Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Raiding the Jewellery Quarter’s silvers
The gentrified centre of Birmingham is home to a variety of buzzing venues, including at least one that offers superb fishing, says canal ace Lee Williams
IDIDN’T think there were any fish in this canal”. I’m sure we’ve all heard that phrase at least once in our angling careers. Quite often it is accompanied by a confused glance from a non-angling member of the public. However, it was this very question I found myself asking as I walked along the towpath of the Birmingham Fazeley Canal.
It was a freezing cold, late winter morning and I was deep in the concrete jungle of the UK’s second city far from an ordinary, rural stretch of waterway. The cacophony of clinking glasses from the canal-side restaurants and bars and the idle chatter of people queuing to enter the city’s numerous attractions gave the venue an atmosphere more akin to the razzmatazz of London’s Oxford Street than a peaceful canal fishery. There were no trees and fields or hedgerows like on the canals I was accustomed to. With just a skyline of blocks of flats, office buildings and car parks it was as metropolitan as fishing gets.
I was on my way to meet urban ‘cut’ fishing fanatic Lee Williams who loves nothing more than going off the angling radar to discover the nooks and crannies of his home city’s forgotten canal network in search of big nets of fish.
By the time I had reached his peg, located in what is known as the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, my question had been well and truly answered. To my utter disbelief, Lee was bagging up with plump, pristine roach, the sort of fish you would dream of catching as a kid, and he was doing it right in the heart of what seemed like tourist central.
“Fish thrive on neglect,” said railway worker Lee. “Few anglers would give a venue like this a second glance as many are probably put off by the heavy towpath traffic, the noisy atmosphere or the fear of registering a blank. This means the fish are far less pressured than most other canal or river stretches making it easier for people like me to catch them. You just have to keep your tackle tidy and ship your pole close to the water’s edge to keep it out the way of the walkers and bikes,” he said.
A new lease of life
There was a time when all you would have from this towpath were smoking chimneys and goods barges floating upon heavily polluted water, but the modern regeneration of the city centre as well as numerous clean-up operations by the local council and the Canal & Riv River Trust, means the venue is now far cleaner and attractive to fish and plant life. This, in turn, has attracted people to the city centre’s canals which are now a hive of entertainment, tourism and shopping. “The fish here like to party too,” joked Lee. His peg, located on a waterway junction, looked like something out of an advertisement for the West Midlands tourist board. The Sealife Centre was just yards behind him and the huge Barclaycard Arena on the opposite bank was awash with posters advertising the latest comedy or drama events. To his right, Lee’s far bank view wasn’t a line of overhanging trees like on many canals but a two-storey public house while, out in front around 25 metres away, was a small round concrete island similar what you might find on a commercial fishery. The view created a contrasting mix of historical, industrial waterway and modern architectural chic. “Wider feature-filled spots like this are fish magnets on inner-city canals” said Lee. “My spot has three bridges for cover, an island and plenty of depth and its wider than the narrower sections found close by so the fish like it here because they can escape the tourist boats that ferry sightseers back and forth along the canal.”
“Lee was bagging up with plump, pristine roach, right in the heart of what seemed like party central”
Fish galore
To prove just how much things have changed on this ‘forgotten’ stretch, Lee wanted to keep things simple, feeding just one pole line at around 7m with a little cup of finely chopped worms and casters. “There are so many fish and such a minimum of natural food they will happily come to the feed and stay in a single area. There is no point making it hard for yourself by fishing at 13m, as my experience of this venue has taught me that the fish are happy to feed closer in. Maybe they have grown used to the towpath traffic.” To keep the bites coming Lee was flicking out five casters with a catapult every five minutes or so. This positive style of fishing has brought him a lot of success in winter. “You can feed breadpunch or pinkies like many anglers do on the canals but you will get plagued with all the small fish that shoal up in here,” he said. “By fishing with worm and double-caster you might get fewer bites but you can be selective and pick out the bigger specimens. I have caught roach and hybrids close to 2lb, perch to nearly 3lb and bream to over 5lb in here,” he added.
Set up a choice of canal rigs
Lee had three rigs set up, all made with Dave Harrell 13 rugby ball-shaped floats and 0.12mm Shimano Antares mainline. His heaviest worm rig had a 1g pole float with a solid No.8 Preston black elastic and a Sensas size 16 3405 hook, while his lighter worm rig had the same hook but a No.6 elastic. The caster rig had a 0.5g pole float with a size 18 hook and No.5 elastic. “I’ve found that changing worm size or to a caster can make the difference between getting a bite and not getting one,” he said. Lee had been fishing around an hour and already had a few pounds in the net. However, like on many canals the fishing can often switch off at any moment and that’s exactly what happened, forcing him into re-feeding with another small cup of chopped worm and caster. This immediately kickstarted his swim and a small skimmer of around 5oz came to his net within minutes. The bites then dried up again but instead of re-feeding Lee changed to his heavier rig. “Sometimes when it goes dead it means there are some bigger fish in the vicinity.” Lee changed to a bigger piece of worm on the hook using his heavier rig and after a short wait his elastic was streaming out as a decent fififish took hold. Unfortunately, Lee’s ‘told you so’ smile soon disappeared as whatever he had hooked wriggled offffff the hook. By the end of the session Lee had well over double- fififigures in the net despite the freezing temperature. “The other good thing about fififishing here is that you haven’t got far to walk to buy a coffffee to warm up,” he joked.