Secret venue

I am going to break with my usual openness and not divulge the location of a new venue I have discovered. It is in the Irish midlands and in a built up area, so if I blurt out where it is I am sure it will be cleaned out by the fishmonger brigade in a just a few days. It is so sad that fishing here has come to this but the killing of every fish which is landed is now endemic. Once great venues are now completely denuded of every species, so I can’t let on where I was yesterday.

With a day’s pass from ‘er indoors it seemed to make sense to try somewhere further afield and by eight in the morning I was on the road and heading east. Heavy showers came and went, a pattern which kept up all day. When I arrived at the new spot it was dry, but that didn’t last long and before I had even reconnoitred the bank fully it started to drizzle again. This stretch of the canal is very busy, not just with traffic but row upon row of tethered up boats of all descriptions. Indeed, finding a gap between them where I could fish was no easy matter. In the end I had to go back to the car, drive down the towpath a bit further and then set up. This had the advantage of the car being all of three yards from where I would be fishing so it was worth messing about.

I set up the 9 foot leger rod with 6 pound running line, a small maggot feeder and a 6 pound four inch hook link to a size 10 hook liberally loaded with maggots. I was targeting bream on this rod as I had heard there were shoals of that species around here. Next, I set up the eleven foot float rod with five pound running line, a 2BB waggler and a 4 pound hook link to a size 14 hook. Plumbing up, I was surprised to find six feet of water in front of me, quite deep for this canal. I checked the depth around and it all seemed to be the same, so with no obvious drop off or other feature to fish I simply commenced operations one rod length out. As I often do, I began by chucking in some loose maggots.

On the very first cast, in fact after about 20 seconds, the float dipped and in came a gorgeous rudd. Rudd have the ability to frustrate and delight me in equal measure. Some days I am plagued by 3 inchers that swallow anything that I cast in. Then, on other days I land one of those big, golden fellas which look like they have been plated in some sort of rare metal, shimmering and glowing in the sunlight. This one was bigger than the tiddlers but not a monster, less than a half pound at best, but it was utterly beautiful.

I missed a bite the next cast, then another, and with that the heavens opened. I pulled up my hood and hunkered down, trying to arrange my tackle so it was under the seat and get some protection from the rain. I took the opportunity to make up some ground bait, green stimi, crushed hemp and brown crumb, then fired three balls into the swim. New maggots on the float hook and I cast out, well more flicked the waggler just beyond the end of the rod really. A wind had picked up when the rain came and small wavelets made the float bounce up and down. It went down once more but this time it didn’t come back up. I struck and my rod hooped over, the reel screeching as something heavy ran off to my right. The fish doubled back and moved to the left, swimming under the nearby boat and causing me to dip the rod tip into the canal so it would not rub the line off the shabby white hull. Around in front of me for a while then the tench ran back out into open water and a bout of head shaking. Finally it tired and I led it to the net. My first tench of the year! Surprisingly, the hook was deep down (most tench I catch are lip hooked) but a quick twist with the disgorger and it was free and the fish soon back in the warm, grey water.

I sorted myself out, dipping the net in the water to get rid of some of the slime, checked the end tackle in case it had been damaged in the fight (all good) and then sat down in the seat. YUK! My laziness had come back to haunt me quickly. You see, with all the work going on in and outside the house I have been wearing my fishing wellies and an old pair of what were once waterproof trousers when doing outside work. The old olive green trousers were just to keep the worst of the muck off me and not to keep me dry and for convenience I left them on the boots. Grabbing them in the morning I figured I’d swap the leaky old trousers for my good ones which were in the car. Of course, in my rush to start fishing I didn’t bother changing the trousers and now I was paying the price. I had stood up during the fight with the tench allowing rainwater to pool on my seat. Plonking my derriere back down resulted in instant karma and cold, wet nether regions which I had then to put up with for the rest of the day. Will I ever learn?

Back to the fishing. The sport was not hectic, but certainly not slow either. The odd small roach came my way in between rudd ranging from smallish to not bad (say, 6 to 10 inches). Then I picked up a couple of perch, the second of which was a good one of around a pound. All the action was on the float rod, my feeder failed to register a single bite all day. Feeding the swim was key, if sport slowed I added more ground bait and loose feed and the fish responded virtually immediately. By mid-morning the rain eased off a little and the orange tip of the waggler shot under once again. Obviously a very good fish, this one put a severe bend in the rod but sort of grubbed about on the bottom for a while before taking off at high speed. The hook pulled out after it had gone ten yards or so and it was still motoring. Who knows how big that one was!

I was fishing a gap between two boats, both of which had seen better days. A chap appeared along the towpath and he stopped at the boat to my right. Exchanging pleasantries we settled into a conversation about boats, engines, fishing, canals, life’s vicissitudes etc. The old Honda outboard engine on his boat had been giving him problems recently and we got into the nitty gritty of why he could not get her to go into reverse. I suggested a couple of things to try and he seemed to think they might work. He didn’t have time to try them out today but he’d have a chance to look at it over the weekend. After messing about for a half an hour he went off again, leaving me and my wet bum to fish on as the sky darkened and the next squall bore down.

More rudd, some of them close to a pound in weight, a smattering of tiny roach and then a very plump tench kept me busy as the rain poured down. Finally, it dried up a bit and there was even a tiny glimpse of blue sky to the north. I lovely bite resulted in a strong fish pulling line off the reel. Another tench I presumed but no, this was a good sized perch. Here in Ireland perch tend to be very small but this was a cracker. I thought the one I landed earlier was an outlier, but here was a second big perch so had I stumbled on a venue which is home to many bigger than normal perch? If so, this could be a great spot for jigging, drop shotting etc, especially in the cold moths of the year.

Sadly, the big perch signalled a dramatic slow down in sport, the last hour of the session only producing a couple of small rudd to the float. Reluctantly, I took down the tackle and loaded up the car. It had been my best session of the year so far and despite my self-inflicted saturated bottom, I had loved every minute of it. I drove home with the radio on (something I rarely do). I make myself do this from time to time, just to hear what rubbish is being spouted by those in charge of communications. I gave up reading newspapers, watching television or listening to the radio many years ago, simply fed up of their lies and propaganda. As a sort of sanity check I tune in sometimes, disbelieving every word but at least keeping abreast of the nonsense being dished out. It was the usual drivel and I turned the radio off half way home, the heavy traffic gradually easing the further west I travelled. A new bypass on the N5 which will circumvent Strokestown, Tulsk and Frenchpark is till a long way from completion. Why does ti take so long to build roads in Ireland? Hell, didn’t the Irish build half the roads in the world a couple of generations ago?

Again, my apologies for not sharing the details of this venue. I know of a stretch of the canal not 20 miles away from the one I was fishing on Thursday which was systematically emptied over a period of a few weeks by ‘anglers’ who killed every single fish they landed, regardless of size or species. There was a time over here when we all shared any news of good fishing and were only too happy to hear of other angler’s success. Back then, there were plenty of fish to go around and very few abused the fisheries. Nowadays, it it the total opposite with gangs of ne-er do wells who empty canals and rivers, using rod and lines sometimes, but nets too if it suits them.

With a day of wind a rain forecast for Friday I am planning on finding and sorting out more tackle, previously lost amid the chaos of the renovations. With some maggots left over from yesterday I am hoping to sneak out over the weekend for a few casts with a friend.