A Slippery Customer

Flushed with the success, albeit very brief, of Saturday's personal best bream - it can only have been a matter of hours before James trumped me with his new canal bream best of 7lb 2oz - I thought I'd better get back down the basin and see what I could do to earn a few more points.
For a change I took two rods with me, one to float fish for roach, bream and perch and another as a sleeper ledger rod to fish meat close to the stern of a boat moored to my right. I was hoping there may be a carp grubbing about in the margins that would take a fancy to a chunk of  Ye Olde Oak's finest.
Two hours later and I couldn't buy a bite on the float despite trying bread, then worms followed by corn.
 I was keeping half an eye on my bobbin indicator on the ledger rod when it suddenly started to move. I let it rise about six inches and struck. The clutch on the Ambidex started to slip and the cane of the old carp rod fought back against the power of the fish. It was only a matter of seconds before I knew what I'd hooked. It's movements were familiar and remembered from years of experience. There was an element of dread, almost fear all mixed up with a sense of excitement. Eels are undoubtedly remarkable creatures but I have to be honest I'm not particularly keen on them. Over the years I've caught a few and have worked out how to deal with them. Getting a photo and a weight just added a couple of extra steps although it seemed wise to keep it in the net.

slippery...

 

This took the scales around to 1lb 10oz and is my best from the canal.

The next couple of hours were quiet with just a couple of half-hearted touches on the float. Once again the swallows gave a stunning display and the proud swans came along to show off their brood of five cygnets. It was impossible to get a decent photo of them due to the position of the sun but they're incredibly cute.
Around 8.30pm I finally had a decent bite on float fished bread. This was a 3lb 12oz bream and that was it for the evening.





I'm planning a dawn trip later this week. Apparently there's a stretch close by that has some tench so it's got to be worth a try.

The Basin and Beyond

Where Burrow Beck meets the canal

The last month or so has seen me continue to explore different stretches of the canal that are either a walk or a cycle ride of up to around 45 minutes from home. There's plenty of variety to be had from open meadow country to tree-lined cuttings, inner city stretches with buildings towering over you and even the hustle and bustle of a busy basin where boats abound. Where I go depends a lot on what I feel like. If I want to get away from it all I'll cycle for the best part of an hour out to a peaceful spot where Burrow Beck runs under the canal. It's beautiful out here with wild garlic and primroses growing along the tree-lined banks. My favourite spot is by the strange horseshoe shaped stone structures that are on either bank. These appear to have been built to help control the beck which runs under the canal.

The deep pool on my bank

 From the far bank I can hear the stream running but on my side the pool is deep and still with a barely perceptible flow leaving as the beck makes its way across the fields and into the River Lune estuary a few miles away.
There's a gap in the trees on the far bank that allows the rising sun to warm the waters of the canal and it looks like a few lilly pads survive close to either bank. Kingfishers speed up and down the canal and the only other intrusion to break my solitude is the occasional walker. In fact one such walker told me that the beck contains trout and the pools often hold a few fish.
At the end of my first visit curiosity got the better
of me and I decided to drop a worm into the pool.
Within seconds it was snatched by a fish and a fine looking brown trout of around 10 inches was lifted from the depths. Naughty I know but I couldn't help myself. A quick photograph and I slipped it back. No harm done and a pretty fish to admire.

Aside from this little bonus catch there's plenty of roach and I even managed to catch my first perch of the year. I'd taken some maggots with me for a change, and although most of the roach I caught fell to bread, later in the morning with sun very bright I had scaled down to a size 18 hook and single maggot. It was just after 11am when I hooked this splendid 11 ounce striped sergeant.

 



My first canal perch of 2015
 

My last visit here was in late April and I plan to return to this area a lot through the summer. It's very much a dawn place for me and the ride there alongside a mist shrouded canal is really quite something. The bluebells will be starting to flower now as the garlic and primroses wane and with the canal warming up it looks to be a promising location.

 

It's almost a month now since the start of the Bloggers Challenge and with only a few points on the board I decided I needed to get a bit more strategic in my approach to fishing. I'm up against some really excellent anglers and already there have been some wonderful fish caught. But it's not just the talents of my fellow bloggers I've to contend with it's also the potential of the waters that are being fished. Just how does the Lancaster canal stack up against those in the Midlands, London or the South West? Should I travel further and return to the Leeds-Liverpool canal near Wigan? I know there's chub that can be caught-a species that seems to be missing completely from the Lancaster canal. But is it worth the cost for just a few extra points even if I was able to catch one? 

No what I need to do is to stay local. After all I have the river Ribble to fish which should see me right for chub, dace, barbel and possibly a decent river roach but I think I will leave that until the Autumn and Winter. As my car is currently out of action I am limited to travel by train, bike or walking which means the canal and one stillwater are within reach. I also need to be more species specific in my approach. If I was fishing solely for pleasure I would probably divide my time between the canal pursuing roach with bread and a few trips out for tench and carp on stillwaters. What I need is a more focused approach that will allow me to catch more species, still enjoy myself and with luck gain a few points. 

