Well, today is the last day of the inland river fishing season. I have never understood why the the change was made from a total Course Fishing ban from 16th March to 16th June to the new system whereby some waters are open and some not. I observe the old Closed Season and will not go fishing again until June. Not being able to go fishing today, I made yesterday my last trip of the season. Yesterday morning was very warm and sunny here and I had the sun on my back all morning when I was pruning shrubs in a customers garden so though it would be a lovely day on which to finish my season. I forgot to take my bait box with me in the morning so after lunch, I loaded my gear into the back of my van and set of for the local tackle shop only to find a notice on the window proclaiming Due to unforeseen circumstance we are closed today. Not a great start to the afternoon. Putting Plan B into action, I headed for our local corner shop and purchased a white thick sliced loaf and headed to the Soar Navigation. By the time I arrived around 2:30pm, the wind was getting up and the sun had all but disappeared. The surface of the canal was being whipped us into waves so I elected for a ledger set-up. After an hour with no bites at all, I decided to change over to a float and fish just off the bottom. Within no time, I had a small Roach. This was followed shortly after by another about the same size. What happened next, I was not expecting. The float went under and I struck to find something a fair bit bigger that put up a short but strong fight. I could see through the murky water, that this was somewhat bigger than the two sardine sizes Roach I had caught earlier so elected to use the landing net. When I got the fish into the net, I saw that it was a reasonable sized Bream! OK, it wasnt a monster by any stretch of the imagination but it was a Bream and I have never caught one from this canal before, plenty of Roach and Perch but no Bream. I had heard from local Anglers that they were in this water but not actually seen one caught. I returned the fish to the water after taking a photo on my mobile and continued fishing. A short while later, I had a very nice Roach that must have been around the same length of the Bream and quite a solid fish. After returning the Roach, I continued to fish for about 40 minutes but no more bites. The wind had really got up by now and the sky had turned a horrible grey so I decided to give up and go home for tea. It was a frustrating afternoon one way or another but at least I managed to catch a few fish, some of which were pretty decent (by my standards) so I went home happy. Roll on June; I think my project for the next season, will be to find some really decent Bream in this canal. I dont get the chance to go fishing as often as I would like but if, on the odd day I can manage it, I am rewarded by a few decent fish, it will have been worth it.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 18:43:18 +0000
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