Bonus morning on the Trent & Mersey canal

 

 

I had a day off work due and a visit to Burton on Trent with the wife. She would be busy most of the day so being the chauffeur, I had to find something to pass the time while I waited for her.  The Trent and Mersey canal was only a stones throw away, so a rod was neatly tucked into the boot with some other bits n pieces that I might need for a few hours wandering the towpath.

I started off chucking some lures about and was astonished to see how clear the water was on this canal. Despite the boat traffic coming in waves - almost a boat a chuck at times ! The clarity was probably down to two feet, which is half way to the bottom on most parts of the canal.  The conditions were bright but cold with the gusting wind barrelling down the canal like a mini hurricane, real hold on to your hat stuff.  This of course created an additional flow on the canal that almost turned it into river conditions.

This canal seems to move with a latent steady flow probably from the effect of the Trent system that feeds into it, the wind only added to this.  It effected the action of the lure on the retrieval in the same way that a cast upstream or downstream does in the pace of a rivers current.  It was easier to get a good action retrieving upstream against the flow rather than down - where the line would fall slack as the lure was pushed along.  The fishing was very hard going and I only saw one follow from a small perch all morning.

After a break for lunch back at the car I headed to another stretch a few bridges down and tried a bit of sprat twitching, or better known as sink and draw. The wife text me to update me on pick up times etc and enquired on how I was getting on.   I had nothing to report and texted her so, then as I looked down to my rod lying at my feet and saw braid peeling off the open spool.  I realised that the sprat that had been left to sink across the slack next to a lock run off wear had been picked up by something. The rod arched over as I wound down to the fish and the fight was on !

 

A slender fish was landed in a short time.  A very thin fish that looked more like a draft excluder than a predator at the top of the food chain. I didn't bother to weight it but it was probably between 4 and 5lb.

 

That was to be all for the session as time was against me all too quickly, it was time to go back to chauffeur duties.