With all this in mind I've had three sessions on the basin in the centre of town. My target has been bream which is a species that I have tended to catch by accident rather than design in the past. After brushing up on the species via my canal fishing literature I have set out armed with a variety of baits and some particularly potent vanilla flavoured crumb groundbait.

The basin is fairly quiet in the evenings with generally only a couple of boats on the move. The only issue is finding a decent spot in amongst the moored craft and I've been lucky this week on each occasion. As far as the fishing goes the basin does seem to be a pretty productive area with roach, bream, perch and allegedly tench and carp present. On the first couple of visits I managed some roach, a little perch, a ruffe and a few small bream. Both sessions saw me pull out of what felt like decent bream although I eventually got a 1lb 9oz fish in the net. Not content with this I returned again last night to have another go.

 I'd been at work all day so took my time and had some food before setting off. By just after 7pm I was set up and fishing. The plan was to stay until darkness fell as the bream had definitely started to feed with much more abandon at dusk on the previous session. There's plenty of light sources due to the student accommodation opposite and the clear skies after a sunny day so I didn't need to take anything more than a torch to help with unhooking.

In contrast to the other evenings this one was very slow. After an hour I'd had only one small twitch of the float and was beginning to think I shouldn't have bothered. Thanks to the exciting display by the swallows that have arrived at the basin the time passed pleasantly and even the wind dropped to barely ruffle the surface.
When the bite came it was a couple of small touches followed by a firm pull. I struck and knew straight away it was a good fish. It pulled away out into the basin and gave me a bit of a scare as a narrowboat was bearing down on it but I managed to carefully steer it back towards me. When its tail splashed up out of the water it looked huge. A little more careful playing and I had it in next to the boat moored up to the left of me. Another 30 seconds or so of me carefully shortening the line and I got it to the surface and just managed to fit it into the net. I lifted the heavy net from the water and knew immediately it was my biggest ever bream.. With a quick photo taken I duly weighed it. It took the scales to 3lb 15oz a new personal best by a half a pound.



Basin bream

A bit of a battered looking old warrior but it gave a good fight and turned out to be the only fish of the evening. I think my opinion of bream is changing as this was a bit more feisty than some I've caught and it's always good to feel you've achieved a target now matter how modest it may be.

I stayed until darkness fell and packed up a happy man. I may return for another go in the next couple of days as I've beaten my personal best for bream three times so far this year. Then again there's the prospect of searching out the carp and tench.



The basin at dusk

 

 

Canal Roach on a Mayday Evening

Unusual as it was for a Bank Holiday Monday not to be a total washout, I thought I'd make the most of it with a few hours on the canal last night. I headed down the towpath to an area just past the fancy housing enclave that is Haverbreaks. This is where the grand houses back on to the canal and some people even have their own boathouses.
Once past this exclusive area the canal is bordered by farm fields. There's a huge amount of sheep to the West and more sheep plus a few horses to the East with a couple of what appear to be rare breed sheep that make the strangest noises - a guttural grunting that is almost frightening. It's a rare old cacophony as dusk falls once you add in the ducks, moorhens and all the other birds.
I've been fishing a spot along here for the last few weeks and have even popped down a few times to feed it up with mashed bread, corn, chopped worms, prawns and maggots. So far all my catches have been to either maggots or bread. The fish seem reluctant to take either corn or worms with only tentative bites on both despite cutting grains of corn into quarters and chopping the worms. Prawns just don't seem to work at all at the moment but I keep trying them.

There's a pair of swans that have made this stretch their home and over the last couple of weeks the female has built a large nest on the far bank some 20 yards or so below where I fish. Tonight she was at last sitting on it so I can only assume eggs have been laid. The male doesn't seem to have been a lot of help with the nest building and seems to spend most of his time wandering the stretch. He was sat on the bank for a while tonight eating grass and scaring small children that passed by.

However, he wasn't so brave when another swan came along. He hot footed it back into the canal and proceeded to run across the surface with wings flapping which in turn encouraged the interloper do the same. They were last seen rounding the bend at the end of the stretch.

Bread was my chosen bait for the evening fished on a size 12 hook beneath a homemade antenna float. I introduced some mashed bread in the area of the near side drop off a couple of yards down to the left from where I sat. Bites started almost immediately and a procession of small roach found their way to the bank. The flow was quite strong tonight and the surface was littered with chewed up plant material as a result of the boat traffic. These floating bits and pieces kept snagging the float and line so I dropped the float a little to the right to avoid a tangled mass that was heading my way. Within seconds the bread had been snapped up and I found myself connected to a better fish, Safely netted was a beautiful roach that I thought must be half a pound. With the bloggers challenge in mind I weighed and photographed the fish. I fear I will need every point considering some of the early catches.

It went to 9 ounces on the scales which is my best roach so far this year from the canal.
For the next two hours the bites came and went with some quiet periods and then a flurry of activity as dusk fell. I had another roach of around six ounces that looked like it had been in the wars with a nasty gash on one side near its anal fin. The result of a meeting with a pike or maybe a heron as you see plenty of them along the canal. Most of the other fish were in the two or three ounce bracket and as it became too dark to see the float properly I called it a day.
Walking back along the towpath the bats were out in force darting around the branches above my head which got me wondering where they live during daylight - I must find that out...