The lure of canal Zander...

When the river season ended on March 15th, our intention was to have a break from the lure fishing, and instead, dust off the fly rods, as mid March coincides with the opening of the midlands reservoirs for flyfishing for Trout. However, this year, we've continued lure fishing for a few weeks longer than normal and spent most of our fishing time exploring canals in search of Zander, mainly on the Grand Union Canal.

The canal has become increasingly coloured over the past few weeks due to boat traffic, but it hasn't stopped us from catching quite a few Zeds, as well as a few Pike and Perch.

Most of our fish have fallen to jigged or drop-shotted soft plastics, between 1-3 inches in length. Some of these include the Berkley Ripple Shad, Berkley Flex Rib Shad, Sébile A.T Minnow and also the tiny Berkley Shrug Minnow, rigged on a 1.5g Powerjig Rock Head. When it comes to drop-shotting, the Berkley Twitchtail Minnow and Micro Sparkle Nymph have both been effective.

 

On one afternoon exploring a stretch of the GUC, my Dad hooked in to a big hollow branch, which was rotten, so it had been sitting on the bottom of the canal for quite some time. When we lifted it out of the water, we found it was home to lots of Crayfish, so I decided to 'match the hatch', and not long after changing my lure, I caught a couple of nice Perch.

We also had a trip exploring the Coventry Canal right in the centre of the city the canal takes it's name from. Sarah Collins, the CEO of Get Hooked on Fishing, joined us and we met up with Dave Mutton outside his shop, Specimen Fishing UK, which is in a fantastic location as it fronts on to the canal basin! Unfortunately, the fishing was very tough that day and we only caught 3 Perch and a Pike, but it was great to meet up with Sarah and Dave and I'd like to go back there and give it another go sometime.

Two weeks ago I had my first trip flyfishing for Trout this year. The Pitsford Pirates had a team get-together at Elinor and it was great to catch up with them all, despite the crazy weather. There were wind gusts of up to nearly 50mph and heavy rain showers, which made casting quite challenging! We all managed to catch though, despite the conditions, and we had a great barbecue sheltered at the back of Bart's van!

Luckily, it was quite a lot calmer when I fished with Dad last week afloat on Grafham for the afternoon. My Dad had been really looking forward to some Trout fishing, but his first fish of the day was a Pike of around 5lbs, which took a damsel! The buzzer fishing was fantastic though - some of the takes were so aggressive that they almost ripped the line out of our hands! We caught 29 Trout, washing lining buzzers on a slow glass or fast glass line, with a booby on the point. The best fish was a beautiful Brownie of around 3lb 8oz that my Dad caught.

Back in March I was at The Big One show demonstrating lures in the pool at Get Hooked on Fishing's Funfair area. It was the second time I'd been to The Big One showing lures and this year was even busier than the last! There was a lot of interest around the pool from all ages, and there were lots of other activities to have a go at - it was a great weekend for the charity. Watching how lures work in a tank or pool is very interesting, especially experimenting with different rigging methods and retrieves. Emptying the pool after the show ended on the Sunday was a challenge though!

Last Saturday, I was also demonstrating lures in the new lure fishing section at Chapmans Angling in Hull. I'd never been to Chapmans Angling before so it was great to meet up with the guys in the shop and Stewart Hay from Pure Fishing.

The following day my Mum, Dad and I went to Get Hooked on Fishing Ealing for the Angling Trust and GHoF's 'Family Fishing' event. Dad and I were targeting coarse fish on tiny soft plastics, but unfortunately, the fishing was pretty tough - a cold northerly wind blew across Northala Fields, which made it feel very chilly! A few youngsters managed to catch their first fish on soft plastics though, mainly Rudd with the odd Perch. There was one young boy who was so made up with catching his first fish, a tiny Rudd, that after we put the fish back, he was running around telling everybody about his catch! A great day was had by all and it was great to catch up with many good friends.

Drop-shotting for big end of season stripeys!

It always seems like a mad rush trying to fit in as much fishing on rivers as possible before March 15th arrives and the season finally comes to a close. Over the past month, most of our fishing has been on our local rivers - sadly, we never managed to get down to our boat on the Thames, although we have had a few trips further afield. Just like January and early February, the last few weeks of the season have not been easy, but persistence has paid off with some cracking stripeys for both me and my Dad.

We've caught them on a number of different techniques and types of lures, but drop-shotting has definitely proved the most effective tactic this past month. I think the reason for this is because I've been concentrating my efforts in areas where I know hold fish, especially when the rivers were in flood or very coloured a few weeks ago, by 'deadsticking', which means hardly moving the soft bait. It takes a bit of patience but it's definitely been working!

My Dad has also caught some good stripeys on chatterbaits and Texas rigged soft baits - some of the most effective have been the Berkley Havoc 3" Pit Boss and Sébile 65mm A.T Minnow.

