This entry was posted on August 23, 2017by Fishing Republic.

20 years ago, most pleasure anglers' idea of a days fishing was being sat by a canal or stretch of river, drowning a maggot or two and catching a few bits and bobs. Small clubs were getting 15-30 members on outings and double figures of fish were a rare sight unless someone sat on a shoal of bream or chub. Then commercial fisheries started popping up more and more regularly and instead of scratching for a few ounces of silvers, even the less dedicated anglers could plonk bait in the water and get their string pulled. I can see the attraction for most people and I do really enjoy fishing them myself, however, there is a forgotten world out there and there's more fish than there ever were!

I know from experience that there are lots of reasons that put people off rivers and canals. On the canal, you've got bikes zooming up and down the towpath, families out walking the dogs, boats and their often eccentric owners and on the rivers, you get plagued by canoes and rowers and more increasingly, swimmers. There's also a bit more unpredictability on the fishing front. With a bit of thought and finesse, however, there is some absolutely fantastic fishing to be had.

The specialist approach is not for me. I don't want to sit behind two rods pointing at the sky waiting for a barbel to drag one over. If that's your cup of tea then crack on and fair play to you but personally I love delicate fishing for roach, bream and perch etc. - or tiddler bashing as my mate Mac calls it. I just think there's an art to it that is slowly being forgotten, especially by the humble pleasure angler like myself. 0.7 and 8 bottoms, size 20 hooks and number 4 or 5 elastics are a joy to use and I find it really satisfying landing a decent fish on light gear and believe me if you take your time and everything is balanced it's amazing what you can land.

Unfortunately, I'm not blessed enough to live on the banks of the Wye or the Trent but I have the middle and upper Thames within a couple of hours drive and the Grand Union canal around Hemel Hempstead is less than an hour away and over the last couple of years, I have had some lovely days fishing on them and other rivers. Double figure bags of roach, nets full of skimmers, 2lb plus perch and multiple catches of chub and even barbel on the stick float. It's not always brilliant but if you plan carefully and pick your venues well it's a lot more consistent than people realise.

If you remember last June, we had floods across the country and at the time it was pretty grim from a fishing point of view. Once it had settled down though, our rivers fished their nuts off for the rest of the summer. Someone put us onto a stretch of the Thames near Staines and on a red-hot day, I fished casters on a simple waggler set up and had a roach or dace pretty much every single cast. It was really easy fishing and I ended up with around 30lb of fish all on a handful of casters and a pint of hemp. We went to Appleford on the LAA ticket and had double figures, fishing hemp on the waggler. We went to Walton Bridge and had over 20lb, although that did include a 5lb pike that snaffled a roach on the way in. I fished the Chelmer navigation and had mixed bags of roach chub and perch, and more pike, short lining with a long whip. We fished the Cam and had skimmers and perch, we've wandered along the Hampshire Avon and the Wensum and caught chub on stick floats. I even fished the upper Lea on Christmas day and caught barbel on the float.

It might be easy to think I've cherry-picked the few good days amongst the bad but the truth is the good days have far outnumbered the bad. We did get washed out by flash floods in the winter and this season was a tough start, as the Thames has been so low and clear but I still set my box up in the shallows on the 16th of June and had a 3lb bream on the pole before most people were awake. I lost one too before the sun got too high and too bright. The roach were too easily spooked to catch any amount of them but I sat and watched the kingfishers and kites throughout the morning and it was a privilege to be there.

Earlier on, I touched on the bad parts that come with natural venues but on the plus side, it's as cheap as chips. Most of the time it's possible to catch a load of fish on bread or hemp, groundbait seems to work best when it's bulked out with molehill soil and even when I've caught the chub and barbel I've only used a couple of pints of maggot or caster. It's rare to see a bailiff on most natural venues and if you do, it's usually only a couple of quid for a day ticket. The scenery is often stunning and you don't get 'superstars' looking over your shoulder every time you land a fish telling you its name and weight it was last caught at. For me though, the best part about natural venues is that last cast feeling. I can have a brilliant session after work on a commercial and go home smiling from ear to ear but when I'm on the river or the canal, I just struggle to tear myself away from it. I just have to have one last fish and then, of course, another!

I know they're not for everyone but if you fish for fun give natural venues a go, you don't need any fancy kit, access is much better than people realise and there is so much water that hardly ever sees an angler. I just wish the real world would stop getting in my way; especially now we've had a bit of rain.

Well, it would be wrong of me to rave on about natural venues without putting my neck on the block and actually getting out there and having a go and today I finally got the chance to get on the bank. It's been a long few weeks where I've had to cancel two trips to the Thames at late notice for family reasons. Rather than battle the motorways to get on the Thames, as I was on my own, I went to my reasonably local river Chelmer. There's a small back stream and when it has a bit of colour and flow, it can fish really well. In the past, I've had decent perch and chub to a couple of pounds so there's always the chance of a surprise. There's also plenty of pike and today I've had one sat staring at my keepnet all morning!

The river was fining down nicely after the rain earlier this week, although had I realised just how weedy it was, I may have fished elsewhere. As the level and colour dropped through the day, there was weed coming right up to the surface and at times it made landing fish difficult, especially as I was sat in a bit of a jungle. In a roundabout way, though, it probably helped. It's a shallow stream and the fish are easily spooked. Once the weed became visible, I could feed three or four different channels and by rotating the swims regularly, I managed to keep catching all morning. I told myself I would fish 7 till 12 but it was nearer 1 when I finally dragged myself off the box. I finished up with a lovely net of roach with a few dace and a solitary perch taken on the last cast. Almost all taken on hemp apart from the perch, which I had under the near side reeds on a red maggot.

It was one of those really enjoyable sessions. Difficult in a way as I had to chase the fish around the swim and battle the weed and the foliage, but simple in that I used one rig all day, less than half a bag of groundbait, a handful of maggots and half a tin of hemp.

I just wish taking a selfie with a net full of roach was as easy as the fishing!

Tight lines!

Rob Court

Fishing Republic plc published this content on 23 August 2017 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 23 August 2017 09:52:01 UTC.

Original documenthttps://www.fishingrepublic.net/blog/forgotten-world-fishing

Public permalinkhttp://www.publicnow.com/view/6B34935228184999B8B5B3FACD9B3ABAB1F6C94C