DOWNSIZING

     For donkey's years, canal match anglers would target fish tight against far bank vegetation. I'd always wondered why given how shallow it usually is. Boats after all rarely go there so that is where the silt is always going to settle out. Personally, since I began bait fishing I've always fished the deeper water where they do go all the time; catching decent fish early on but not much once they begin moving in earnest. Once they do get going, I move to near bank swims and hope to top the morning up with the odd small Perch.

     Everything I've read or watched has promoted fishing the far shelf and if I'm honest, the real reasons I haven't is because my cane poles won't reach and I find it difficult to boss my float rigs on rod and line due to drift of one kind or another. Trying to sink the line invariably drags my bait away from the far margin and into every snag imaginable. Also I'm just not good enough to get things under control; at least I haven't been yet.

     Feeder or bomb fishing has always seemed like the answer to all my problems but success has been limited so far; not so much through lack of interest from the fish, more my inability to hook them. Even a small 10 gram cage feeder makes a good splash when it hits the water and in 10 - 18" of water it still feels too much. For today, I made some 5 gram open ended feeders. It was pretty easy and only took five minutes to knock up four prototypes in 16 and 22 mm diameters. They worked really well entering the shallow water with a tiny plop no more disturbing than the hawthorn berries falling from above.

     The biggest improvement however has come from my changes in bite detection and striking. Not striking at even quite violent bites but waiting until the fish is obviously committed reduces swim disturbance and leads to more hook-ups. Fish that won't commit are fed more slack line until they can eventually swim off with the bait without encountering any resistance and that has transformed my results.

     While not all my fish have been larger by any means, feeding spells appear to be prolonged and despite the boat traffic, more of them have been netters so the signs are good. I just need to get a few more trips under my belt to be sure and to find areas that hold more decent fish. That's the thing with canals these days; there are plenty of better