Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)

Kayleigh Smith

Tips for deep canals

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WHEN anglers think of a typical canal a similar image will flash into the minds of most... A waterway that is roughly 15m wide, has a shelf on either side with a slightly deeper trench down the middle, and is quite shallow.

This descriptio­n certainly covers a vast proportion of the nation’s canals but there is another style of ‘ the cut’ that is nothing like the stereotype.

Venues such as the Gloucester Canal and the Aire & Calder are a totally different breed. They are extremely deep and generally much wider.

If you try and use the same tactics on these as you would on a regular canal, you’re going to struggle.

Thankfully, Preston Innovation­s and Sonubaits star Kayleigh Smith is a dab hand on deep canals and here she reveals her top five tips to succeeding on them.

1 Vary your rig presentati­on

When you are fishing in deep water, you can pretty much guarantee that the fish will be sat at different depths.

If roach are your primary target then it is better to string out your shot down the line. This will make the hookbait fall really slowly, giving the fish plenty of time to take it at a depth they are already sat at.

Bream are a completely different propositio­n. They spend most of their feeding time on the bottom. Use a shotting pattern that incorporat­es a bulk set 2ft- 3ft from the hook with a couple of smaller dropper shot evenly spread below.

This bombs the hookbait through the upper layers where there are no bream before slowing it down as it comes into the zone where the slabs are waiting. The droppers make sure your hookbait is falling at a natural pace when the fish see it, tricking them into thinking they can safely swallow it.

2 Pick the right worms

Worms are brilliant on deep canals, especially when you’re after bream and bonus perch.

I’ll never leave home without redworms. They wriggle a lot more and when a fish comes to feed over a bed of bait, it is the first thing they snap up.

I always include chopped dendrobaen­as in my groundbait because they release a lot of attractive juices, but redworms always go on the hook.

3 Rely on two groundbait mixes

Roach and bream are often the dominant species in these venues and, because they have completely different taste buds, two different groundbait mixes are fed in different areas to help me catch both.

My go- to mix for redfins is Sonubaits Black Roach and Lake mixed 50/ 50. This creates a dark carpet of bait, essential to getting them to feed confidentl­y.

I use Sonubaits Pro Dark Fishmeal on its own for bream. It has everything you need including the correct scent, colour and lots of crushed pellets that keep the fish grubbing around.

4 Bright baits in clear water

The canals I fish are almost always clear at this time of year and I believe that the fish rely heavily on their vision in these conditions to find their next meal.

As such, I use bright hookbaits and additives to make sure I can draw the attentions of fish that are looking to feed.

Fluoro pinkies and bronze maggots are brilliant on the hook and I also add a handful of Sonubaits Fluoro Rocks into my groundbait. The tub contains yellow, orange and pink particles that retain their colour in water and really stand out.

5 Give the catapult a workout

Groundbait is important because it gets a carpet of bait on the bottom, but loosefeedi­ng is equally key. The constant trickle of bait through the water column gets a shoal competing, especially when targeting roach.

I alternate between feeding pinkies – which are attractive to small fish and make sure you get bites all day – and hemp. Hemp draws in a better stamp and when you start hooking the odd better specimen on a pinkie hookbait, it is time to switch to hemp to be more selective with what you land.

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