Well, the plan was to fish the swingbridge section of Loughborough canal today, but contrary to BBC weather's forecast, the wind was strong, cold, and causing a massive surface drift making it pretty much unfishable with a rod.
So, back below bishops meadow lock where there is at least a bit of shelter from the wind. Again, the river was very high and the canal water very coloured making conditions quite difficult.
Using the trusty maggot, I managed to pull out a nice mix of bream, roach and bleak, with a few hybrids. I've never known so many hybrids to be found in one place - perhaps the roach and bream have the same spawning patches on that short stretch of canal?
After a couple of hours, the wind was numbing my fingers surely to the point of frostbite, so I prepared for one last cast. The float popped down, and I struck into a fish. I pulled it out and realised it was my first ever gudgeon! I knew they were in the canal, but somehow I'd never come across one. I briefly wondered if it was in fact a baby barbel, but the fish only had two barbels as gudgeon have, instead of the four of a barbel.
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| First ever Gudgeon! |
Talking of barbel, when I was setting up I saw a very large fish take something from the surface, I only saw the back - from the size it could only be carp, pike, barbel or tench, and the scale pattern was definitely not pike or carp. It looked more like a barbel to me - whatever it was, there is an extremely big fish in that stretch of canal, possibly into double figures. Something to aim for another day!
Hopefully the wind will die down over the next couple of days and the water become a bit clearer, and I can attack some other areas of the canal.
Details for tickets for the north Loughborough canal are given in the post below.
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