed to be hanging out in the shoals of perch, although these young immaculate hunters seemed to prefer the lure to be moving further and quicker than the perch which seemed more attracted to a gentle off the bottom wiggling lure.

I have to say I really like this micro margin jigging, but to balance the tackle and make everything move naturally I was having to fish some very light fluorocarbon leaders of around 4lb in breaking strain which would be OK if a big perch turned up. A better zander though could make mince meat out of such delicate tackle so really even if you see an opportunity of a bigger zed or jack pike the whole leader would have to be changed in order to reduce the risk getting cut off. Saying that, I reckon some of the lures I have been using are so small they might well not register on a big predators radar and given that most of the waters I am fishing are the colour of milky tea I'd probably never know if a big fish was hiding right under my feet.