A warm welcome to this weeks blog update i hope i find you
all well and your nets wet. I have to say from the outset these past few
weeks getting back on the canals has really saw me having a great time on the
bank. I am not currently fishing the old haunts i fished as a kid but just
being on the canal has brought back so many memories for me and at the moment
the only thing that is missing is the sight of the bark black and bronze flanks
of a big canal bream breaking the surface. Hopefully i will experience
this before the rivers open again.
This weeks blog update introduction See's me giving my thoughts on the lack of kids fishing on the canals and ponds and my thoughts behind what is to blame. As a result of that i will be covering all aspects of my approach to fishing canals in the coming weeks and we finish the introduction with a little on the pike review going live. The fishing this weeks See's me fishing on a private pond called Curlston mere where the swim dies and for once i find out why and the second trips sees a morning session on the Bridge water that i hope shows anyone reading who is fed up with the rat race that goes with commercials that the canals are a live and well and are great places to fish.
This weeks blog update introduction See's me giving my thoughts on the lack of kids fishing on the canals and ponds and my thoughts behind what is to blame. As a result of that i will be covering all aspects of my approach to fishing canals in the coming weeks and we finish the introduction with a little on the pike review going live. The fishing this weeks See's me fishing on a private pond called Curlston mere where the swim dies and for once i find out why and the second trips sees a morning session on the Bridge water that i hope shows anyone reading who is fed up with the rat race that goes with commercials that the canals are a live and well and are great places to fish.
It is safe to say we are living in the Golden era of fishing,
never before have fish grown to such large proportions, never before have our
rivers and waterways been so clear and unpolluted and never before have we had
such a wealth of places to fish with commercials dotted all over mixed with the
lakes, canals and rivers we are literally spoilt for choice.
That is the good news story of the times we live in but i also feel we are living and witnessing the demise of old school fishing as we know all remember it. I first started to feel like this when i was fishing on the banks of the River Dee and noticed that i was by far the youngest angler on the bank. Many excuses not to fish rivers are presented from rivers being muddy and dirty uncomfortable to people saying walking endless fields and lugging their gear was not up their street. That may well have been the case but the river i was fishing was the River Dee at Farndon where you can park your car at the back of your peg and you fish off sturdy relatively clean EA pegs so this kind of blows that out of the water. The simple fact is that the art of trotting a float and fishing rivers is dying, not all over the country but certainly in the areas i fish.
At the time i thought it was just rivers that where quiet but the past few weeks fishing on the canal and local ponds has genuinely shocked me. I would say i have been fishing 5-6 times on canals and ponds the past few weeks and i think i have seen 4 anglers in that time, not counting the same ones on different visits. The fishing on all the trips has been steady with regular bites and some nice fish to boot yet on most trips i have not seen a single angler wetting a line. I drive along miles of the canal to get to where i fish and pass it every day on my commute to work and see the empty banks.
As a kid growing up i remember the sights of 100-200 pegged matches on the canal and the local ponds where always a rate race to get their before your mates to get a peg. I now think the canal and the local ponds sit below rivers in the pecking order. Are we slowly losing canals and ponds as a place where young anglers are born and skills are learnt? I don't fish commercials regular but have there fish filled commercial ponds now become the place to go because you are guaranteed to catch something? or is it that kids growing up are no longer in love with angling as we where as kids and we are facing a gap in years to come of new anglers coming through? I am a Strong believer that if you can fish a canal you can fish anywhere as the refined skills you learn fishing a canal and feeding truly wild fish that don't need our baits to survive are being lost for the generic 5lb line to 4lb hook length attached to a pole and a pellet on the end fishing for a carp a chuck?.
It is also possible that with the rise in popularity of carp fishing that we are facing a scenario where dads have only ever carp fished so then their children are naturally shown carp fishing so you are left with anglers that may only know one way to fish. Either way i hope the tables turn and the canals and ponds are discovered by youths its such a crying shame that the banks are so empty and i will be trying to include as much as i can about canal fishing in my blogs in the coming weeks to try and help as much as i can for people wanting to try it but now knowing how.
