Bridge 45B and more canal treasures

It's Thursday morning, first light, and I'm back on the canal just up from bridge 45B in the Gathurst area. Dawn was a slight affair that seemed to just creep up around me rather than break. The sky was grey and it looked like rain but the air was still and warm. Sticking to my now standard baits of either bread or sweetcorn with a little hemp thrown in as an attractor I began float fishing as close to the reeds on the far bank as it was possible to get. Immediately the float was dipping or sliding from side to side as small fish grabbed at the bread. My first fish of the day was a small roach. This was followed by a bream of 1lb 5oz and another of around a half pound. I'm not sure how I feel about bream. On one hand I'm happy to catch them but they don't really put up a great fight at this size. Maybe I need to get into a 5lb plus fish to really appreciate them. Roach/bream hybrids on the other hand seem to be much better fighters.
By 7am it had begun to rain and I was sat holding a tiny umbrella - the sort a commuter uses - that I'd grabbed out of the car just in case there was a shower. As the rain got heavier I missed a bite so reeled in and put on a new bit of bread. Balancing the brolly against my shoulder I cast out again. I tend to sit with the rod in my right hand and it resting on just one rod rest as I find this helps when hitting bites on bread. Suddenly the float shot away and I lifted the rod to strike and it was almost pulled out of hand by the first powerful run of a fish, This was no bream. I managed to turn the fish away from the reeds and was sure I'd hooked a carp. The fish was tremendously powerful and although in mid canal, it shot to the left then the right at alarming speed before boring down to the bottom. After a couple of minutes I got it up to the surface and as it rolled I realised it was a tench. I reached for the landing net and got it in the water in front of me. The tench continued to change direction rapidly which I found quite disorientating and that combined with the pouring rain had me on the edge of panic. I couldn't lose this fish. I instinctively knew it was a personal best and I had to land it. Another roll at the surface and I took my chance and slid the net under it.

After the weighing scales fiasco with the roach a couple of weeks ago I have gone against my vintage principles and bought a set of digital scales so I can say for definite that this beauty of summer weighed in at 2lb 10oz beating my previous personal best tench by almost a pound. I can't begin to tell you how pleased I am with this fish, It was totally unexpected and frankly has made my week. To be honest I could have packed up at that moment and gone home completely satisfied. I didn't of course and with a 9oz roach falling for a single grain of corn around ten minutes later plus a roach/bream hybrid of a pound following it I was glad I stayed.
My final fish of the day was another surprise. I'd just had another small roach on sweetcorn and was beginning to think it was time to call it a day when the float shot under again. A short dogged fight and I was slipping the net under a rudd of around 6oz. I can't remember the last tine I caught a rudd.

I have to say that in the daylight it looked a lot more golden than it does in the photograph. However, there does seem to be a similarity in the lack on colour in the fins as there was in the roach I caught a couple of weeks ago. This stretch of canal just doesn't seem to produce fish with particularly bright fins. A lovely fish regardless and yet another treasure from the canal. I can't believe that I have caught two personal best fish in the space of two weeks and three visits to the canal
This really does epitomise what fishing is to me. Simple methods, simple cheap bait and a local water that is close to home and a constant revelation. It's thrilling, surprising, relaxing and above all hugely enjoyable. Today was a great day. The fish may not be monsters but they are beautiful and sometimes just being there and catching one or two is enough.