Fishing Diary - Bham to Worc Canal

Wed 22nd April - Bream Dream

On Wednesday I put into practice the things I’d learned on Tuesday to brilliant results. 

- I kept a log of where I was feeding and what it was I was putting in and how much. 

- I fished double maggot (mainly white and red back to back on a size 20 forged hook)

I started out feeding two swims but abandoned the second to focus fully on the first, the swim to the right. Before I started fishing I made the decision to pick a definite far bank marker and use the pole sections to decide how far out I was going to be fishing and feeding with my pole cup. I was two sections out, towards a yellow rail sign with two dashes. 

Feed:

1 x Piece of mashed Bread (10am)

1/2 x Piece of mashed bread (12am)

1 x Pouch of maggots (12am)

2 x Small Balls of groundbait & a few maggots

1 x Groundbait ball in pole cup

- Occasional maggots in pole cup as I changed the hook bait

Bream 13.4oz - Fed Groundbait ball in pole cup and fished directly over the top with two maggots, had 2 perch, 1 roach then the bream

From here on I continued to fish double maggot over the occasional ball of groundbait carefully placed with the pole cup, all the bream came from fishing right on top of the groundbait more or less. I also continued to feed loose maggots in threes and fours from the pole cup when I refreshed the hook bait. 

The second (9.9oz) and third (1lb 3.4oz) bream both came shortly after feeding a ball of groundbait with the pole cup, maybe it’s worth feeding these balls little and often, so smaller balls but more often?

Depth - Skimming the bottom of my chosen swim

Note on groundbait - yesterday (Saturday 25th April) I tried half heartedly to reenact Wednesdays success but without maggots. I used bread fished over groundbait, but I think I made the groundbait too stodgy and the balls to tight. I continued to fish but once I had finished I decided to try one of the smaller groundbait balls I was using in a glass to see how it dispursed in the water, it didn’t, it just sat and barely broke down - don’t pack the groundbait too tight, experiment with different consistencies and make note of what works.

Groundbait & Howie’s Haul - 21st April - Sunny & Warm - Surface Ripples/Wind

Prebaiting: Len gave me a few bits of groundbait about a week ago that I was yet to have used, so I mixed some up with some blended bread crumb, micropellets and a dash of hemp. I fished on Monday (20th) and didn’t catch much, the roach seemed to have switched off completely, so at the end of the day I decided - almost in a rage quit kind of way - to chuck in all the groundbait I had mixed into a couple swims with the intention to go down the next morning to have a poke at some bream. 

That night I dreamt that Len caught two big bream over towards his side on the left, so when I woke up in the morning I used that dream as motivation to not just turn over and sleep again. 

8am/10am: Once I’d set up I filled my pole cup with maggots with a red maggot on the hook and from the prebaited swim on the left shelf I caught my first bream of the day, a good start and honestly unexpected. I can’t remember exactly what I started doing after that but that swim dried up and I moved to the close in bush swim on the right and had about 9 gudgeon and a few small perch. The first canal boat came through at about 9:25am and then the bites really died off.

Around 2pm: In the early afternoon I headed back down, before I stopped in the morning session I fed out some more groundbait focusing on the near right hand side swim. When I went down around 2pm I put a single maggot on the hook and missed a few bites that came almost instantly. I moved the float ever so slightly further out and had a great bite that hooked me into a second bream that was much bigger than the first. It pulled on the elastic but I managed to lose it, probably due to my lack of finesse with the pole at the moment. 

I didn’t manage to hook another bream, maybe a couple gudgeon and a perch but that was all, I called it a day around 3pm just after I fished out some slices of bread that were floating down from a duck feeder. I mashed them into tight gooey balls and fed them out as another type of groundbait, to both swims I believe - later on James’ big bream fell almost in the exact same spot as where I threw one of these balls off to the left. 

Howie’s Haul - 5:30pm Onwards

Initially it was pretty dead, I’d had a few roach and gudgeon by just moving spots with a maggot to tempt the odd fish. By now I was primarily focusing on my swim to the right as James takes the left swim. I was feeding out maggot and picking up a few small fish and occasional bites, James kept missing / dropping gudgeon and it looked set to be a frustrating evening. I was feeding more than James but I was getting less bites. Eventually we had to go to the chippy to get some dinner so I flicked a few maggots in James’ swim because he was getting a lot of bites, so it’d keep the fish occupied - I left my swim as it was.

