Loughborough canal, 16/02/13

Today the river was high so again I headed to the canal. I originally planned to fish the Swingbridge Road section, but there was a match on, I assume a rescheduled match originally planned for the river. 

I decided to head down to the Bishops Meadow section, and aim for some larger fish as I have caught plenty of small fish around the area there before. As the water was very coloured, I wanted to try some flavoured luncheon meat for some chub and bream or possibly tench and barbel. 

Bishops meadow section

There was very little interest for a while, and eventually I reverted to my insurance policy of mixed maggots. I had a size 16 hook on for the luncheon meat, so I stuck a red and white maggot on the hook together and continued fishing. The effect was instantaneous: bites every minute. 

The double maggot seemed to encourage the larger fish, and in 2 hours I managed a nice haul of around 50 fish, most being roach of around 4-5 oz. 

Typical roach today

Other catches included silver bream, perch, and bleak - one of which was quite an impressive size for its species:

Impressive bleak

One of the silver bream

After the couple of hours I ran out of maggots, and did not fancy going back to luncheon meat, so I decided to try a bit of spinning for large perch or pike. I was not expecting much, as I have never caught anything on spinner in fresh water, and the water was very coloured making it difficult for a lure to be seen. 

However, today was just about to get better. About half an hour into starting to fish with a lure, I thought I had snagged the bottom again. Just as I was about to get in a huff, the line peeled off my reel and I realised I was into something big. After a fight of about ten minutes, I landed my first ever pike!

First ever pike

I didn't have any scales with me, but I guessed the fish to be around 4 - 5 pounds. Getting the lure out was a bit scary with the incredible set of teeth this monster has, but I have seen on videos how to do this and had forceps in my bag as always.

Now I had the technique sorted, I continued fishing, and hooked an even bigger monster! I fought with it for around 20 minutes, and as it was surfacing I could see the hook was only just caught in the outside of the jaw. Unfortunately this hold was not enough and he managed to free himself before I could land him. I will get him next time!

So today was very successful with two very different styles of fishing. I wonder if the match blokes sat for hours with their daft poles caught anything all day? One thing is for sure, they will not have had anywhere near as much fun as me!