The Towpath Angler
Our monthly look at the angling scene
THE past month has, again, been pretty quiet especially on the meetings front. This has had an upside though, insofar as I have had more time to attend to things at home which, hopefully, means I will have fewer reasons not to go out for a few hours’ fishing when the better weather comes.
That said, I have had plenty of things going on at club level. These range from the AGM and preparation of the new membership book to some serious vandalism to the new otter fencing at our club pool over the Easter weekend. It would appear it may not have been carried out by youngsters per se which leaves us thinking the culprits came in to fish illegally either for the table or simply to steal fish.
The police have attended but found nothing on which to base further enquiries. Thankfully the bailiffs spotted the damage very quickly and completed some temporary repairs. We are hopeful no otters found their way in.
Since mentioning the problem of cyclists and, now, e-scooters on towpaths in my article last month I, along with others, have requested that this becomes an agenda item at a future Members Council meeting. Only last week my wife and I walked just a short distance along our local canal and twice we were involved in near-miss situations.
One of the cyclists was on an electric cycle. Neither had sounded a bell. Neither stopped to check we were okay. Another couple out for a stroll saw one of the incidents and commented that it was becoming increasingly unpleasant, even dangerous, to walk the towpaths.
Before writing this article I skimmed through the May items going back through the years to 2008. In 2012 I said that the birth of the Canal & River Trust was very timely and with it we may see a much closer working relationship between all the key agencies, especially with regard to fisheries and angling which, hopefully, would generate more and better improvements to venues, access and fishing itself. While things are generally better in this area the improvements have not, perhaps, been as many as we had hoped for.
Similarly the partnership working between the key agencies is probably well short of what it should be. I do believe that some of the slower than expected progress may be due to the fact that fisheries and angling is, sadly, still not necessarily seen as an equal strand within the trust. I sincerely hope that this is addressed very soon.
In May 2018 I highlighted the Let’s Fish Initiative for the first time. Thankfully, due in the main to the Fisheries and Angling team and some brilliant volunteers, this has become one of the trust’s flagship projects.
Cormorant predation
Interestingly a worrying issue which I have referred to more than once is predation by cormorants along the canal network and this has, if anything, become worse in recent years. The damage caused to fish stocks is extreme and, worse, cannot easily be reversed.
Without doubt cormorant activity on canals and stillwaters increases when our rivers are in flood thus making their job so much more difficult. There are control mechanisms available as approved by Defra but sheer human presence is not one of them. The cormorant impact combined with similar from the other known predators continues to deplete fish stocks in our canals.
Weather-wise early April was true to form with strong, gusty winds and heavy showers but then, strangely, the second half of the month became almost totally dry although still very windy all held in place by unbroken periods of high pressure.
Needless to say none of this has helped the fishing. There have been signs that the fish are starting to wake up but not with any consistency which has led to anglers still approaching a session with some caution; indeed often still using winter tactics.
Match results continue to highlight this by showing a handful of anglers doing well but the majority struggling and often not even getting a bite. For my part I have recorded one outright win and a section win in my last four events. However due to workload I have not wet a line for two weeks although I do have two matches coming up this weekend. It seems as though some canals have been generally okay but even on these, consistency has not been the order of the day.
Even while the weather remains rather unsettled it is possible to have a successful session especially now that we have daylight until after 8pm. I said earlier a ‘winter’ approach is probably favourite but where you do find some fish be prepared to feed enough to hold them.
Tight lines all.