Pike on Canal

Trip to the Exeter Ship Canal armed with Lures this time.
Karl, Alan and myself.
We arrived at lunchtime and walked from swingbridge down to the flyover by about 5pm.
As advised, we tried large soft shads dragged slowly along the bottom, but no takes, large plastic rapala shads slow at mid depth, again with no takes, and smaller rapala x-rap shads at varying depths, which are what produced.

Halfway through the day we spotted an otter, in broad daylight swimming right toward us and into the reeds at our feet, and heard another in the reeds. Thats the first Ive ever seen them on the canal, and hope they don't start damaging the stocks.

We were very impressed with those little Rapala x-rap shads. They are very versatile with an awesome action worked slow or fast, and suspend a treat with a very slight sink, and have a great slash action if jerked. They also have a weight transfer system and cast like little bullets.


I blanked. (again!)
Alan had 2 fish on, but lost both (gutted!).
Karl lost one and banked his second.
They were all just small jacks of about 2 to 3 pound, but it made for exciting fun.
Karls jack...


It was still quite weedy, despite an obvious start to its die back, but another couple of weeks and we plan to return and try lures again and dead baiting into the night for the bigger girls.

Tench again

Another lovely evening at a local pond.
Got there at 5pm and fished till 9.
Had some Roach to about 8oz on corn, and a couple small carp to about 2lb one on corn and one on bloodworm paste.
Weather has been sunny and warm last two days, but this day was mild and overcast. perfect.
I sat with fresh tea from my kelly kettle, and at 9pm when I packed up it 'just' started to rain, so timing was perfect :-)

I was very lucky and had 3 of my target species, and this time took some pictures.
Interestingly, all 3 were females.


5:15pm
5lb 8oz on corn


6:20pm
5lb on corn


7:30pm
4lb 8oz on bloodworm paste

....and then, after casting under a dark tree, I had a bootstrap eel, on corn !!
Ever caught an eel on sweetcorn before? me neither...


Tench, Roach, Carp and eels. Not sure Ive ever had that variety before in just 4 hours fishing.

Tench

A trip to a local fishery I hadn't tried before proved very nice.
Coombe fishery has 2 ponds. One specimen and one mixed with nice tench. I targeted the top mixed pond with rod 1 a basic small bomb tried in various places with worm and maggot, and rod 2 a small feeder with groundbait and small boillie under a tree fed with a scattering of pellet and maggot.

Rod 2 with the feeder and light feeding had all 3 fish.
2 tench, of 5lb and 5lb 8oz, (a new Pb for me), and a carp of about 5lb that fought like crazy.
For some reason I didn't photograph any of the fish. I was too laid back and enjoying the fishing.

A Cracking little fishery. I spent a nice hour chatting to the owner.
I hope this fishery gets the respect its due.

Pike

A Pike trip to the Exeter Ship Canal planned for the weekend had to have a staggered start.
Karl and another new Pike angler Alan, had the day off work, so they went up to the canal Friday afternoon, and I joined them at 8am the following morning. (I'm NOT good at getting up at the weekends so this was no small miracle)

Base camp was at the swing bridge.
Karl managed to get a few live-baits out on the Friday night, and his luck changed at 5am Saturday morning with a run, resulting in his first Pike! (about 4lb)
At last!

I turned up at 8am, and did a little lure fishing but had no hits.
Karl however had another one at 10am of 7lb, again on small live roach under a float.

And another (4lb), at 11am once again on live roach.

We tried moving to another spot further down at the lime kilns, thinking perhaps we had disturbed the swims too much and might need fresh water. We tried and tried but just couldn't get another livebait out despite trying maggots and ground bait.
We tried there for 3 hours, but no bites on lures or deads.

We then drove round to the other side to try the opposite bank of the kilns for an hour, but once again, lures and deads made no difference.

The trip was great for Karl, having 3 fish of his target species.
Both me and Alan blanked, but that just means Alan wants to go again, and I always do anyway.
We had x2 deadbait rods and a lure rod each, and 1 rod for lives. Amazing when you see it all together how much we cart about eh ?

