FLAT LINING
There is never enough time for fishing is there? I have a list of things I want to try that grows with every trip out. Three times a week, minimum, I get out there; working my way through my list. Trying this, trying that, getting nowhere and more desperate all the time; just about keeping it all together and then, every so often, I have to give it a miss for a week.
For many reasons, mostly enjoyable ones in their own right, this is happening more and more often lately. The sense of frustration is palpable. Threads are lost; bait doesn't get ordered or can't be collected in time. Half built rods and floats lie around gathering dust. How many coats of varnish left to put on? Hooklengths that need tying aren't tied when I get to the bank. The long and the short of it is that I struggle to organise my life and anything out of my routine makes everything worse.
Sympathy, understandably yet somehow unreasonably, is in short supply. "It's only a week", "It's only fishing". It never has been and never will be for me, "only fishing". It doesn't alter the fact that nearly two weeks ago, I was catching pretty decent canal Perch down the side and that today, thanks to one of those irregular lay-offs I was only half-prepared to utilise what I had learned.
With the enforced restrictions imposed due to lack of water, boat traffic is heavily condensed into a couple of morning hours. Boats are coming through in pairs to maximise lock usage and minimise water loss. Consequently, by 10 o clock, the canal is no longer still, slopping this way and that as it races down to fill the next lock one minute and ricochets back the other way as soon as it's done so. Then the pumps begin lifting water back uphill as well and all the debris that passed a moment before comes back again. It's a mess and all we can do is hope that the fish still need to eat.
While one can trot a float back and forth, feeding is essentially a random affair and there are severe limits on the effectiveness of both. I have, however, found on my last two visits here that the Perch will often grab a bait just swinging about in the current on a fixed line. To that end I have with some success, resorted, in these circumstances, to abandoning my standard pole rig for a simple line unencumbered by anything but a single BB shot and the bait.
When the current surges, all that the float does is offer a lever to lift the bait to the surface or disappear without trace. The bare line rig, which is essentially a light leger, offers little resistance and allows the bait to waft around lower in the water. Bites are determined by watching the elastic. It will either pull out or, less obviously in the swirling water, wander to one side. My plan was to use a small, unshotted, float laying on the surface to provide a more easily interpreted indicator in all conditions and initial results are promising.
The prototype float that I came up with is one to one and a half inches of unpainted Peacock quill with a half inch of cocktail stick protruding from the bottom and a 50 by 2mm plastic pole tip antenna. This was then easily attached with two float rubbers with the antenna giving good visibilty. Really, the quill on its own would work as well but be less easy to watch among all the other debris swirling about.
First thing, before the boats began, the flat float was just as effective as any other. Perch fishing with worms has more in common with deadbaiting for Pike than anything else. The float bobs a couple of times and then wanders off before sliding away, leaving the angler to decide when to strike. He has to leave it long enough for the fish to get the hook in its mouth but be quick enough to avoid gut-hooking. A good disgorger is the most essential piece of kit for he will be lost without it.
Once the traffic started, it had the hitherto unused muscle to just drag the BB shot across the bottom in fits and starts which itself garnered some interest and then once the bait was directly downstream from the pole tip sat flat on the surface, very stable and very visible. Bites were quite obvious as well, the float just sliding under, but on the downside it caught a bit more rubbish. I would say that initial results were encouraging but in the end the boat traffic became so intense that the bites just stopped altogether.
With fifteen minutes to go, the boats eased and we began getting bites again so there is clearly a limit on what the fish will put up with in given circumstances but it was progress. Of course I can't go next week now either and I can feel the frustration mounting already.
For many reasons, mostly enjoyable ones in their own right, this is happening more and more often lately. The sense of frustration is palpable. Threads are lost; bait doesn't get ordered or can't be collected in time. Half built rods and floats lie around gathering dust. How many coats of varnish left to put on? Hooklengths that need tying aren't tied when I get to the bank. The long and the short of it is that I struggle to organise my life and anything out of my routine makes everything worse.
Sympathy, understandably yet somehow unreasonably, is in short supply. "It's only a week", "It's only fishing". It never has been and never will be for me, "only fishing". It doesn't alter the fact that nearly two weeks ago, I was catching pretty decent canal Perch down the side and that today, thanks to one of those irregular lay-offs I was only half-prepared to utilise what I had learned.
With the enforced restrictions imposed due to lack of water, boat traffic is heavily condensed into a couple of morning hours. Boats are coming through in pairs to maximise lock usage and minimise water loss. Consequently, by 10 o clock, the canal is no longer still, slopping this way and that as it races down to fill the next lock one minute and ricochets back the other way as soon as it's done so. Then the pumps begin lifting water back uphill as well and all the debris that passed a moment before comes back again. It's a mess and all we can do is hope that the fish still need to eat.
While one can trot a float back and forth, feeding is essentially a random affair and there are severe limits on the effectiveness of both. I have, however, found on my last two visits here that the Perch will often grab a bait just swinging about in the current on a fixed line. To that end I have with some success, resorted, in these circumstances, to abandoning my standard pole rig for a simple line unencumbered by anything but a single BB shot and the bait.
When the current surges, all that the float does is offer a lever to lift the bait to the surface or disappear without trace. The bare line rig, which is essentially a light leger, offers little resistance and allows the bait to waft around lower in the water. Bites are determined by watching the elastic. It will either pull out or, less obviously in the swirling water, wander to one side. My plan was to use a small, unshotted, float laying on the surface to provide a more easily interpreted indicator in all conditions and initial results are promising.
The prototype float that I came up with is one to one and a half inches of unpainted Peacock quill with a half inch of cocktail stick protruding from the bottom and a 50 by 2mm plastic pole tip antenna. This was then easily attached with two float rubbers with the antenna giving good visibilty. Really, the quill on its own would work as well but be less easy to watch among all the other debris swirling about.
First thing, before the boats began, the flat float was just as effective as any other. Perch fishing with worms has more in common with deadbaiting for Pike than anything else. The float bobs a couple of times and then wanders off before sliding away, leaving the angler to decide when to strike. He has to leave it long enough for the fish to get the hook in its mouth but be quick enough to avoid gut-hooking. A good disgorger is the most essential piece of kit for he will be lost without it.
In practice and true to form, ripples would first appear round the float which would then follow the fish out of the swim before slipping beneath the surface. One could argue that in its unshotted state it might offer unnecessary resistance to a taking fish but I would suggest that with Perch in particular, it actually encourages a firmer hold on the bait. It certainly worked as well as my standard, super-light pole rigs today.
Once the traffic started, it had the hitherto unused muscle to just drag the BB shot across the bottom in fits and starts which itself garnered some interest and then once the bait was directly downstream from the pole tip sat flat on the surface, very stable and very visible. Bites were quite obvious as well, the float just sliding under, but on the downside it caught a bit more rubbish. I would say that initial results were encouraging but in the end the boat traffic became so intense that the bites just stopped altogether.
With fifteen minutes to go, the boats eased and we began getting bites again so there is clearly a limit on what the fish will put up with in given circumstances but it was progress. Of course I can't go next week now either and I can feel the frustration mounting already.
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