Perch - 1lb 3.4oz - 7:49 pm - Double Maggot

Whilst in the chippy I was saying to James that we might catch something bigger because we’ve left the swim for a while, we eventually started fishing again at about 7:30pm, James had a small gudgeon then in frustration changed to double red maggot because he was sick of small fish. Still fishing in the same spot, a couple feet out under the bush to the left, next thing I know he’s hooked into something that’s pulling out his drag and making swirls and I’m there trying to explain what to do but just mumbling and going SHIT WHAT IS IT? Luckily the drag was set perfectly and with a quick swoop of the net we managed to land a cracking perch weighing in at 1lb 3.5oz. We were chuffed and just sat there in awe for some time once we’d let him back, I think it could have been a fish of this kind that took the worm I mentioned in my previous post, because it fought like a badass. 

Bream 1lb 0.5oz - 8:35 pm - Double Maggot

A few casts later I hooked into another bream, similar size to the one from the morning session, I was also getting lots of pestering bites, potentially from all the maggot I had fed in was attracting smaller fish. Moments later James hooked into something else of a good size, again on double maggot, fished directly on-top of a spot where I’d put in some mashed bread earlier and it was a lovely bream of 1lb 0.5oz. 

Thoughts

Bream

Feeding: James wasn’t feeding maggot that much, if at all towards the end of the session. This makes me think that the bream he caught was grazing on the mashed bread and left over groundbait in that swim in peace, ie. without small fish whizzing round scooping up the maggots. I think it might be a good idea to feed mashed bread / groundbait mix and maybe just a couple maggots along with the hook bait when targetting bream. It’s also worth doubling up like James was doing, as I did have bream that day but the best fell for the double maggot, not the single. 

I think it’ll be a good idea to keep a log of where and what I feed, as I always forget and possibly overfeed.

Depth: The first time I caught bream in the canal with bread I recall that the canal was towing so I’d adjusted the hook bait to sit slightly off the bottom. I’m not sure if I was off the bottom for the morning bream but I’m 90% sure that I was slightly off the bottom for the bigger afternoon bream that came off (as I had just moved the float slightly further out after plumbing the depth for close in), Howie’s bream was almost definitely off the bottom by a good few inches or more, so try experimenting with depth and not always nailing it to the floor. 

All of the bream I’ve seen out of the canal haven’t come from the deepest part in the track but mostly from the shelf, my big loss came from near the top of the shelf, Howie’s around the middle, who knows maybe there’s even bigger ones in the track but 1lb is good enough for me at the moment. 

Bait:

Double maggot seems to be the likely choice at the moment, but it may also be beneficial to try and use bread flake on a bigger hook, maybe a bit of the the crust? This might help pick out those big daddies.

Perch

Tryin’ to find the bigguns & Accepting the pole

Depth Experiments & Night/Morning Fishing

Lately I’ve been fishing further out to try and tempt something bigger. There’s plenty of bites in the margins, usually from hungry gudgeon but I’m after something a bit more and if that means less fish then that’s that.

After getting my first batch of this year’s maggots I decided to plumb the depth of the central track and fish right on the bottom in the middle, thinking that it would throw up some better fish. In all fairness the fish were slightly bigger than if I’d have been fishing right in the side for tiny roach and gudgeon - I didn’t catch as many, but the fish I did catch were on average bigger than anything from really close in. 

I had a few decent roach and a nice perch but it’s pretty tough to fish accurately and consistently in the middle of the canal with a waggler set up. Me and James even tried some night fishing in the middle track with worm, and although we did have a few fish non of them were of a noteworthy size. 

I tried maggot in the morning around 8am fairly close in and had a few decent size roach on but wasn’t awake enough to not lose them, and on my birthday evening James caught a roach that was almost 1lb right in the side about 1.5/2ft out from the bank, but we were doing something different, that brings me to the next experiment...

