Been looking forward to this session of drop shotting for a while,
I had a little dabble with this method last time I was down on the canal with my wing man Paul, but this time we are having a more detailed investigation of this piece of water and tactic.
So the plan of action was to arrive early (6.30am) Saturday morning to meet Paul at the back of the train station car park. It's a safe place to leave your car and being right by the canal it gives us easy access to the water, this canal is 30 odd miles long and it's got everything from concrete bridges, moored boats, flashes, locks and loads off over hanging bushes and trees there must be so many hiding places for Mr perch. It's going to take us forever to find them that's why the method we are using will give us the best chance of catching these fish.
My equipment for this raid on the canal is as follows, my rod is a 7 ft savage gear roadrunner that's coupled with a fox rage 2500 series reel loaded with braid so that I'll feel every knock and pull, this will also allow me to cast my jellies with no problem also my landing net is savage gear this thing folds up and has a telescopic handle quality bit of kit. Ron Thompson landing mat to protect the fish from hard ground and forceps, pliers, and cutters so I'm covered for any job, that's my kit now let's put it to use......
Awesome Ecogear jellies
Right I turn up at the train station at the allotted time and start to get my gear ready by the car, if I can hold on to it and stop the dam wind from taking it and throwing it all over the place to say the weather has been bad the last few weeks is an understatement that's why I haven't been so much. The little river I fish is in the fields and most of the lakes I like to dangle in have got an extra 30,000,000 gallons of cold water in them and one thing I've learnt is that the fish don't feed when the lakes have been top up with cold water. Just before 6.30am Paul turns up and starts to set him self up and we discuss what way we are going to go after them stripeys 10 mins of chatting and giggling like little school boys who have done something naughty we decide to make our way up the canal. This is going to be a big decision and your find out later why, on our way we talk all things perchy and where we think would be the best place to drop our lures the flashes were to big and had nothing to aim for just open water but what we did see was that there were a lot of cut outs along the bank where people moored there boats.
mooring for boats
There's no one at home
Working yard with weed cutter boat
We knew where we were going and decided to head there and see what happens now this place is a big lock with working boats for the canal I.e a dredger and weed cutter there was plenty of water to and lots of holes to drop our lures into.
Me working the big lock
Jigging a out flow
Now this place couldn't get more perchy and me and Paul tried loads of different jigs,lures and drop shotting jellies and the only action we got was from a small jack pike that Paul lost at the net. So now we walked a bit further up the canal but it just shallowed up and we really wasn't feeling it.
so we decided to head back and try a section by a row of shops, that had a road bridge and a wider section and was a lot deeper. Now just along from this was a long barge boat that look liked it was well maintained and used regularly, just behind the rear of the boat was a pipe with water coming out, I said to Paul let's try here and gave him the first cast as I was changing my drop shot jelly to a different colour now to say Paul's casting is like Phil the power Taylor throwing darts is a understatement, because his first cast landed behind the boat between the rudder and the pipe what a piece of angling. Two turns of the reel handle and Paul shouts I'm in and we both thought that it is another jack but after a min or two a very large perch rolls in front of us and the panic and fear in Paul's eyes as his attached to a big old stripey was very funny. Now having a professional fisherman beside him, that's me I'm talking about, I calm the situation with a well time scoop of the landing net and then we both danced, high fived and cuddled each other. As we have a monster in the net and at 2lb 3oz it's a new P/B well done that man very please and proud to be a witness of this special day
That cast had to be right
Now the canal is a vast water way with many many places to fish and at £3 for a day ticket it's very cheap as well, the thing that puts people off it's not stocked with ten tons of fish and it's hard but a bit of persistence you can catch some very nice fish as Paul has shown, that fish is worth 100 of the type you catch in a commercial fishery because it's probably never been caught before.
Now I didn't catch anything but I was more than happy to be there with my wing man Paul and help him land that fish, I'm blanking again but I'm learning so it's not all bad news my time will come and that 4lb perch better watch out so until next time tight lines.
Follow us on twitter @TheGudgeon, @frychaser.
