Fish in distress

I went fishing for a few hours today on the canal at Swingbridge Road. The fishing was terrible, caught one very small chub on maggot - but the boat traffic was unbelievable. 

As I was fishing by the reeds, I spotted a large fish in the reeds, wiggling around but not moving anywhere. I assumed it was a spawning fish so left it alone for a few minutes, but it had not moved ten minutes later. I had found loads of loose thick monofilament line all over the floor around the area - picking them up to take home for the bin - and so began to think that the large fish could be wrapped up in loose line. Fortunately I had a landing net with me, and putting the net under the fish I could feel resistance from the reeds - it was trapped in loose line. I pulled up reeds that were moving as I tried lifting the net and eventually managed to free the fish from the reeds at least. 

I got the fish on the bank and immediately found thick monofilament wrapped around the fishes head and behind the pectoral fins. The fish was obviously in a lot of distress so I quickly cut line from around its body and freed it. 

3 pound bream free of line

I took the picture above and then released it back into the water. It must have been trapped for some time, as it can be seen in the picture that there is a large amount of swelling around where the line was tight. 

There was no hook in sight, so it was not a fish that had snapped off a light line. This was caused by pure negligence and laziness of so called 'anglers' leaving loose line lying around, it getting caught up in reeds and then fish getting wrapped up and potentially killed. 

TAKE LOOSE LINE HOME AND CHUCK IT IN THE BIN

Some may be thinking the trap could have been intentionally set by a poacher. Well it happens around here, there were signs of poaching in the area - i.e. sticks stuck in the bank side to hold nets - but from the way it was all just tangled up in the reeds I do not think it was intentional. Of course it could have been collateral from poachers chucking loose line around without a care in the world, one likes to hope anglers take more care. 

Next time you get a birds nest on your reel and you cut it off - put it in your pocket, please. Or you're worse than a poacher - killing fish out of pure contempt.  

Fish of a lifetime - lost

It has been many many years since I nearly cried because of a fish. The last time was losing my first ever big carp at Sherwood Forest Center Parcs. Today I felt exactly the same, unfortunately I don't have any evidence for this story so its up to you whether you believe it.

This morning was beautiful weather, due to get worse the next few days so I thought I'd give my awesome Husky Jerk Rapala lure another go on the canal, see post below for pic and details. Anyway, I wasn't getting any action in my usual spots, so I jigged a rubber grub for some perch just to ensure I didn't blank (unimaginable!). After 3 perch around a pound each I decided to go back to the Husky Jerk and try some different spots, in case I was missing some good areas. 

I had a take, and I could instantly feel that it was not a pike, it just fought completely differently. It was a big fish - stripping line off quite a tight clutch, and I knew whatever it was would be special. I saw a flash of bronze flank and initially thought it could be a carp - but then as I saw it better I realised it was in fact an enormous chub - easily pushing 4 pounds, probably more.

Now I travel very light as it is a long walk to the canal for me, and I don't use a landing net, as pike are fairly easy to pull out of the water by grabbing them under the gill flap. However, I really regret not having a landing net with me, as if I had this post would have been totally different and covered in pictures of me beaming holding an enormous chub. I tried to grab it out of the water with my hand but it was too fat to fit around. The 10 cm long lure looked small in its mouth - and as I was trying to get a hold it managed to shake the hooks loose and escape - also making me regret flattening down the hook barbs. 

I'm sorry but I'm not saying where this occurred - I will definitely be going back to try and have another chance, and I don't want someone else to get there first. But now you and I know there are some very special fish in the canal, in some places that I didn't expect. 

Somehow I can't see myself bettering that fish for a long long time, but I would love to be proven wrong. 

Rubber pike strikes again

With the first warm weather for a few weeks, I thought I'd take a few lures along to the canal to see if I could catch a large perch that I have been wanting for a while. There are definitely large specimen perch in the canal and river Soar around Loughborough; I have seen one being caught before. 

The lure I decided to use was a little rubber waggly thing (I really don't know that much about lures yet), and from a range of wonderful colours I went for a silver one, as common sense tells me that a fish will probably take something that looks like normal food over something that doesn't... 

Silver rubber waggly lure thing

As I was going for perch, I fished just off a lock wierpool wall where perch tend to hide in the shadows and strike out at little fish passing by. I simply let the lure sink to the bottom, and jigged it up and down between half depth and full depth. This resulted in loads of bites - obviously lots of small perch that couldn't swallow the lure beyond the hook point. 

I managed to hook 4 perch in all, the biggest being a fat lump of around one and a half pounds.

Lure caught perch

After a while I noticed a large shoal of small fish being spooked in the middle of the canal. This could have been perch, but I guessed from the mass panic that it would be a pike. I changed lures to my trusty rubber pike (shown in a post below) and ran the lure through the area. On the second cast, the pike stuck. After a good fight, this turned out to be a fish of around 6 pounds. 

6 pound pike

I have caught 3 pike now on the same lure, all in a similar area. I briefly wondered if I might have had the same pike twice as they are territorial, but the size differences have been too big and the markings are different looking at pictures taken. 

I seem to be getting the hang of this lure fishing stuff, still looking for a zander as the ultimate target though!

Another pike

This afternoon I had a couple of hours to spare, and as it was wonderful weather I thought I'd have another go at lure fishing the canal - my second time of doing so, read about the first below.

I was hoping for a personal best perch, pike, or maybe even a first zander. 

Over a couple of hours, I hooked two fish, one came off but was quite small and felt like a perch. The other take resulted in a nice jack pike of about 3 pounds. 

3 pound jack pike

I wasn't expecting a great deal today, I spent a lot of time playing with different techniques to make the lure behave in different ways. 

The lure I have been catching pike on is a rubber artificial baby pike lure, with a jerky retrieving method. 

Baby pike lure

Today was great for improving lure retrieval techniques and for improving casting accuracy. Hopefully next time I can catch an even bigger specimen, there are pike rumoured to reach 20 pounds in the area! A zander is my main species target now, as I have until June before moving back to Middlesbrough, and they don't get that far north. 

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!