A warm welcome to this week's blog update. This week the rivers
have again been in flood and any thoughts of a trip to the bank saw any river
where thwarted by a constant deluge of rain on Friday. This extra rain
saw the river Dee tantalisingly close to bursting her banks in certain
locations and although water levels where fishable further upstream the
ferocity of the flow and the water been a thick wall of muddy soup meant any
chance of us getting on the river was gone. We of course would still get
on the banks of a water somewhere in this glorious country but where still
remained a mystery.
Before we get onto to this week's Fishy Fact of Fiction it is with great
sadness I announce that my uncle will not be joining me on the banks this week,
last I heard he went fishing at Chester weir. I went down and recovered
his camera and there was only one picture on it shown below :-)
So to the popular Fishy Fact or Fiction, I posted this question up
on a forum and it got some really good feedback and responses form anglers.
The majority of comments confirmed what I was saying in my update in
that the amount of boat traffic a canal receives generally determines how the
fish react and fish in a canal that has heavy boat pressure will naturally not
be as effected by boats as fish in a canal that has very few boats. One
user did make an interesting point that it was the movement in locks that
caused the problems and ruined the fishing not the actual boats going through
the swim, an interesting point and one that could prove interesting to debate
in the future. How long this series can last I don’t know as it's really
hard to think of topics that I can relate too, thankfully this week's
came to me on the actual bank whilst fishing so on to this week's instalment of
Fishy Fact or Fiction.
“Are fish Clever"
Scientists for years have told us not to worry about the mental state of
the goldfish in our living rooms as their short term memory is so short that by
the time they have swam back round the bowl they have forgot they have seen the
same scenery twice, but how true is this of wild natural fish? Do fish that are
fished for heavily remember that they were caught on a certain bait before so
avoid it? Do fish even think danger when they see a bait or is it all down to
no arousing a fish's suspicions and prey on the philosophy that any fish if it
senses no danger and is hungry will be caught on any bait on any method?
I start my input on this topic by using one of the most obliging fish
that swim in our waters, chub. The fish with an incessant appetite for
any food material that enters it watery habitat and a fish that, like all fish,
is either very easy to catch or anger inducing hard to catch. I take you
to the banks of the River Dane where I have spent many an hour catching chub
and over that time I have learnt a thing or two about these chub that leads me
to believe that fish do have a certain amount of short term memory but also
makes me feel that it is more to do with their long term memory banks why they
don’t take the bait.
Many a time on the river Dane I have approached a swim and found the
chub settled, moving across the gravel bars picking up morsels of food.
The first fish normally comes quite quick to any method for this we will say
trotted corn but the second fish never ever falls for trotted corn but a quick
change over to corn presented static on the bottom with a lead leads to an
instant bite, same bait different method or presentation, so why is this the
case? It could be down to bad presentation on the trotting part but is
certainly not down to a fear of that bait or else the second chub would not eat
it. I believe the fish sees the bait coming through the swim as dangerous
but does not associate danger with the static one, so in essence in this
situation are fish "clever" in my opinion no its all down to the
state they are in and if they suspect danger.
Of course in these Fishy Fact or Fictions I am not oblivious to the
other side of the argument that could come from the carp branch of the sport
where it could be said that fish are clever and they do remember a lot more
than we give them respect for, for instance when a bait is taking a venue
apart, say white pop ups and fish after fish come to anglers using it then all
of a sudden no one is catching on it as the fish wise up. This I think is
down to the long term memory of the fish and them storing what they associate
with danger for example with birds as a general rule, red berries are a sign of
danger and not to eat them and I guess the fish adapt that in built mechanism
in themselves to remember and associate certain food baits as danger over time
and not to eat them. The carp world and of course the barbel and chub
world overcome these fears in a number of ways such as feeding the swim up
without actually putting a bait in the water and being ultra-careful not to
spook the fish when moving into and around a swim.
In summary I think that the answer to are fish clever? is fiction, the
amount of work you have to put in to catch a fish is, in my opinion all down to
the state the fish is in, if it is hungry and suspects no danger the fish can
be caught but sometimes changes need to be made to overcome and fear that fish
feels whether that be through change of presentation or building the fishes
confidence over time by feeding the swim without fishing for the fish.
