Hark the morn doth call...Beeep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Picture if you will a classical English summer morning. The sun creeps up over old England spreading its warm rays over the golden fields of wheat; Pheasants call from the hawthorn hedgerows and young rabbits nibble the dew ridden grass. In front of you the sparkling pool glistens in the early light as swallows skim the surface stealing a drink on the wing. The smell of the new day fills your senses with the multicoloured scent of skunk weed drifting across the water and then the moment of silence is shattered by the shrill sound of twenty cheap bite alarms screeching, as what seems like a million ravenous carp attempt to cram food in there ever opening mouths.

Yes the other day I went back to Area 51 to fish for sturgeon! Was it not for a strange interest I have developed in these prehistoric beasts, my god, I would not force myself to fish on a commercial pool. But as they only exist in a few places locally and I cannot afford a trip to Canada to fish the mighty Frazier river for wild fish, then this is what I must endure.

I've wanted to fish for them for a while, but like everyone else I have little time and everything must wait its turn. I'd been stock piling tins of luncheon meat for a while in anticipation of this trip and I had to, as on my last visit the four tins I took were hardly enough. This time I had had a good three pounds of matchbox size cubes dusted overnight in krill powder as bait.

Part of my wanting to come back here and fish for sturgeon was that I quite fancied fishing for them on the float. On my last visit it seemed rather stupid fishing 3lb test rods with bolt rigs on alarms when the fish were noticeably circling under the rods. It wasn't till the night before that I stood looking at a box full of end tackle that I came up with what I can only describe the ugliest float rig known to angling; Twelve pound main line and a couple of feet of safety tubing to protect the fish to start with; a small coffin lead for weight, a buffer bead to protect the swivel, then a hook link made up of 35lb braid and huge size 2 hook with a 2" hair and some fake corn to help keep the meat on. For bite registration the most high tech component, a home painted bit of peacock quill.

I opted to fish a corner swim at the entrance of a bay. Although the bay was stupidly shallow there, I knew from a previous visit that a ledge where the water dropped off went across the entire front of the bay and that the sturgeon and their ever circling movement would more than likely keep to. It turned out to be the perfect distance to just swing out the bait using my 9ft Nash dwarf carp rod.

I'd set my float well over depth as I wasn't looking for roach bites. In truth sturgeon aren't the most finicky of feeders and all the bites I have ever had have seemed like something big and stupid making off steadily with your bait, as was the case only moments after casting out, when my float drifted from left to right before sliding away attached to the first one of the day. Somewhere between me striking and landing the fish, a small munchkin turned up behind me silently from a nearby bivvy and the moment I put the small diamond back down on the mat this little voice pipes up, "I caught that one yesterday."

With my new companion rattling away I tried my best to get some photos as I was regaled with how he had caught it. Even as I released it back to the murky water the commentary continued with the location of his capture and where he'd let it go. Turned out my shadow was now quite interested and for the next half an hour my new friend, Leyland, fired a barrage of questions at me including some real corkers like; Can ducks hear? (Yes!) How come fish can't swim on land? (Because they have evolved to live in water!) Can carp see? (Yes that's why they have eyes!) Do you like hot dogs? (I am partial to a hot dog as long as it has fried onions and mustard on it!)

To be honest I was relieved when a second sturgeon took my bait and I got a break from the questions as I played the fish. Although he never claimed to have caught this one, apparently his uncle had a few months prior for sure. Once I'd netted the fish and unhooked, Leyland very kindly offered to take a picture of me holding the fish. I did have to think about that for a minute as I didn't fancy chasing a kid around the lake once he'd done one with my mobile phone, but as his dad was camped out in the next swim I thought I would be OK. Stupidly I asked if knew how to use a camera phone to which replied with disgust, yes! Though this was the best shot!

"Thanks, Leyland..."

Not long after this the scent of bacon lured my little munchkin companion back to his camp and peace was restored, or a least a relative peace to this pool anyway. Ten minutes later with a bacon batch in hand he was back and nattering away in my ear. After talking constantly whilst eating, a large flock of geese caught his eye and before I could say no, he threw the last of his batch about ten feet away from where I was fishing, which as you can guess prompted nearly fifty geese into my swim before he casually left.

Now, there has been large element of this trip that I have so far ignored and that element can be described in two simple words, hungry carp! Most of my session I managed to avoid the carp. I say avoid but what I mean is not catch any. Although it must be said that they weren't avoiding me, and my krill flavoured luncheon meat was mostly being eaten by the carp. Their sucking and pecking was going through my massive bag full of meat at an alarming rate. Quite how none of them were getting hooked was beyond me as so many of them were resident in my swim. I even took to feeding a couple of tins of cheap sweet corn a little down the bank to try and focus them elsewhere, but in the end there was so many that I couldn't keep them away. But for all the attention I only hooked one single carp which went bat shit crazy ploughing into the bay and making right old fuss in the shallow water.