One very enjoyable days fishing we've had over the past month was with Adam Entwistle. In return for a beautiful illustration of a Perch I caught a couple of years ago, I promised Adam a trip lure fishing, when he was next over from France where he runs The Sanctuary Fishery. When we arrived at the river it was very coloured, and we knew the fishing was going to be tough. After a couple of hours fishing we hadn't had a single bite, so we moved to another area upstream, and at our next stop, I had a subtle take drop-shotting a white Berkley Twitchtail Minnow and landed a cracker of a Perch an ounce under 4lb.

Dad and I were desperate for Adam to catch, so we suggested another move to a stretch about a mile away and on his first cast, using a Berkley Ripple Shad, he caught a beautiful Perch of 3lb 1oz.

I then had another of 2lb 8oz and moments later Adam landed a feisty Pike. To round the day off we watched a Barn Owl hunting along the river - what a great day!

A couple of days later I was a guest on Sky Sports 'Tightlines' TV show. It was a huge honour to be a guest on the show in November 2013, so to be asked back again was fantastic! I really enjoyed chatting lure fishing and flyfishing to Keith and a big thanks to Keith and Mick Brais, the producer, for inviting me along! The show ended with a fitting tribute to Keith Speer - a fantastic angler who, unfortunately, I only had the pleasure of meeting once, before his untimely passing just a couple of days before the show was aired.

The day after Tightlines, my Mum, Dad and I ventured to Herefordshire as my Aunt and Uncle had hired a big house for the weekend to celebrate their joint 50th birthday party with friends. The house backed on to the tiny but very picturesque River Dore, a tributary of the Monnow, so Dad and I brought along a 7' 4wt rod to see if we could catch some Grayling. Although it rained all day and we both got soaked, we caught a few small Grayling plus a couple of Brownies on Gold Bead Hares Ears. It was the first time we'd flyfished for Grayling for a couple of years and it was a nice change from the lure fishing.

Just a day after returning from Herefordshire, we found ourselves back on my local River Lea targeting Perch for a couple of hours before dark. I wish all first casts were like the first cast I had that afternoon - it resulted in an immaculate, chunky Perch weighing 4lb 1oz! (pictured at the top of this post). We continued fishing for the rest of the afternoon, with just a Brownie for my Dad to show for our efforts, then as the light faded, I decided to return to the area I'd caught the 4lb 1oz from. I caught that Perch on a drop-shotted Berkley Twitchtail Minnow in Smelt, and as there was little light left I changed colour to a brighter Pearl White. It was a good move as a couple of minutes later I had a hefty whack and moments after I had another huge Perch in the net! I couldn't believe it when the scales tipped round to 3lb 15oz - a brace of Perch for 8lbs!

Three days later I jetted off to Scotland to show some of the Berkley, Abu Garcia and Sébile lures in the lure tank at Glasgow Angling Centre's Spring Open Weekend. It was a great show as always and I also really enjoyed meeting and catching up with friends and talking fishing for hours on end! I'm also looking forward to demonstrating lures this coming weekend at The Big One show in Farnborough, in the Get Hooked on Fishing area.

When I returned from Glasgow there were six days of the season left, and despite feeling quite worn out, Dad and I tried to make the most of it. We had a couple of afternoon trips at the beginning of the week and apart from a couple of Perch weighing 3lb 5oz and 2lb 13oz, we both really struggled.

However, on the penultimate day of the season we had a great afternoon on one of my local rivers, landing 23 fish - a mixture of Pike and Perch, plus a bonus Chub - our most productive trip so far this year.

Dad did really well using the 3" Berkley Havoc Pit Boss rigged on a shaky head, catching some of the best looking Perch I've seen this year to 2lb 14oz.

Despite feeling very tired, we were up at 5am the following morning for one final assault on our local rivers. Unfortunately, getting up before the crack of dawn didn't make much of a difference, as it took until 9.30am to catch our first fish, a small jack, which was then quickly followed by a Perch weighing 3lb on the nose - once again a victim of the drop-shotted Berkley Twitchtail Minnow!

After catching another small jack, we decided to change location and fish the tiny river we'd caught 23 fish from the day before. In some areas, it's narrow enough to almost jump across, so I was quite shocked when I hooked in to a big Pike! I was using a scaled down drop-shot rig with 6lb fluorocarbon and a tiny 1" Berkley Micro Sparkle Nymph intended for Chub and Perch, so I had to play the fish very carefully. It was an incredible fight and took me in to some tree roots downstream, and the only way I could land it was to climb with my rod around several trees and a fence to play the fish from a different angle. Thankfully, I had the drag set just right on my reel and managed to safely land it, and it weighed 15lb 14oz!

A couple of jacks later, we then moved back on to the Lea for the last couple of hours, as Dad had said to me he wanted to catch one more 3lb Perch before the season ended. About an hour later he was rewarded with exactly what he asked for - a Perch weighing 3lb exactly!

After Dad landed another stripey of 2lb 7oz, plus a Pike, we fished on in to the dark and we were just about to head for home when, at 7.30pm, I had a good take which turned out to be another cracking Perch! My first fish of the 2014-15 season, which I caught on June 16th from the River Thames, was a Perch weighing 3lb 4oz, so I couldn't believe it when the scales read exactly the same weight! What a great way to end the season!

