Canal pastures new

16^th Nov 2019 SU Canal.

Arrived 1330. First go at this length today, 8 min drive from home, reasonable parking, although parts of the towpath are a bit dodgy and the mud is ankle deep in places. The plan was to fish it like I would a river, in that I would be 20-30 mins in each swim until I got a bite. 

As I made my way down the canal I put in a few handfuls of hemp down the track at certain points, the plan was to fish over these on the way back to the car.

Google Earth tells me I walked approx. 800m to my first swim/s. A long bleak open length with no cover. However ‘the word’ says these are decent match pegs. Anyway I fished bread and worm with no pre-feed to accompany. Five or 6 casts later, I was on my bike, ditto swim 2, which was part of the same length.

Now working my way back to the car, swim 3 was quite a tempting. Nice and dark, although this would bite me on the arse later. It was just beyond a bridge and there was lots of high, far bank cover. I fished down the track where I’d thrown in some seed an hour earlier and within 15 minutes I’d had my first rap on 2 pieces of dendra that I missed. 

I swapped to bread, another missed bite, back to the worm, ditto. This was the pattern for the next 30 minutes or so. To me it was clear there were small fish present, but where there are small fish….

I then decided to swap from the straight bomb to small feeder and feed liquidised bread and grains of hemp, same result, a bite a cast but no cigar.

At 1545 I decided to change my rig, I’d had a few mini tangles with the fine hooklength, nothing horrendous but it was bugging me, so thought I’d quickly change a few bits. It should have taken 5 minutes tops. Bad move. I underestimated how poor my eyes are now, even with glasses. LstoryS it was 20 minutes before I was fishing again. Then the second boat of the day came through, gahh. It was now dark and the next cast gave me an absolute horrible tangle and that was that. Frustrating last 45mins, but at least I found a few fish, even if I didn’t catch any..