Formerly Loughborough Fishing

Friday 8 March 2013

First canal trip ever

The weather is rubbish and I have loads of University work to do, so I won't be going fishing for a week or so, and to keep this blog interesting I thought I'd do a new post about the first time I went fishing in Loughborough. 

I had ran along much of the canal around Loughborough before, so I had a reasonable idea of where some fish holding features may be. It was mid-October, and it was very bright. I decided to fish in the shadow of bishops meadow bridge - the first bridge beyond the conversion of river to canal. My thinking was that with temperatures dropping fish would be moving from the river to canal, and with it being bright they would take shelter under the bridge. 

Venue - next to bishops meadow bridge

I fished maggot on the float, in an attempt to just catch something. It was the first time I had ever fished any canal, and was much more used to commercial fisheries where bites would come every cast. I scaled my tackle down to a size 22 hook on 1lb 8oz line, which I would never have dared use before. However, the setup paid off and I soon caught my first canal fish, which turned out to be a perch. 

First canal fish - a small perch

I caught around 10 fish - perch and roach - in the space of a couple of hours, including a quite large perch of around one pound.

Largest fish of the day

I also caught a surprise fish - a ruffe - which I had never caught before, and have never caught since. I'm not sure how common/rare these are in the canal and river around here but it was nice to get a new species on the board. 

Ruffe

All in all it was a very good trip, and was a lot better than I expected. It definitely motivated me to go back and try fishing the canal again, and I had a go at the river soon after, which I will write about at some point soon. 

If you're reading this unsure whether to try fishing around here - do it! You will be surprised at the quality and quantity of the fish, I certainly was.

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