Bait

After getting Dominic Garnett’s guide to canal fishing and talking regularly with my neighbour Len who has fished our canal all his life, I found that the recurring theme to target the bigger fish (especially big roach) was to change the bait to something more selective like caster or hemp seed. Me and James put this theory to the test and although we had less bites, the roach we caught were all a considerable amount bigger than what we were catching on maggots or bread punch.

I’ve been loose feeding hemp seed to attract anything to the area that wants to eat it, and I think it’s possible a great holding bait because it’s fairly heavy so when canal boats stir up the water the hemp should hopefully hold it’s place and therefore the fish.

I’ve been fishing caster with the most success mostly on the bottom, but with hemp I’ve found that fishing it slightly off the bottom by 3 to 6 inches as Len said tends to yield more bites and better bites than if it were fished dead on the bottom.

I’ve also started using the pole that Len gave me which provides far better comfort and accuracy than using a float rod, I used to dislike poles but I’m really into it now, especially with a lighter elastic - I lost a few decent perch when I first started using the pole Len gave me because it had a too thick elastic. 

Misc - BIG FISHY ESCAPE

7/8th April - Bham to Worcs Canal - Ma back garden

The weather has picked up this week considerably, it’s t-shirt weather and the sun can actually make you break a sweat, along with easter this has bought a lot of canal traffic out of the wood work and float fishing has become slightly more difficult in the day time.

In the warmer days of this week I’ve found that bites are few in the middle of the day with the sun beating down, but come dusk there are plenty of bites and fish to be had. 

Yesterday (tuesday) I fished for a bit at mid day and caught only a single gudgeon, but I went back down in the evening and had a few roach and some kind of gold fish, I knew i’d hooked a better fish but I thought it was a big roach, when I saw that it was golden I was super shocked and excited. 

Saturday 21st March - Zander on the Oxford Canal - Dropshotting

This weekend I went down to Banbury to visit my friend Hugo. We took to his local canal to see what we could catch on float and dropshot fishing.

We fished a windy stretch at first in between the road bridge and Cropredy marina but found it too cold and there were kayakers whizzing up and down so we headed to the still stretch above the lock with a bit more cover. It was overcast with the sun was occasionally poking through the clouds and revealing shadows by the banks.

My first cast above the lock I had a fish on, I cast right into the shadowy far bank underneath some overhangs next to the lock slipway. I think it was taken on the drop because when I started jigging I had something on but I didn’t strike into it and the fish came off. I was sure that it was either a small Zander or pike because it was too elongated to be a perch. In retrospect if it was a perch It would have taken it more viciously and the bite matched the ones I had later on in the day so I’m 90% sure it was a smaller Zander.

This was early on in the day that it gave me confidence in my technique and lure so I carried on up the stretch whilst Hugo float fished worm in the area that I had the first bite.

The area gave me confidence, there were a lot of long term moored canal boats which provided perfect areas for predators, lots of overhanging trees, bridges and locks, the only thing that wasn’t perfect was the water visibility; I could only see the lure about 3/4 inches from the surface and the water was a lot cloudier than the Birmingham / Worcs canal I normally fish. The visibility didn’t prove to be a problem for the first fish though so I carried on determined and surely enough after walking around 200m up the canal I was into another fish which I managed to land this time - my first ever Zander.

I had been jigging the same area prior to catching but I was doing fast, consistent shakes of the rod tip with a relatively steady retrieve. When I changed to a slightly more jagged approach I had a bite, then I cast out to the middle of the canal but next to a moored boat and I suddenly had a fish on. Again it was unlike a perch take, it was almost polite in comparison.

After some research it all started to make sense. Zander thrive in cloudy water where perch and pike struggle to hunt but because of their smaller mouths they’ll only attack if the bait looks injured, according to wikipedia:

“Zander also tend to chase their prey before striking. When striking a fishing lure, it fights by pulling backwards, giving the impression that there is a big stone attached to the fishing line. Because zander is not as good in striking as pike, it prefers slower, even wounded fish; a lure moving too fast won't get the zander's attention. On the other hand, anecdotal evidence suggests that zander do not attack lures that are moving too slowly either.”

