An early start on Sunday saw the second coat of paint start to dry on the hallway walls, I was now free to do a short session down the canal. I headed to one of my favourite stretches where you don't have to move because of the depth, the fish tend to move in and out of this hole. All I wanted to do today was catch a fish as I hadn't set foot on the bank since the beginning of October. The usual dead baits went out, one on the near bank as tight to a feature as I could get, the second on the far shelf. After the second boat had passed through I had the first take on the far shelf bait and it wasn't long till I had a Zed on the bank.
Not big but at least I wasn't blanking.
And it beats watching paint dry!
I moved a few metres to the other side of the feature on my bank and tried a bait this side, it's a bit shallower but after getting the zed on the shelf earlier maybe that's where they were hunting. There were still boat going through and there was a constant flow as water was released from the gates further upstream, it was during this flow that I spotted an unusual twitch to one of the bobbins, I was a bit too quick and picked the rod up and struck to feel a very good pull, a head broke the surface and shook violently and I saw my bait come flying out of it's mouth, it looked a good fish.
After an hour, I moved back to my original swim and tried baits into the same spots again and it wasn't too long before I had another take but again the hook pulled free.
I'm not sure If I was giving the fish enough time to take the bait deeper into their mouths hence the hook pulls, I'll have to be a bit more patient on the next trip.