I never did hook into one of those big Siberian sturgeon I was after, but that's not to say they weren't on the feed. Simply put, I think they just weren't getting round to me as there was some many other anglers fishing and so much bait going in. Several were caught around the lake by other anglers, two of which were over twenty pounds and one of them was closer to thirty. The catch of the day had to go to rather hungover looking chap who out of the blue hooked a fish which led him a merry dance through quite few swims. After an epic tussle it turned out he'd hooked and landed a near forty pound catfish on a zig rig.

Given that I really was ready to leave once the carp had done me out of bait, I still intend to come back for a second go for those big grey giants in this pool. Though I think I might wait until later in the year and probably a weekday so as it might be a little quieter on the banks around this pool full of monsters.

Unexplored areas and canal trolling

My young son BB and his growing teeth have no respect for my fishing plans as yet. I was all keen to get out for a decent session after a few poorly executed trips prior to this. The day before I had diligently readied my kit for an early start and went to bed anticipating going to a far off spot that has form for better than average fish. Needless to say after spending most of the night taking it in turns getting up to settle our disturbed little one, both me and JB looked much as we did on the way back from Glastonbury festival in ninety seven, only without having any of the fun.

By the time I had grabbed enough unbroken sleep and done the decent thing and got the now radiant little munchkin up, dressed and fed there seemed little point travelling half way across the county to find the dog walkers had taken all the parking spots at the initial venue. So still half dazed I settled to instead go and check out a bit of the Grand union canal I haven't fished before above Hatton locks.

It's weird but I've done a fair bit of zander fishing on the locks themselves and below them, but have never once been above them. I must have crossed the bridge to go to Hatton country world a hundred times and it's always looked nice. A few friends have fished it and said it's not bad up there, but for some reason I've not yet been. So this seemed a perfect opportunity for a bit of an explore.

Even though I am not big on paying to park when fishing, the paltry £1.20 is a bargain and I happily left my car there whilst I tabbed off up the lock flight. It was on my way up that I came across something I've never seen before first hand. Someone had left  the upper gate of one of the locks open and with the ubiquitous leak the lower gates seem to have, most of the water had leaked from the pound, draining it down to the small pool at the bottom of the picture which was being kept topped up by the leaking gate above. Gravity and a night of flowing water passing over it had carved the soft silt quickly down to a nice gravel run into the open gate at the top of the picture.

I could have spent all day just peering into the drained pound at the various detritus collected and at the topography of the bottom. There must have been a few thousand snails on the marginal shelf alone, never mind on the huge silt bank at the back of the pound. I had my suspicions that the pool at my feet contained any other residents of the pound and tempting as it was to have a poke around in there, I left well alone knowing full and well how stressed any occupants of the little left water would be.

Once I actually got fishing I quickly caught a couple of small zander casting small salt and pepper zander shads around above the first lock in the brown tinted clear water.

Once a local barge enthusiast came reversing into the area I was fishing a little too enthusiastically, I decided it was time to get off and explore the new to me tow path.

Canal trolling

Features play an important part in all types of fishing and personally I have always tried to find something that might attract predators and me alike when I am fishing for them. The unseen underwater features are obviously problematic to locate, but the obvious ones like good far bank cover or big reed beds are always the first targets on new waters and a good starting place. 

These tempting target spots can sometimes be spaced out and the travelling between them has always felt a little of a waste of fishing time to me. So I recently concluded to do a bit of canal trolling as I was travelling down the tow path between spots. When I was a kid we used to do this to little avail using shiny silver spinners, now though having a few years and a lot more experience under my belt I realize that I was doing it all wrong. 

As a kid I naively thought a pike would chase any lure fished in the canal. Now I know that sometimes you have to drag it right across their noses in many cases to provoke a response. So after a bit of fine tuning and figuring how much line to pay out I have begun trolling baits along the marginal shelf as I walk between spots. This enables me to fish whilst travelling and why not, as a lot of fish lie up on the nearside shelf and I reckon I might find a few nice surprises by using this time a bit better.

It was as I passed under a bridge and past a row of barges on the far bank that my rod which was sticking out over the canal bent round. Either I'd found another branch lingering on the shelf or something had grabbed the white shad as it passed by. It turned out to be the latter as the line shot out into the centre trench. This wasn't a perch or even a zander, this was something much bigger and rarer than those spiky finned culprits.

My light lure rod was bent alarmingly over as the yellow braided line cut across the surface towards the boats. It had to be a pike which had snatched the trolled lure as it went by, as not much else bar a carp would pull my string this hard. Praying my fluro leader would hold, I followed the fish off up the canal hoping it wouldn't bite me off. I must have played it for five minutes before I caught a glimpse of a dull spotted tail in the boil in the centre of the canal. It wasn't a humongous pike but it certainly looked like it could be around ten pounds. I really thought I was getting the better of the fish and was fumbling to open up my folded net went the fish came up and turned back in a massive boil and sent my lure flying through the air.

That one experience with a decent canal pike has proved my theory valid enough to certainly continue this practice whenever I find myself travelling between fishing features on the canal, and given the stature of this validating fish I feel I might well have to give some shallow running plugs a run out along with a wire trace just in case.