That explains the change of technique catching the fish, the bizarre, polite takes and the cloudy water. After landing the first one I eventually went back to the same spot and caught another! it was a very similar size and fell for the same technique and lure in almost the exact same bit of water as the first - apparently they’re shoal fish in their earlier years.

Sunny/overcast, Highs ~10°C - mid day - water very cloudy

Sunday 22nd March - Clattercote Reservoir & Canal Perch

On Saturday evening we tried a bit more dropshotting and float fishing on a different stretch of canal to no avail so we decided to give Clattercote reservoir a go on Sunday.

We float fished Clattercote for the best part of the morning and afternoon but decided to leave at around 4 to go back to the canal as neither of us had had a bite and nobody else was catching much.

We headed to the original stretch of canal between the road bridge and Cropredy marina, it was stiller today and a warm sunny evening. There were plenty of shadows cast by features on the far bank so we cast into these with both of us now fishing a dropshot rig. I was moving on fairly fast and had lost hope by now, just as I felt like saying we should call it a day Hugo was into a nice perch. He was fishing the same spot a few times over and retrieving it by jigging and moving the rod to the right and only then reeling in the slack, he had around three fish on but lost the second two, all the takes happened around the middle of the canal so we think that the perch were shoaled up in the shadows and by casting into them and slowly retrieving they chased the lure and took it in the centre of the canal.

This perch fell to the smaller minnow style lure. We carried on working up the canal but had no more action then returned, the weekend nicely rounded off by both of us having caught personal bests.

Friday 20th March - Canal Bread Fishing - Float & Tow

After hooking a small bream the day before but not getting a photo due to being on the phone I decided to try and catch another for the camera so I can add it to my species list. After fishing this canal for at least ten years I must have caught some skimmer bream but failed to recognise them, but Thursday’s was the first I’d recognised.

Feeding

My tactics were fairly simple, I fed small balls of blended bread along in a line roughly a third of the way out from my bank. I fed the balls in a line because the canal was towing and this way if my hook bait was being towed it would always be over the feed. I also fed out some loose bread squeezed into the same shape as what I was putting on the hook.

Rig

I slightly modified my rig on Friday from Thursday’s setup. On Thursday I was fishing on the bottom with a dropping shot a few inches from the hook, maybe a bit over depth to be on the safe side. From what I recall on Thursday the bites were fairly normal in that the float would bob under. 

On Friday the tow was worse so I altered the rig to stop the tow making the float gradually sink and the bait from getting covered in junk from the bottom. 

Firstly I plumbed the depth so that I was fishing ever so slightly off the bottom, then I moved the dropping shot up to where the second shot was, roughly half way in between the hook and float. I found that this allowed for the hook bait to fall naturally through the water and suspend just above the bottom without catching any of the crap. The bites on this set up were slightly different, they just kind of sailed away, or the float moved curiously before gradually sinking.

Over all this feeding and rig combination produced over a dozen roach, one Gudgeon and a skimmer Bream.

Sunday 15th March

It was bitter cold and James came over and I tried teaching him how to catch fish, in the end we both had a small perch and both on worm but it was really slow fishing and we tried everything, I think I may have initially over fed the bread swim with liquidised bread, we did have bites on bread but tiny nibbles.

Tuesday 17th March - Misty/Overcast/Sunny - Milder temperature 11 ish

I looked outside after I got up and it just looked like one of those perfect days for fishing, it was slightly misty, cool and dull. I went down to have a look at the canal and saw that it was crystal clear, I could see the white and gold spiky shad right on the bottom of the canal. I rammed down breakfast and went over on the tow path whilst the water was clear but had no luck. I don’t think super clear water is actually that good.

My new rod had arrived and so had my fox microfry (orange) so I tried them out. I started off with the new rod using a small minnow lure and had a nice medium sized perch, then later on in the evening I switched to microfry. By now a few boats must have gone up and down because the water wasn’t as clear.

It was noticeably warmer today in the day time, and the fish seemed a lot more active than they have been for the past week.

I fished the microfry for a little while and had a few nibbles but nothing too exciting. I noticed a lot of bait fish activity, bubbles, swirls ect. So I fed out small balls of liquidised bread and a few particles of compressed hookbait bread then fetched my float rod. I had two small roach then the bites went quiet.

