An afternoon by the canal

Yesterday I snatched Jeff away from Judy just 12 hours after his return from London on his working holiday. Our chosen venue was the Coventry canal in Longford for afternoon session of drowning maggots. This was my first experience of canal fishing so I has brought along several types of bait, mixed maggots, castors, sweet corn, bread and a dozen of our allotment's finest earthworms that varied in size up to snake size proportions!

A 5 minute walk from gallery we picked a spot where Jeff had spied fish earlier that day, I chose a place with a tree opposite in the hope that the fish were using it for cover. I had over packed, I'm used to river fishing with a trolley to cart my gear around, so I was glad we had only walked 5 minutes. Jeff advised that a waggler was best for the canal so I chose a medium sized black bodied/orange tipped float from my newly refurbished tackle box. (I'll post some photos when I get around to it)

Within 5 minutes of casting with a baited hook Jeff was in with a small bream, were the fish gods smiling on us today? About 30 minutes later I got small perch and Jeff got a tiny roach - the smallest he'd ever caught on the canal. We stuck out for another 45 minutes before we decided that the fish were somewhere else.

We moved spots to about 500m away from the M6 bridge, the tree cover was thicker and the far bank had changed from pilings to soil, ideal we thought - there were a couple of lilies to throw into the mix - the fish are bound to be here. We stuck out the waggler, tho I changed to a crystal bodied/yellow tip because the black body of my original float could be seen through the top 6 inches of water confusing any bites. No joy with the maggots, castors or sweet corn so I switched over to the worms. This was the bait of choice, I got a 4-5 ounce roach within a few casts - Jeff said I was only the forth person he know to of caught a roach on the canal. I got a perch 20 minutes later, and Jeff got one 30 minutes after that but the rest of the trip was sparse apart from the welcome refreshments from Judy!

As we packed up our kit a decision was made "we need flowing water". Jeff and I plan to visit the Blythe on our next local trip, although a trip to the Dove might be on the cards to take the girls with us!