Lessons?
Without a doubt, the way to go is Livebaits fished from dawn to lunchtime. This concurs with most of the info we've had from other sources too.
(Exeter and District Angling rules state no more than 6 lives in any 24h period per person, and not more than 6inches)
Dead baits may pick up larger fish, but they are very much few and far between. On 6 miles of canal, FINDING the fish is the hardest part.
A great day with great sunny weather, if a bit windy, and I burnt the top of my shaved head :-(

Pike Adventure

Adventure indeed. Or perhaps I should say MISadventure.

The trip was planned for Piking on The Exeter ship canal, and get Karl his first Pike.

The trouble I had getting my gear sorted the night before was all the omen I needed, but as the 2 day trip would prove, our bloody mindedness to carry on regardless would drive us through.

Having a late start instead of the early one we arranged was the beginning. Also the warnings of deep snow and traffic being stranded at the halfway mark of our route. When we got to that bit, it was clear enough, so we came out the other side of it and off to Exeter.

We started at the Lime kilns for a spot of plugging for the last hour of light (we were THAT late).
One small jack pike was the reward, but nothing for Karl yet.

As the light faded, we set off to the Swing bridge section to bivvy up for the night.

The empty swim we spotted there earlier was now filled, so we bivvied up next door.

We got the kettle on and the rigs out at least.

The temp dropped like a stone. We chucked a couple dead baits out, but I wasn't feeling well at all, so I crashed out at 8:30 and left Karl to it.

Typically, I spent a fitful night shivering as I had not been able to find my winter sleeping bag, my hand warmer wouldn't work, and my bivvy is single skin.

At 7am I heard Karl wander over to tell me the canal had frozen. It was solid from bank to bank and he had spent an hour trying to get his rigs OUT from the night before.

There was even a layer of ice on my blanket and inside my bivvy.

We stood there wandering what to do next when we heard a noise like roaring breaking glass. Down the the canal came a canoe, with 2 hardy souls using the canoe like an ice breaker, battering their oars through the ice and shoving it forward. It was a surprisingly noisy affair. The noise in this vid is ALL ice, there was not a breath of wind.

Even after the plastic ice breaker, we couldn't get our rigs in, as the lines would be at the wrong angle, and kept snagging on the edge of the ice, so we decided to pack up and move swims to try further up in the hope of finding a clear area.

That's when we found the van was dead. Karl's battle bus made a wheezing sound and didn't even fire. It turns out it had been -4 to -7 degrees C around Exeter that night, and we think the diesel injectors had got gunked up. Of course the battery was also flat after trying to start it. So we sat and waited for a car to pass by.

We were in luck. An hour later 2 guys who were looking to pike fish arrived and jump started us.

About 500 yards further up we parked up again and tried in a small area of broken ice, where we actually had a couple tentative knocks but no takes.
At this point I discovered I had somehow placed my fishing bag down into some dog mess, so I had a raving rant about that and threatened to sit in the van till Christmas.
I really H A T E dog fouling.

After an hour here, we then decided to move to the Double locks section, as someone had said it was clear of ice up there. We jumped in the van all excited at the prospect of actually getting a bait in properly. But the fishing fairy was not with us. As we drove the short (3/4 of a mile?) to the locks, we were stopped by the boys in blue. Why? well we had got over excited about the fishing and forgot to put our seat belts on.

£30 fine each and lose about 45 mins light. Its nearly lunchtime now.
Very annoyed with ourselves for forgetting that basic safety. :-(

We finally made it to the double locks, and started to leapfrog each other dropping deads in for 15 Min's a go at 50y intervals.

Nothing - and now its raining too.

As the time was against us, we had a last ditch effort with some lures in the basin of the double locks themselves, but had nothing.

At 4pm we gave up, despondent at our seemingly crap luck and crap results, but trying to stay positive at the lessons we had learned, and making plans for the next trip.

We had, after all, carried on fishing in the face of adversity, and in sub-stupid temperatures, and still managed at least 1 fish and learnt lots. :-)

Baits

We tried ledgering smelts in smelt oil, half mackerels, and also the new Dynamite baits predator brush on stuff, that was actually impressive. Its easy to use, and left a very clear oil slick even in such dire cold conditions, and little 'bits' in it washing off the bait.

Also tried small chunks of mackerel on a large circle hook under a float set quite deep.

Next time you lean green toothy buggers....... next time !

Exeter Ship Canal

Heres a Google Earth shot of the 6 mile Exeter Ship Canal.
Ive marked it with the Car park spots, and the named stretches.
Considered one of the Premier Pike spots of the SW.