FISHERY OF THE WEEK Gloucester Canal
Weights match those of commercials
THE old-school reputation gained by canals suggests small silverfish will dominate sport – but head to the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal and you’ll soon see that theory is way off the mark!
Few natural waters can compete with the big weights that commercials are famed for, but when the bream are feeding, this venue certainly can.
Match and pleasure hauls of over 100lb are recorded on numerous occasions every year and the fish appear to be packing on the pounds.
Bream between 4lb and 7lb are commonplace, swimming up and down the venue in giant shoals. Land one and there is an excellent chance that plenty more will soon follow.
Renowned hotspot
The venue runs between the two places it is named after and is a true shipping canal. It is wide and deep, with a real urban feel about many of the areas along the 16-mile-long fishery.
Several zones are capable of throwing up hauls of bream, but Hempsted is arguably the most consistent of the lot.
Venue regular Chris Jones doesn’t think many other venues can compete with its potential, and he tells Angling Times: “This is one of the best canal fisheries in the land on its day. You can go from struggling to get a bite to suddenly bagging a big bream every chuck.
“The pegs at Hempsted Bend close to the swing bridge by KFC are always home to lots of fish, and this is a great place to head to if you want a session you’ll remember for a long time.”
Top tactics
Pole fishing is often the only tactic worth considering on canals, but the width of the Gloucester and Sharpness means that the feeder can come into play as well.
Chucking a cage packed with
groundbait, worms and casters around 25m out will put you in a great position to unlock this water’s potential.
If you do fish the pole, make sure you have some pretty long rigs prepared, because depths go down beyond 15ft in places.
Use a 1g-2g float depending on how windy it is, teamed with an olivette with several small dropper shot below it. A slightly heavier elastic than the usual relied on for silverfish is required to set the hook in deep water, and a No8 solid will do the job. The rest of the rig should be made up of 0.14mm mainline to a 0.12mm hooklength and a 16 or 18 hook.
Use a worm head or double caster over a bed of fishmeal groundbait and the canal’s prolific slabs will soon be finding their way into your landing net.