That is the good news story of the times we live in but i also feel we are living and witnessing the demise of old school fishing as we know all remember it. I first started to feel like this when i was fishing on the banks of the River Dee and noticed that i was by far the youngest angler on the bank. Many excuses not to fish rivers are presented from rivers being muddy and dirty uncomfortable to people saying walking endless fields and lugging their gear was not up their street. That may well have been the case but the river i was fishing was the River Dee at Farndon where you can park your car at the back of your peg and you fish off sturdy relatively clean EA pegs so this kind of blows that out of the water. The simple fact is that the art of trotting a float and fishing rivers is dying, not all over the country but certainly in the areas i fish.
At the time i thought it was just rivers that where quiet but the past few weeks fishing on the canal and local ponds has genuinely shocked me. I would say i have been fishing 5-6 times on canals and ponds the past few weeks and i think i have seen 4 anglers in that time, not counting the same ones on different visits. The fishing on all the trips has been steady with regular bites and some nice fish to boot yet on most trips i have not seen a single angler wetting a line. I drive along miles of the canal to get to where i fish and pass it every day on my commute to work and see the empty banks.
As a kid growing up i remember the sights of 100-200 pegged matches on the canal and the local ponds where always a rate race to get their before your mates to get a peg. I now think the canal and the local ponds sit below rivers in the pecking order. Are we slowly losing canals and ponds as a place where young anglers are born and skills are learnt? I don't fish commercials regular but have there fish filled commercial ponds now become the place to go because you are guaranteed to catch something? or is it that kids growing up are no longer in love with angling as we where as kids and we are facing a gap in years to come of new anglers coming through? I am a Strong believer that if you can fish a canal you can fish anywhere as the refined skills you learn fishing a canal and feeding truly wild fish that don't need our baits to survive are being lost for the generic 5lb line to 4lb hook length attached to a pole and a pellet on the end fishing for a carp a chuck?.
It is also possible that with the rise in popularity of carp fishing that we are facing a scenario where dads have only ever carp fished so then their children are naturally shown carp fishing so you are left with anglers that may only know one way to fish. Either way i hope the tables turn and the canals and ponds are discovered by youths its such a crying shame that the banks are so empty and i will be trying to include as much as i can about canal fishing in my blogs in the coming weeks to try and help as much as i can for people wanting to try it but now knowing how.
Once you have a fair idea where the fish are make a note of the amount of boat traffic your canal has, blistering hot days are great for this as you see how many boats use the canal at peak time. Most canals will have some form of boat traffic and you should never as an angler see these as totally bad as although the canals do pollute the waterways they also impart movement and colour into the water that the fish need to feed and also get used too. The canal i fish on the Bridge water does have a bit of boat traffic so if this is the case you need to take this into account when picking a swim.
So you are stood there on the canal and it all looks the same and picking where to fish can be a hard task. The boats on the canal will all normally follow a same line so what i look for in a swim is an area where i can feed away from this main boat line where i know my bait will not be disturbed. I walked the local canal after work today and these are the features i would fish on one section of canal.
Up the side of the bridge will no doubt be shallow as no
boats will have been able to go though there and as such the silt will have
built up. This area is a great area for fishing as you know any feed
going over there will not be disturbed by the boats. The stone work also
offers a feature that species like roach and perch love.
Reeds are fantastic areas of canal and the places i always
head too as they offer you so many options. Up the front of the reeds
will be deep for you early line and up the ride of the reeds offers a line
again where you can feed and not be disturbed by boats. Reeds are
naturally areas where fish come to spawn in the warmer months and the very
nature of the reeds attracts all manner of insects and invertebrates which in
turn attract the fish that feed on them a great natural area to find fish on a
canal.
