Early session on a new stretch of the canal

With the onset of the colder weather, although not quite here yet as we seem to be basking in the last remnants of the fantastic summer we have just had. Weather wise my attentions turn to trying to catch some of the glorious predators that habitat our 2000 miles of canals and rivers here in the UK.The waterways vary so much from wide shipping canals to the usual small canals, where in the summer there seems to be a never ending flow of canal boats. Mainly holiday makers enjoying the beautiful surroundings of our stunning countryside, and as for the rivers, WOW, absolutely glorious. Flowing fast or slow the fish they contain is second to none and to me the capture of a truly wild fish not stocked in our lakes or reservoirs holds a special place in my heart.

I’m fortunate to live very close to the Oxford canal and the stretches close to me contain some fantastic Perch and Zander, but with so many miles to go at to find the concentrations of fish it can mean a lot of walking and an awful lot of time, so anything I can learn that will narrow my chances of finding my target fish can be invaluable. The Deeper Sonar allows me to scan the water by sonar showing depth changes, remnants of old dying weedbeds, sunken trees, structures and even concentrated shoals of prey fish under the water. I sometimes feel I have a fantastic edge as it fits into my lure bag and all I need is my mobile phone and I’m away. It maps the swims, saves the data and exact location on my phone so if I’m out for a walk I’ll just usually stick it in my pocket take a rod and go out to scan the water for future reference.This has worked very well for me lately as I’ve managed to gather some important data and have found some wonderful fish. Only last weekend I decided to re visit a spot I had found where the deeper had shown a fallen tree underneath the water, surrounded with bait fish and images of larger fish I decided it was time I threw in a few lures to see what fish it contained. My second cast was met by an almighty thump resulting in the rod arching over and the clutch on my reel started to scream as I tried to steer the fish away from what I knew was under the water. Yes the fallen tree. It certainly helps to know what you are fishing over and if there’s a chance you may get snagged you can act to avoid this.The result was a stunning 3lb 3oz warrior of a Perch.This was followed swiftly by its smaller but still very impressive younger brother at 2lb 3oz. Knowledge and technology can be the ideal partners and the Deeper Sonar is making life just that little bit easier.