stevetheangler

Tuesday 17th June 2014 and I arose from bed at 0330, dressed, made a flask of coffee and was on the road to a local section of the Staffs-Worcs Canal at 0400. Not only is the stretch only 10 minutes from home but also mainly downhill so is very fuel efficient as I do most of the trip in neutral with the engine on tickover purely for the brakes and the power steering… Unfortunately what goes down must eventually go up though if one wants to return :D

And so I was on the water, tackled up and fishing by 0445, on a beautiful morning.

I baited up under the overhanging trees on the far bank on arrival with breadcrumb, a few particles (corn, wheat, etc) and dead maggots. And also catapulted a few prawns and mussels over too.

Tackle for the day was a 10’ Syntra quiver tip rod, with 6lb mono mainline terminated with a short braid hooklength (various hook sizes used). Casting/leger weight was supplied by a 1/2oz bomb attached to a sliding bead with a short/ mono link that had a couple of wooden beads fixed next to the sliding bead… this is so that as the lead fell through the water the buoyant wooden beads held the link vertical and so on reaching the bottom it would allow the lead to sink into any silt but as the sliding bead is (hopefully) held above it then there should be no encumbrance to the free passage of the line passing through that bead.

Starting bait for the day was a bunch of 5-6 maggots on a size 12 hook cast into the baited area. Various plucks and tweaks were observed and one 3” gudgeon landed.

After a couple of hours, I changed over to prawn and mussel baits on a size 6 hook for an hour and a half, getting two or three tweaks on the mussel but nothing on prawn.

I then switched back to maggot but this time with 2-3 maggots on a size 16 hook. Again quick twitches, sometimes quite violent, but I was unable to connect.

And so, the session ended with just the one gudgeon.

What was quite pleasing though was that not one boat passed by – usually the first boat passes at about 0800 this time of the year.

I intend to return next week but hope to fish a bit further along the stretch at my favourite swim – just below a lock, it has an eddy and can usually be counted on for a few perch plus the possibility of a chub or two.

Next trip out now will be Saturday this weekend coming, fishing with Liz at a private pool that our club gets invited to fish for five weekends annually as a lead up to the owner’s charity Open Day at the Hall of which it is part. Good tench, carp and perch usually. So looking forward to that. :)