I went back onto the dropshot rig with the microfry and out of nowhere something took the lure. I thought I had a snag but the snag pulled away from me, I played it for a little while but what ever it was managed to slip the hook, and it was big. It kind of just took it and sat, so it was either the fact that I was using a smaller barbless hook for the microfry that allowed it to get off, or it was a fish like a pike or zander with a harder mouth that I didn’t strike into enough.

Fluctuating Temperature and Towing Canal/Barge Revival

I’ve fished quite a lot this week. Using various styles and baits but the only fish I’ve had are perch on the dropshotted worm. The canal seems to be towing a lot, and the canal boats are back in swing making a lovely mess of the canal. The temperature has been fluctuating a lot which I hear puts off the silverfish although I’ve seen a lot of what seems like silverfish activity - surface flips and bubbles emerging from the depths.

I even gave night fishing a go one evening for a while using worm, although the canal was slightly towing and I didn’t really prebait, I used a few small feed pellets but no chopped worm. 

Dropshotted worm however seems to produce at least a bite every time I try it, so I think it might be the way forward if I can find enough worms. 

Friday 6th March - Sunny Evening Dropshotting (Full moon)

I headed out on friday afternoon to my favourite spot along the tow path where I've had big perch every time but this time I had nothing, I even made my way up to the next bridge past my house but it was no good, they just either weren't there or weren't hungry.

Saturday 7th March - Sunny & Warm around ~16 Degrees

I tried out float ledgering bread in the track at first to no avail, after a while I switched to normal ledgering and worm which had a few bites just on the shelf to the left of my peg but nothing on the other end. I then switched over to dropshotting smaller soft baits and had a few nips so I switched to dropshotting worm and had a medium small perch. I even had a few fish on with the smaller soft baits but I don't think they were very big because they tended to come off straight away.

Sunday 8th March - Overcast & Rain ~10 Degrees 

The first fish of the day was a tiny perch on a small soft plastic whilst dropshotting, I barely felt a little knick at the lures and when I stuck and reeled in I saw this tiny perch, I'd hooked it through both lips with the huge barbed hook so to face it some face literally; I crushed the barb with some pliers and the hook slid right out, easy.

Third day in a row - Friday 27th Feb 2015 - Big Perch 9

Weather:  Overcast/Dull - 8*C - 5:24pm

Water: lure became visible about a foot and a half from the surface

Lure: 2.5" Small Silver Minnow  - raddlebarn road side of canal bottleneck near my house

After losing two lures and weights I was forced to use the only weight I had left which was a bigger one that felt too heavy with the spikey shad, so I switched to a smaller version of the minnow to compensate and carried on fishing the perch run that had worked so far, just after the part where the canal temporarily bottlenecks, the old lock style section I had this fish, quite close in too so It must have been hiding down there in the depths.

Thursday 26th Feb 2015 - Big Perches 6 & 7!

Weather:  Sunny Evening/Shade/Dusk - 8*C - 5:05 & 5:16pm

Water: lure became visible about a foot and a half from the surface

Dropshot Lure: Gold & White Spikey Shad - just further up from canoe man

Following yesterdays success I decided to head out again this evening slightly later at 4:30pm. I walked past all the spots that I had no success at, the wider and busier canal areas and went straight for the area that I had the two fish in yesterday.

The canal thins and there are some overhanging trees on the far bank, it's also in a nice area of shade from the evening sun and sure enough after around ten minutes of being in the area I had my first and biggest of the day. After taking photos and putting the fish back I was soon into a second fish. I did have to change the rig after the first fish as when checking the lure I actually snapped the line, good job I snapped it by hand because a perch definitely would have snapped it.

I tied on a new rig and went back onto the same lure and first cast I had the second fish, again the second fish was smaller, maybe the smaller ones tag along with the bigger fish.

Shortly after it got very cold and the fish subsided, I tried a bit further up towards my back garden swim but still didn't manage to get past my house.

Wednesday 25th Feb 2015 - Big Perches 4 & 5!

Weather:  Overcast/Dusk - 10*C - 5:22 & 5:30pm

Water: lure became visible about a foot and a half from the surface

Lure: Silver Minnow Red Eyed - opposite cul-de-sac

I took a walk over to the other side of the canal today (the tow path side). I tried the spots I tried before, by the bridge and near the train station but decided to carry on up the canal back towards my house.