The whole debate about fish being clever comes down to an inbuilt fight nor
flight mechanism in built into any wild animals and the fear of certain
foodstuffs is built up over time by association behave, basically the fish
associates that food with danger.
Of course this is just my thoughts on the matter, they may be right or
wrong in your eyes so why not get involved on the blogs Facebook page, twitter
feed or the comments section to leave your thoughts on this subject. Remember
it is just a bit of fun and my views are never ever intended to be the be all
and end all answer.
On to this week’s fishing:
Chasing
Rumours on the Bridgewater Canal
During last week’s session on
the Bridgewater canal I had an angler stop off behind me peg and the
conversation flowed about all our experiences on the Bridgewater canal, from
pike to perch stories where exchanged and snippets of information and the odd rumour
where banded around and it was one of these stories that stuck in my head, a
story about a group of anglers that had caught some big nets of chub from an
area of the canal further along the canal.
This had me thinking all week and with the rivers again unfishable we
decided to investigate this rumour a little further and set our sights on the
Bridgewater canal for our weekend’s trip.
Now we could have gone to our old productive areas where we knew that
catching was almost a certainty but angling, for me at least, has to be a
journey I can only fish the same areas for a few weeks or so before my mind
starts wondering what is around that next bend.
Not knowing the exact swim or tactic is just the way I like it I only
ever ask for help on tactics or knowing if the fish are in a certain location
as I love the whole challenge that goes with catching fish. I know its each to their own but if someone
told me the exact swim, bait and time of day to fish a swim to be guaranteed a
big fish I would get no sense of achievement from that the fish would be
worthless to me as I had not earned it, so travelling to the canal on Saturday
all I knew was chub had come out from around Preston brook and that was it.
The picture above is the standard image we all associate with canals but
I feel the one below offers a better idea of what a canal is like, it contains
the beauty and industry of a canal but also shows how societies laziness and
attitude to nature has had its effect on the look of the canal as most canals
now around urban areas are littered with trolleys, traffic cones, wheelie bins and
carrier bags. Why people feel the need
to do this is beyond me, what enjoyment can you get from throwing a bin in a
canal? I guess it’s a thrill I will never ever understand.
I had done some work in the week on Google Earth and found an area to
target where I thought a chub might like to live, of course this this is no
river so I guess the fish adapt to their conditions but I was hoping that
inbuilt nature for a chub to love the cover of snags was still imbedded in
these Stillwater chub.
My tactic for the day was the same as any other canal trip in that I set
up a line on the inside shelf till the boats come and pinged bait over against
the reeds on the far bank. I did have a
small clump of reed to my right hand margin and plumbing the depth I found a
nice depth so I also fed here as a line that I could fish as a nothing line.
I started off down the middle and one thing that was apparent here was how much the canal was towing, no
wonder it is popular with chub I was even considering popping on a stick float!
The tow here was down to no boat traffic but the fact the Bridgewater canal and
the Trent and Mersey all converge just further along the canal and the tow from
these canals was really strong and this was the case all day. The tow down the middle of the canal was
really tough to fish tactics wise as to hold bottom meant laying a good two
float lengths on bottom yet anything between this and dead depth say the float
moving through the swim and dragging under as it moved along, very tough indeed
but I did manage a few small skimmers on this line, but it was slow going.
I then moved onto my line just off the reeds to see if it was any easier
here and was rewarded with an instant bite from a small skimmer followed by a
small perch but that was it from this swim but in hindsight this early success
saw me wasting too much time on this line when I should have moved to the far
side although my thinking on the canal is always to leave my far line as long
as possible so maybe that line would not have been so good had I gone straight
over.
My uncle further along the canal was first to go over the far side and
he was instantly into small skimmers which I must admit perked my attention
up. My uncle is a very good angler
indeed and I am always learning when we are on the bank together and the good
thing is about fishing with someone like who is not only good at fishing but
willing to share information is that you can go up to him and ask him the most
valuable question of all when learning, “but why did you just do that”.
It is all well and good just sitting there copying someone but the real
learning comes when you know why they have done it, for example my uncle on the
day had his ground bait mixed dry but then made it like slop and was rewarded
with better stamp of fish but why did he decide to do that? And what did he
think it would achieve? This is when you can begin incorporating that thinking
into your own fishing so you can then make decisions on your own when faced
with similar situations. I have learnt
so much over the past two years fishing with my uncle. This brought better fish to his line which
saw me not holding back and I went right over on all 13m of my pole.
