A
pleasant surprise from the canal
I
have been enjoying my visits to the local canal in recent times.
What began really as a reaction to petrol prices going through
the roof, and therefore limiting long-distance travel, has actually
become something that I choose to do rather than out of necessity.
And always faced with decisions as to what species I target, my
mind is forever feasting on the options of roach and perch, with
carp and eels also gradually muscling in on the scene as we move
into summer. But it was for roach that I decided to fish this
week as I looked forward to a couple of short, and into dark,
visits to the Staffs/Worcs Canal.
The
Staffs/Worcs Canal
The canal itself
was initiated by James Brindley way back in the late 1770's,
taking a total of six years to build. You could describe
James Brindley as the Father of the canal network as he
was also responsible for others in the country. The canal
itself is 46 miles long and one of its major attractions
for anglers must be the fact that for most of its length
it is rural. Even with Wolverhampton, it only touches the
western edges of the city's suburbs. And the posh parts
at that.
And it's that
rural setting that not only adds to the pleasant surroundings
but also means that you are able to fish in peace. And as
a lot of my angling is done at night, the last thing that
I want to be worrying about is confrontation with gangs
of chavs on the towpath after dark. I'm happy to say that
in all my visits to the canal I have never had so much as
a sniff of trouble. The worst that has happened is people
that pass by and want to talk for an hour. But I can live
with that.
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A
pleasant surprise indeed!
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Quivertipping
on the canal
For
most anglers nowadays the canal means a pole, or if they are
still in the dark ages (like me), a waggler fished with a
rod and reel. But how about legering? Many years ago when
I was a teenager I legered a small bomb on the canal near
Wombourne that I used to fish a lot. So my present day choice
of a quivertip rod isn't something new. I fished with a rod
that I have bought this year (I actually bought 2), namely
a Fox Duo-Lite specialist. Dispensing with the standard 1lb
test curve two-piece I opted for the 0.5 ounce glass tip.
My
line was 2.5lb Maxima straight through to a size 14 Drennan
Super Specialist. The lead was a tiny 1/8th
ounce flat lead and this was stopped by a small shot with
a bead over it a good 14" from the hook. Very often I
find myself fishing quite short hook lengths for roach but
I wanted to experiment with a longer length this time. By
drawing the lead back I was still pretty much in touch with
the bait and I liked the idea of the bait being away from
the line cutting through the water, which on a short length
is quite close; and even though these fish aren't pressurised
in the slightest, they're still fish and as such possess that
instinctive wariness.
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My
target species - a roach
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A
carp grabs the headlines
I
decided to fish with sweetcorn, which I find invariably
separates the fish in terms of size. Yes, there will always
be those days when small ones will suck and destroy the
bait in a split second, but overall it does avoid smaller
ones in my experience. And over the two sessions, the fish
that I caught, although not monsters, all needed netting.
So in this case, the theory worked.
But
it wasn't a roach that made the news this week, instead
a carp grabbed the headlines. It was 6.35pm on the first
session when the tip pulled round in a determined way that
indicated that something had picked up the bait without
realising and was probably on to its next grain of corn
even as I struck. What I thought initially was a very good
roach, turned into a good chub and eventually became a double-figure
mirror carp. As the title of the article says, it was indeed
a pleasant surprise. And on 2.5lb line an achievement as
well.
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My
first red campion of the year
The canal is now an ever increasing blaze of colour as the
wild flowers begin to come into their own. The dandelions
are in full bloom and thanks to the 200 ray florets that
make up each flowerhead, they provide a beautiful stunning
yellow as you look up and down the canal. The butterbur
flowers have now died off but have been replaced by the
enormous leaves. The white dead-nettles looked stunning,
particularly in low light, but the lesser celandines are
finding their space rather cramped as the taller plants
such as cow parsley tower over them. And I saw my first
red campion of the year. What an amazing world there is
out there if only we open our eyes and look.
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