A few weeks ago, Dad and I were invited along to the Uxbridge Rovers Lure Day at their Rickmansworth Aquadrome complex, consisting of the Grand Union Canal, the River Colne and Batchworth Lake. The canal and river were very coloured due to recent rainfall, but Dad managed to catch a couple of Pike, one from the river and one from the canal on a yellow twintail rigged on a shaky head, and Eddie Edwards caught some crackers from the lake. Unfortunately, the rain arrived earlier than forecast and we all got very wet, but Eddie kindly invited us back to his house for dinner, before we all headed to Get Hooked on Fishing Ealing to see Nigel Botherway's fantastic talk. All proceeds on the night went to GHoF and it was a very interesting and entertaining evening - thanks Nigel. A big thanks to the Uxbridge Rovers for a great day too!

On the search for big winter Perch!

This past month has been, without a doubt, one of the toughest my Dad and I have experienced lure fishing on local venues. Apart from two full days fishing, the rest of our trips have been short afternoons, concentrating our efforts on trying to catch big winter stripeys.

Most of the rivers around our way have only recently started to look really good, after rain and snowmelt from January filled them with cold, muddy water. This, along with salt mixing with the ice and snowmelt, causes fish to become very lethargic. Lakes that were frozen over have now thawed and are very cold too, and the testing conditions have meant that we've had to experiment and try many different lure fishing tactics, in order to find out where the fish are, what's working best, and help us get some fish in the net!

One of the most successful techniques has been searching with lures that create a lot of movement and vibration, that will make the fish react and trigger them in to taking the lure, then using finesse tactics in the areas we locate Perch. A small 1/4oz (7g) chatterbait with a Berkley Pit Boss trailer has worked well as a search bait, and my Dad has caught some good stripeys on these recently. A good colour chatterbait that has worked well has been a reddy brown, which looks very much like a small Signal Crayfish.

On a session last weekend along the River Lea, my Dad was crawling and bumping a chatterbait along the bottom before hooking in to a snag. He tried to shake it off for quite a while, before deciding to go for a break, but luckily he didn't lose it, and a split second after it had pulled out of the snag he had a good whack, which turned out to be a Perch of 3lb 5oz!

The other tactic we've been using to search for fish has been a shakey head. A shakey head is a type of jighead that enables you to rig a soft plastic Texas style. They come in lots of different styles, but they're purposely designed for fishing straight-tail soft plastic worms and 'shaking' or 'wiggling' them along the bottom. However, I've found they also work equally well with all kinds of soft baits, especially shads.

Berkley Ripple Shads, Gotam Shads and Sébile A.T Minnows have been some of our most successful recently, and on one afternoon trip, Dad caught two cracking 3lber's in two casts - the first on a Ripple Shad, and the second on an A.T Minnow.

I also caught a lovely Brown Trout on a twin tail rigged on an Owner Ultrahead Finesse Ball head - one of my favourite shakey heads.

Another successful method that has worked really well this past month has been drop-shotting, and one of the top soft baits has been a Berkley Twitchtail Minnow. I first came across the twitchtail in the US a couple of years ago, and although it was designed intentionally for Bass, it works equally well for big Perch, as the tiniest of movements in the rod tip brings it to life. A couple of weeks ago, Dad and I were fishing a local stretch of river and a good Perch followed my jigged shad in, after casting to a slack area behind an overhanging bush - it even nosed the shad lying on the bottom, but refused to take it and turned away. Instead of re-casting my shad, I switched tactics and presented a drop-shot rig. Barely moving the twitchtail, after 2-3 minutes of holding the bait in the same position, I had a savage take and caught the Perch that refused my first offering! It was one of five over 2lb, plus a micro jack, caught in a couple of hours.

Over the past month, drop-shotting has helped me fool Perch of 3lb 4oz, 3lb 1oz and numerous stripeys over 2lb. Although some of the bites I've had have been aggressive, most of the takes have been quite subtle, often thinking you've hooked a snag at first, but then realising there's a fish on the end!

I've also caught some nice Pike drop-shotting - you can just about make out the twitchtail hanging out of this Pike's mouth!

Drop-shotting has also been very successful on a local gravel pit targeting Perch, but we've had to really scale down to get bites, using size 14 sedge hooks with chopped pieces of Berkley Gulp! Sandworm or Gulp! Earthworm. On one trip, we caught quite a few small Perch, but the biggest surprise of the day was when Dad caught a lovely Roach of around 1lb!

Last month I was asked to give two talks - one to the Pike Anglers Club of Great Britain's Suffolk Region near Ipswich, and the other for Get Hooked on Fishing at GHoF Ealing. I'd just like to say a big thank you to all the people who came along and gave their support, and to Jason Skilton from the PAC and my colleagues James Thornhill and Charlie Moore from GHoF Ealing for inviting me along!

Four weeks today will be March 14th and the last day of the river season. The last few weeks of the season always seem to fly by, so I just hope I can make the most of it!