First Frosts of Autumn ...

Getting out of the house before the sun is up is a great way to start a session, unfortunately the sun beat me this morning as I couldn't peel myself out of bed as early as I'd planned. Still it was a lovely bright morning with a light crisp frost. After performing the first scrape down of my windscreen this Autumn I was finally on my way.

 Checking the river levels online yesterday the Trent system in Burton and Staffordshire seemed to be 'in flood'  so my planned pike and perch session on the Dove or Trent was postponed for another time.  Instead my back up plan was to re visit to the canal in hope of a big double from my usual spot. I could easily have been a bit more adventurous and gone for a bit of pioneering on a new stretch of the cut, but today the known knowns outweighed the unknown knowns. I was soon settled in and fishing two halves of a sardine by a quarter to eight.

The early morning mist in the valley enveloped the scene around me and whilst sat there contemplating the usual questions we fisherman ask ourselves when waiting for a bite, I thought I saw the float on the left hander twitch.  Nah, must have been the wind !

The odd dog walker passed by along the towpath (some of them very odd !) and early morning pleasantries were exchanged with most. The float twitched again, I was sure. I had that feeling there was something interested but it still could have been my imagination. A few more quiet moments passed by, then the float bobbed, moved and line was taken, finally it wasn't my imagination. I picked up the rod and wound down to a taking fish that fought well for it size. Although it wasn't the hoped for double, it was a nice fish at least. A holiday boater out for a morning stroll, cup of coffee in hand, stopped to admire it and took a photo on his own camara. We chatted for a while about fishing and all things canal, he wondered back to see if the rest of his crew were stirring by now, and I got back to concentrating on the floats.

7lb 8oz

That was all the peak of the action for the morning despite trying out some "sprat twitching" ala' Graham Pullen (look it up on youtube), I didn't receive any further interest up until the Sunday morning boat traffic became too intolerable to continue. I was back home by ten thirty just in time for coffee and toast.