I pretty much just gradually walked up the canal, trying to cover as much water effectively as possible - casting out to overhanging features and avoiding incoming cyclists. 

It was getting dark and I'd just walked past a dead white cat floating in the canal when I had my first fish. With this kind of fishing you get to the point where you're pretty sure you're not going to catch anything and then BAM there's something pulling at you and you suddenly kick into action.

This fish fought quite seriously and slowly and initially I thought it could have been a pike until I saw the telltale stripes and fins of the perch. I swung my bag and net off my back and it was in the net! BOOM! all the walking was worth it.

After taking photos and weighing it I put it back and cast out again, slightly to the left and immediately had another fish on, it could have been the same one had it not been slightly smaller and stripier. By this point it was fairly dark so I decided to call it a day and walk home all smug.

Monday 23rd Feb 2015 - Big Perch 3

Weather:  Sunny/Dusk - 4*C - 5:15pm

Water: lure became visible about 2/3ft from surface, quite clear

Lure: Gold/White Spikey Shad

Third absolute beast perch from the canal, weighed in at around 2lbs including net (net was roughly half a pound)

Same as all the other big ones I was into it pretty quick, I'd only been fishing around 5 minutes

This one was also caught on the gold/white spikey shad, it's been sunny all day so I suppose she was waiting till dusk to feed - I went out around 5pm and caught it on around the 6th cast quite far off down to the left.

I played it right up to the middle of the canal directly in front of my peg, managed to get her to surface and saw that distinctive fin before she bumped the hook. I was gutted.

I carried on casting out in a fan shape to try and tempt her again because I knew she would be around still and sure enough I hooked into her not too far from where she come off.

One small perch on chopped worm using the light float rig, fished to the right.

Thursday 19th Feb 2015 - Big Perch 2

Weather: Overcast & Raining 7/8*C

Time: 13:56

Method + Bait: Drop-shotting 5" from bottom - Gold & White Spikey Shad

Had another nice big perch out of the canal. Went out there for a quick 20 minute session to try out the new spikey shads, had a few casts around different swims and caught a perch on around 4th or 5th cast. When retrieving the lure from a cast into the track to the right I had a bite around the shelf area. It was definitely a fish bite but it came off so I cast over the same spot again and sure enough had this beauty on.

It was really raining quite a lot and not a very nice day so I think the canal boats were lethargic and the new lure also cut through the water quite well, very visible. It wasn't a boat-free day, I did see one go past earlier on in the day.

Wednesday 18th Feb 2015 - Sunny again + a lot of boats - 

Float fishing catches from today:

Medium Roach - 11:13am

Tiny Perch ~ 12:30am

- Light rig made of a pear-shaped pole float, 3.5lb line and a size 16 hook

- Fished chopped worm tail on the hook over the top of breadcrumb & prawn groundbait mixed with the rest of the worm (chopped)

- Fished the shelf on the bottom, it's relatively deep - had a lot of good bites and only fished for around an hour and a half, tended to bite more after wiggling the bait a bit

Didn't try any kind of dropshot techniques today, tried close in ledgering to no avail, float wins.

Tuesday 17th Feb 2015 - Garden cut back and float come back

First sunny day in a while and it was lovely, I managed trim back a bunch of the trees and bushes down by my fishing spot and it really opened it up nicely, accompanied with the sun and pleasant temperature it was a good day regardless of whether I fished or not.

Whilst sorting out the garden I had a poke around in the compost bin and to my joy I found a city of worms, it's what seems like an endless supply of earthworms and lobworms all in a nice confined spot.

I fished in the afternoon. I tried drop-shotting and drop-lobing to no avail. I then tried float fishing on shelf/track of the canal with worm. I chopped up a lob into quarters and fished an earthworm and had a nice roach eventually, the bites where really timid though. I mainly got bites after a fresh wiggling worm was put on the hook and I jigged it around a little on the bottom almost like drop-shotting. I did miss a few bites, but after I got my roach a canal boat went past and absolutely stirred everything up. There had been a few go past today.