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Dave Coster's Fishing Diary - June
UPS AND DOWNS ON THE CANAL After some great catches on the Grantham Canal during May, I decided to continue exploring this interesting, but often tricky venue. I first tried a place locals call the “Carp Pound”, which is about a mile west of the Dirty Duck pub. The canal looked inviting by a disused lock here and was clear of surface weed. This is day ticket water by the way, run by Bottesford Angling Club.
Plumbing up with the pole revealed hardly any depth and when I cupped in some groundbait I was disappointed to be able to see it laying on the bottom. Not a good sign! However, there were small fish moving about over the groundbait, so I gave it a go. A smattering of roach, rudd and perch followed but there were no signs of anything big moving. I decided to switch to the other side of the lock, where again the canal looked overgrown and interesting. It took a while to beat out a swim, but once again when I got fishing I discovered the canal in this area is painfully shallow. Lots of small fish, but no signs of anything sizeable.
There are rumours there are carp in the canal, hence the “Carp Pound” nickname. But after having walked for miles and not seeing anything big, I suspect these fish are long gone.
I next tried revisiting Longmoor Bridge, where I had a decent catch of roach and rudd back in May. The stretch below the locks at Woolsthorpe was reasonably clear of floating debris, but 20 metres below the bridge the canal was rammed with floating weed. I took the risk of picking a fishy looking swim just short of this. Bad mistake! I had forgotten it was a Sunday and this brings a weekly boat trip that occurs around midday. I had just got my swim going with regular bites when the lock upstream went into action. The huge bank of weed started moving menacingly towards me, followed shortly after by a boat full of sightseers ploughing through the other way. After that I tried in vain to fish properly, but my swim was eventually clogged with weed and I had to give up. Only good news was on the walk back I spotted a good shoal of bream basking in the sun. That swim has been noted for another day…
A week later and I finally got the chance to fish the turning bay on the Grantham stretch. After several days of prevailing westerly winds, the normal thick floating carpet of duckweed had gone, so out came my favourite waggler rod. This is one of the few places where you can fish a waggler properly on the canal, something I had eagerly been anticipating. I started off loose feeding casters and hemp by catapult and it took a while for bites to materialise, but suddenly my swim came to life with rudd and roach. I worked my way through these until the rod tip bent round under the strain of a much bigger, ponderous fish, which turned out to be a nice bream.
I was starting to get fizzes of bubbles around my float, so obviously bigger fish had moved in and the small fish activity died away. Several more bream followed and then I hooked into a proper “lump”. Not a bream this time. This fish was more powerful and zigzagged across the canal before trying to bury itself in weed under my feet. I just managed to keep it out with my relatively light 0.10mm hook length and eventually steered a pristine 5 lb tench into my landing net.
I had only put the quality fish into my keepnet, dropping back around 6 lb of smaller stuff. Luckily a biker was passing by as I was about to release my catch and took the accompanying photograph. Thanks mate!
ON THE RIVER Unfortunately, I couldn’t get out fishing the first week of the new season, due to having some building work carried out in my new house, but first chance I got I was off to fish a river! I chose the River Witham between Kirkstead and Tattershall Bridge. This used to be Ivan Marks country. I was lucky enough to know Ivan and he was an amazing match angler who won many major competitions, in the days when hundreds of anglers would turn out for big events. I remember thinking one day I will explore some of the venues he told me about, so I was brimming with expectation as I turned off the A153 at Tattershall. However, it took some time to fathom out where I could fish. Thankfully I found the local bailiff and he put me right. Boston Anglers now own the fishing rights from 100 yards below Thorpe Tilney Lane End, downstream to Walcott Pumper. I settled for the reedy bay area, which apparently was the dream draw back in the 70s, 80s and 90s, when there were big matches every weekend on this stretch of the river.
The bailiff, John Baxter, has been clearing swims on this newly acquired stretch and an unusual finishing touch in my peg was a big square of carpet! I don’t think I have ever fished from a carpeted peg before; it certainly prevents all your gear from getting muddy!
It was a hot, bright sunny day with only a gentle breeze and the water was quite clear, so I decided to take a softly, softly approach. I started with a small cage feeder fishing three-quarters of the way across, but also kept pinging out some maggots closer in, where I later intended to try the waggler.
It was hard going. Plenty of small touches on the feeder but nothing big, mainly perch to 8ozs and a couple of small hybrids.
After a few hours the flow started to slacken off so I decided to give the waggler a try. I expected to get bites straight away after priming this part of the swim for so long, but it took a good while before I started to get any interest. A few small roach and perch followed and then suddenly I connected with a proper rod bender. At first I thought I had hooked a big eel because whatever was attached kept juddering against the rod tip and didn’t really go anywhere. I eventually coaxed the fish towards my landing net and discovered it was a big tench, between 5 and 6 lb, with a big ball of weed wrapped around its head. Just as I was about to net the fish, it unexpectedly bolted and broke my hook length. I was gutted!
After that bit of action the wind changed direction and the river started backing up, this caused the thick margin weed to spread out all over the place and I called it a day.
DENTON RESERVOIR When I first fished Denton Reservoir several weeks ago it was gin clear and nobody caught anything. When I returned in late June it was nicely coloured and I felt a lot more confident. The same local angler I met there on my last visit was on the dam wall and showed me some photographs of some big tench he has been catching – proper seven-pound beauties! Apparently a 28lb carp came out in June as well, so I couldn’t wait to get fishing.
On this occasion I chose a swim along the dam side because it’s deeper here and less weedy. (On my first visit I made the mistake of settling in a shallow area and spent all day reeling in stringy in weed). I set up two lines of attack, a groundbait feeder at 40 metres and a waggler at 20 metres. Conditions looked perfect, but I struggled on the feeder and missed just one half-hearted bite during the first 3 hours. I switched to the waggler line where I had patiently been catapulting maggots out, over a light bed of groundbait, casters and 4mm pellets. First cast and a positive bite at last! It turned out to be a small perch and a flurry of these fish came my way during the next 20 minutes. Then I started to get fizzes of bubbles around my float, which I’m sure were caused my tench, but I was only getting very slight indications on my float tip – nothing positive enough to strike at.
For the rest of the session it was a case of catching perch up to 8ozs or watching the odd fizz of bubbles but not getting a proper bite when this occurred. Very frustrating. The Denton tench are not proving easy to catch. Maybe it was the bright sunlight that made them tricky, but I intend to keep going back until I get this place out sussed out.
