Well today I had one of those sessions when you just get lucky and sit yourself in exactly the right place. A combination of not having seen how much the Thames had dropped since it was a mess midweek and a big session in London for the rugby yesterday had me not really feeling getting up early and gambling on the river so chose to go down the canal instead. Was hoping that despite the couple frosts we’ve had this weekend and the bright sun the still heavily coloured water from the rain and bit of warmth from the sun would get a few skimmers moving but I didn’t expect what happened that’s for sure. My usual stretch was a no go with the wind hacking up it so luckily there was one gap in the boats in the sheltered marina so I went for that. I’d not fished the swim before but it was probably about 50 yards on both sides from spots I’d fished before so figured it worth a shot and wasn’t it half!
Yesterdays beers and the frosty start meant I had a lay in so didn’t start fishing until nearly 10 then fished through until just after 3 when the sun dropping behind the trees pretty much halved the temperature. In that time I had 28 skimmers and 6 perch which of any size would have been ok for late winters day. But the size was very good indeed with every single fish needing a landing net with at least 25 of the fish being over a pound with the biggest few maybe 3lb and the average probably working out over half that. They may well have amassed to maybe 50lb so probably double what I’ve ever done on the Thames let alone the canal that I usually really struggle with. The fish were just packed up under a boat and I had to cast within about foot of it to get a bite and further off and it was zilch so was just so lucky with where I sat myself. Really was an unbelievable session with almost every fish putting a good bend into the rod. Even though I was putting that fish back well away from the shoal I was amazed they never spooked as it was pretty steady sport all day.
Tackle wise it was the 13ft drennan acolyte ultra float rod paired with a 2500 shimano sahara RD reel loaded with 3lb maxima. I usually go with a lighter float and smaller hook on the canal than other venues but today I went with my preferred river and lake combo of a 1.5g drennan loaded crystal insert waggler to a size 18 to 2lb drennan silverfish hook to nylon. This was set up to just slightly overdepth in about 5ft of water which is quite deep for this canal which might have been another factor in why the fish were holed up there. It’s next to a turning bay so I guess the boats using that scour it out a bit deeper than the rest of it. Hookbait wise everything fell to single red maggot over loose feed of red maggots. Groundbait wise I picked up the wrong one really out of habit going for a roach one being Blake baits roach multi match (formerly called roach a choco) but it didn’t seem to make any difference and tbh I think loosefeed alone would have worked as was simply landing on top of fish. Only real trick was to not feed too many maggots at once as that tended to causing funny bites and liners.
My grandad was with me again and how his day unfolded just summed up how lucky I got with where I sat. Ge was fishing open water and after a skimmer first cast it then took a good couple hours to get them going and even then he only ended up with I think 10 skimmers. Still they were quality fish though probably averaging best part of a couple pounds and tbh he has the sort of day I’d have thought realistically the best achievable at the start of the session. He also had to fish it quite different to me having to feed more heavily and fish double and triple baits to get bites so I’d imagine whilst I was on top of fishing he was probably more picking up the odd one mooching around.
So all in all a very much unexpected but very welcome day. I wouldn’t rate it as highly as when I’ve done say 20lb plus river roach bags as that takes a bit more skill whereas today it was super simple fishing with the only skill really being casting accuracy really but it was still a very special session indeed and one that I doubt I’ll ever better on the canal. Turns out the river was fishable in places as I saw a match won with 30lb of mostly bream/skimmers today but tbh I didn’t mind missing out on the river today after how the canal produced! I was hoping to get on the river next weekend as it had looked dry this week but it now looks rather wet so might well be back on the canal again but we shall see.
Picture heavy today with one of the swim plus a selection of the skimmers of various sizes and the two biggest perch.
. Very good report. On par with a Simon report is that. 
