Had a my first fishing trip since I suffered a Glenoid Fracture at the end of July. The fracture repaired pretty quickly but the soft tissue damage is still under repair. Plenty of physio have given me back plenty of movement and for most everyday things the shoulder is OK. Winding a fishing reel is well with in my capabilities. I'd decided on a short trip to a local canal despite the dodgy weather forecast. I'd be sticking to the nice level areas and descending any of the high slippery banks. Despite the recent rain and frost the canal looked clear and in good nick.
I started with a brown sparkly cannibal shad that was already on the line and with in a couple of casts had a solid hit from a very athletic 35cm perch. A couple of cast later a somewhat smaller perch gave a solid hit. Then the alarm sounded and the sluice opened washing leaves and foam into the canal. This rendered the area unfishable unless you wanted to catch leaves.
On to the next feature. After a couple of casts I was getting hits but not hooking up. Instead of my usual two or three turns of the reel, let the lure flutter to the bottom, repeat, I tried a more violent retrieve. I flicked the lure off the bottom with the rod tip each time it hit bottom. This resulted in very solid hits but still no hook ups. A change to a smaller cannibal shad resulted in me contacting with one in three of the hits. Over the next half hour I had a dozen perch up to 28cm before every thing went quiet. One problem I did have was using the landing net as I was getting on for six foot above the water. It put a bit of a strain on the left arm. Changing hands solved this, sort of. I'm not used to using a landing net with my right arm and lost a couple of fish at the net due to my clumsiness. Still a dozen perch wasn't bad.
The next level feature was a lot closer to the water, but not somewhere I'd ever had perch from, only little jacks. This time proved different. In ten casts I had eight perch to 28cm. I kept them in the landing net as returning them can scare the shoal away and it was pretty close to the bank. As the expected rain started all hell broke loose. Perch and little silvers scattered out of the water around the area I was catching the perch. As the rain had turned to a downpour I retreated under a tree. I'd forgot my waterproof and my shower proof jacket doesn't cope with that amount of rain.
As the rain eased off after five minutes or so I thought I'd head back to the car. I'd had a good couple of hours. Obviously I had to have one last cast. This resulted in a very acrobatic killer cucumber. The next five casts produced three more of the little horrors. Great fun on light tackle, leaping about all over the place. The last one had also deigned to remove the tail of my lure. This should have been a taken as a hint to go home, but I'd seen a large jack cruising along the edge just beyond where I was catching the others. I grabbed the first ready rigged lure, a cream and pepper thing. I cast about a foot in front of the pike and it hit it straight away. Unfortunately it dived into the weed and it was just a case of cranking in a mass of weed and pike. Another half dozen casts produced nothing, but the drizzle was now turning to rain. I decided not to push my luck and headed back to the car. I'd just made a cuppa when the heavens opened. It continued like that while I had my cuppa and all the way home.
Not a bad return at all. I'll have to avoid high banks where I can for now. I'm meeting somebody for another go tomorrow. This is on a canal I haven't fished since last century so should be interesting.
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