I was quite impressed with the Feeder Canal last week after having nearly 9 lbs of Dace, my first visit for 30 years so called into Cadbury Angling Monday afternoon to see if Toby had any caster. he did and they were top quality. Also picked up half a pint of red and some hemp along with a bag of Lake.
I was up just before 06:00 and heading into Bristol (20 minutes away) at 06:45 in order to park. I planned to try a bit further down from where I was last week and was hoping to park fairly near.
No chance of that, I ended up parking up by the old Electricity Building as everywhere else was full. I had my Barrow in the car so loaded that up and took my chance crossing the busy Feeder Rd with all the commuters heading into work as well as the Industrial Estate traffic.
I have been obtaining information on the Feeder Canal, one good source is a Facebook Page dedicated to the water, just google Bristol Feeder Canal Facebook.
After a short walk down towards Temple Meads Railway Station I stopped directly opposite Clarks Wood, there is a small bay here but decided to go just down from it as some of the workers were leaning over the railings having a chat. The Canal is a bit narrower here compared to where I was last week.
The conditions looked spot on when I was set up at around 08:30
Apart from a few tree's on my bank it was all industrial buildings on the far side.
Two rigs today, one 1.5 gramme for down the middle, about 3 inches over depth, just two number 10 below the Olivetti, 18 maggot hook fine wire to 0.10. The other was more or less the same but for fishing 13 meters where the depth was about a foot shallower and at around 9 feet.
Three big balls were cupped in down the middle at the start and tightly packed with hemp and caster. I left the 13 meter line alone at the start. Double red went on the hook and the presentation due to the conditions was perfect but not a sign of a fish after several torts through in the steady flow. after 30 minutes I was still without a bite and started to consider moving back up to were I had been a week ago.
Now you know what they say about birds shitting on you! Well a huge piece of gull crap landed on my arm just as I had fully shipped out into the middle so left it there and would wipe it off when I brought the rig back in. After a short run down the float dipped and a roach of about 6 ozs came to the net! Happy days, gull shit removed and back out again ( I had not fed anything else since my initial three balls). The float buried again and this time a small dace. More dace followed and after 15 minutes fed another ball as well as some caster through the catty. I put double caster on the hook and just after the float settled it disappeared at speed, I struck and the no. 4 elastic came out of the tip by about 2 foot. Thought it might have been a perch but no it was a roach of around 10 ozs. A guy who was standing behind me and also an angler (Commercial Angler) but not fishing couldn't believe it. He remained and watched as I put a few more roach in the net between 4 ozs and 6 ozs all on either single or double caster.
Around 10:30 the wind really started to get stronger and the pole at times was like a banana. I put a few more inched on the depth and loosed fed some caster and hemp through the pole pot as well as the odd little nugget. Even though the presentation was not great they were still having it.
I decided to call it a day around 13:30 as the wind was just getting stronger and did not want to get the pole smashed.
Three young lads came up from the bottom end, they had pretty crude gear but told me they had been catching the odd dace and roach down by the old Post Office.
I gave them my left over maggot and caster and showed them my catch, they had not seen that many fish come out of the Feeder before. The spring balance registered 17 lbs 6 ozs. The lads kindly took a picture for me.
Quality bag of fish 17 lbs 6 ozs
Not bad for a free venue that flows and fishable in the Close Season.
No comments:
Post a Comment