Friday 1st April - Pleasure Session Feeder Canal Bristol

The Feeder Canal in the heart of Bristol is approximately 1.5 miles long and is the link between the Bristol Avon and the City Docks. It does flow and is affected by the lock by the Bristol Avon and a couple within the Docks.
I had tried to fish the Feeder Canal last week but could not park as the majority of it's length is surrounded by Industrial Estates and a lot of double yellow lines so parking is at a premium. I was up early this morning (06:00) and on the road into Bristol at around 06;45 which also meant I beat the morning rush period. I had been given a few tips where to fish on Facebook and in the end decided to fish in the middle up by the old South West Electricity Building. There is some far bank cover in this area so at least the view in front of me would be OK.

Directly behind me was the busy Feeder Road and Hills Distribution which meant huge Arctic's coming in and out so .... quite a lot going on.

In addition there was a pedestrian Foot Bridge, a Fly Over and a Railway Bridge so .. totally 'Extreme Urban Fishing'.

As I was setting up a Cormorant appeared which indicated to me that there were fish around (although it was April 1st).

The flow was toward Bristol Docks and it was moving quite slowly. I set up a 1.5 gramme rig and a 1 gramme. depth was pretty even all the way across at two thirds (13 meters) and about 15 feet deep (nice). Hook was a Drennan 18 maggot to 0.10 on both rigs. I had almost a pint of caster, half a tin of hemp, half pint of reds and some red worms in case there was perch around. my ground bait mix was black crumb (from Ireland last year), lake and roach. Two tightly packed balls were fed at 13 meters and a couple of nuggets at 5 meters. the 5 meter line was not fished all day in the end.

Double red went on the hook and I was fishing by 08:15. I did let there rig run through and the float did dip slightly, I held it back and it buried. A Dace of around 6 oz's was on and it put up a good fight on the long line given the depth and the 4 elastic. back out and holding back straight away this time I was rewarded with another Dace but a little smaller none the less a nice fish. The flow then picked up and I increased the depth by around 6 inches and added another No. 8 shot in order to hold back hard. That was spot on as I caught 3 or 4 in as many put in's.

the bites tailed off a little so re-fed another ball and at the same time the flow stopped. Altered the rig again and starting connecting with them again. I put on a caster and the float buried straight away resulting in a roach of about 4 oz.

A couple of hours into the session I heard a 'beep beep' and turned around to see Simon Hebditch waving out to me in the M5 Angling Van. Another silver van also beeped out at me, i think it was fellow Clevedon Club member Scott Smallwood.

That's pretty much how my 5 hour session went, adjusting the rig and depth depending on the flow or tow. I had a really good session with lots of bites and with the flow etc. could have been on a river!

The spring balance went 8 lbs 10 oz's.

Only 2 roach with the bag of fish but not complaining.

The Feeder Canal is free fishing, not affected by the Close Season. If you go during the week make sure you get there before 07:30 in order to park or go in the evening after 17:00. Dace, Roach, Perch and Bream frequent the Canal plus the odd Chub.