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.