My reward was a succession of skimmers from small ones to some really
nice ones like the one shown above and on number 4 elastic it was a great sight
to see this elastic working so well, I must admit since I have down sized to a
lighter elastic from blue hydro elastic I have not lost hardly any fish on the
way in, this elastic keeps the tension whilst being supple enough to cushion
the head thrust from the skimmers as the “flap” in.
This canal has really surprised me this year with the quality of the
roach it holds they have shown themselves on all the stretches we have fished
on there over a good 2-3 mile stretch.
There is certainly a year class on there that has come through and
thrived that are now up and over the 8oz bracket and I am sure this will see some
really stinking roach show on this canal in years to come, if there is no interference
form us humans cutting back the reeds and over handing trees that provide these
silver fish with the must needed cover they need to evade being eaten by the
growing number of predators seen flying along this canal.
The quality of fish on the far bank was much improved on the small
skimmers down the middle with palm sized and above skimmers coming to the net
with great regularity. It was during the
early morning I had my first of two anglers from the blogs Facebook page and it
was great to catch up with Ade an angler who I have crossed paths with a few
times on my travels around Warrington waters, a very good angler on both still
waters and rivers and an angler I must arrange to get out on the bank with
sometime this winter on his lovely stretch of the River wye. Whilst he was at my peg we talked about all
aspects of the fishing we do and it was great to chat with an angler that is so
passionate about his fishing and an angler who, in my exchanges with him is as
honest as the days long, wilfully sharing information on any new fishing he
does and always polite when I have helped him out.
This fishing while he was at my peg was probably the best it was all day
as fish after fish came on the far bank line, mostly only small skimmers but
the odd better “netter” come to the net and I felt like I was well on my way to
a really special net of fishing and was thoroughly enjoying my days fishing on
the long pole. It is not very often I fish
with the whole length of the pole so I was really enjoying it.
It was not long after Ade left that the wind, that to this point was manageable
really started to build up, only a gentle breeze to begin with but the odd gust
had me worrying about what was coming in. When the second visitor of the day, Garry,
Garry is a really good pike angler on the canal and during his time at our peg
it was clear he loved his fishing, in any conditions, he was already talking
about his winter campaign’s and you could just tell he loved his fishing. His eyes all the time looking at features and
in the end the angler inside got too much and he ran and got his lure rod to
have a few casts. Proper decent,
dedicated angler and really helped me out with a few tips for my piking this
winter, cheers mate much appreciated although I feel short of the 50lb you
demanded from this session ha-ha.
It was during Garry’s time on the bank with us the wind got up to gust
proportions also known as pole snapping weather.
The wind made it really hard to fish on the pole so I reduced down a
section so I had less to hold out and continued to pick up fish when the wind
allowed. The fish where there that was
for sure as every time I got over there for ling enough for the float to settle
quality fish where coming like the fish full of skimmer below but these forays
where becoming increasingly difficult and she sheer pressure to hold the pole
out there was making it not only hard to fish but uncomfortable.
I set up the waggler rod hoping to overcome this incessant wind that was
now well up to gale proportions that saw the tall trees on the far bank bent
double. Fishing the pole was not
possible and the fish just were not there on the closer in lines, even on the
reed line that I had fed throughout the day.
The waggler was unfortunately not working out for me as sinking your
line took you too close in and the tow just cleared it out of the swim, really
frustrating. The end of the session was approaching
so I guess I had my eye on that rather than focusing on getting to grips with
the waggler and took to the easy option to bare it out on the pole and put in a
few more fish to the tally.
My uncle ended the day with a net of 7lb 14oz
And my net went 9lb 6oz.
Both fantastic weights from the canal and with them being mostly
skimmers really good signs for the populations of all fish in the canal
including predators as there is more than enough for them to eat in this
section alone. These fish will no doubt
disperse as the weather closes in as they shoal up in their winter haunts but
one thing is for sure we have a quality canal right on our doorstep.
Till next time its tight lines form me and I leave you with a picture of
the River Mersey I visited on Sunday with my daughter as we took her to jelly
beans, spotted a few pegs as well so might well be worth a trip in the near
future. 5 cormorants perched on a snag
mid river, where there are predators there are prey.
Tight lines
Danny
