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.

The man from Del Monte he say No!

I would like to say before going onto the main topic of this blog that my impromptu mid week session at a tranquil and deserted commercial fishery after a big sarge was a sobering experience! 

About an hour into the fishing on this immaculate pool that is reputed to hold some staggering perch, I hooked and played a good fish which from the one glimpse I got of it, was somewhere in the big category. Just as I got to the 'grab the net' point in the fight, it made a twist which sent my hook and float flying out the water like a missile from a submarine and made me feel rather sick.

So, onto the main topic of this tale. I continued chasing after another giant perch from the same swim even though what was supposed to be a hazy spring day soon became a bright sunny one. 

With the horrible thought that my one chance was wasted ringing in my head I persevered. When my float bobbed again just like a perch, then slipped off, I thought my luck was again in. This turned out to be a small skimmer, which was followed by another, then another, then another. It would seem my chopped worm had today not attracted carp but a shoal of slimy immature bream. The next one I caught seemed different to the rest for some reason, so rather than tossing it back I took a closer look.

Bigger than normal eyes and peachy pectoral fins. Could it be...?

Did this pool contain an unknown population of silver bream? When the bailiff came round for his money I asked all the right questions and confirmed that yes, they stocked some silver bream as well as bronze bream. I did check that we were on the same page, and he again confirmed that he meant silver bream not skimmer bream.

But rather than get myself all het up thinking I had just landed a silver bar of rocking horse doo dee, I took some suitable photos weighed it at 10oz and let it go. Then caught another of 1.10 oz and nearly pissed my pants.

It was hard not to get excited about a possible 55% of the record fish. But again I took the close up shots and released it.

The rest of the session passed without a any more possible silver bream and without anymore big perch encounters. I did however catch several smallish perch and noticed some of the male fish exuding milt all over my hands, meaning that they must be just about to spawn which will scupper the perch fishing soon. Also I was amazed at how small of a size perch seem to be able to breed at. One of the milting fish was under an ounce, which did seem rather odd.

The next step was to get the possible silver bream checked out by the man who knows. Some call him the man from Del Monte, others call him Gongoozler extraordinaire. I call him Jeff Hatt off of idlersquest  

Yes folks, you can always trust a man who wears a carrier bag on his head and points at trees.

Whatever you care to call him his number one hobby is fishing and his number two hobby is silver bream identification confirmation.

So the morning after I sent Jeff a full picture of each fish and a head shot as well and awaited his experienced verdict. For my own part I had gone back to the pictures repeatedly since taking them and once on my computer I had myself compared them to previous captures documented on line and had myself sown the seeds of doubt. Truthfully to me they looked like nether silver bream or skimmer bream.

The man from Del Montes email confirmed my already growing suspicions. They were not silver bream but some form of bastard hybrid of god only knows what.
The lake in question does contain roach, rudd, bream, supposedly silver bream as well as all possible connotations of hybrids within those true species. This is were the problem lies. Not only are we talking about telling the difference of a silver bream from a skimmer bream but also the possibly that it could be a hybrid of two thorough bred parents or even possibly  the product of twenty years of cross breeding and contamination of gene pools. So I reckon trying to catch a pure fish from this pool would be an absolute waste of time.

Although I kind of knew in my heart they did not seem quite right I was still a little disappointed by the verdict. It would have been very nice to bag a PB silver bream twice in one session, but on the other hand I am happy I offered it up for confirmation, as I at least know for sure they were not silver bream rather than living with my own doubts should I have not.

Out for the night.

I just could not resist sneaking back to the canal for an impromptu session Thursday night. It may sound rather mental but I was intending to try and avoid the hoards of perch and try and find maybe a bigger Zander or even try for a hint of eel.

Just before leaving I dropped Andy a text informing him of my intentions. On the way my phone repeatedly rang and although I never answered it as that would be against the law (I wasn't ignoring you Andy) I knew perfectly well it was him. Back at the swim I had fished four days previously I was hurriedly setting up when I saw a figure coming towards me. It seemed Andy had the same thing on his mind and my text had only convinced him to pack the car.

First shot in both our floats went. Me with my first bream from the area and Andy with a nice perch. From the off we were getting bites on all lines. It took a while for my dead bait rod to join the fray but soon enough it went and the first Zander - all be it a tiddler - was mine, shortly followed by another lost unseen predator which felt much larger.

We made a strange discovery as the time ticked on. The perch, of which by now we had landed a couple of very nice examples, actually stopped feeding well before dark and everything went rather quiet. A little while later my now illuminated float began to stir in the dark; something was perusing the half pint of dead maggots and chopped prawn I had throw in to attract the attention of any passing eels.

It took a couple of tentative dips before the float totally disappeared. I could tell straight away this was no perch or Zander and definitely not an eel. When I caught sight of a big silver flank through the murk I really got nervous. It looked like a huge roach had scoffed my three lobs on a size 2 hook. 

When I finally turned on my head lamp well away from the waters edge saw at least half a big roach in the net, it was just a pity the other half of the fish was bream. Still it made for a nice brace shot with a perch just under two and roach/bream hybrid of just over two.

I made two discoveries on this session; firstly there seems to be two distinctive shifts of fish that feed at totally different times on this stretch, and second that taking pictures in the pitch black is really effin hard!