Most of these places contain carp of varying sizes. The place we stayed was surrounded by perfect looking, lily fringed water.
But you shouldn't jump to conclusions. We walked and cycled miles, me on the lookout for tell tell signs of carp. Nothing. Not one sighting.
Back at the camp we had a tiny djke backing on to us.
A few casts produced small roach and rudd, there were hoardes of them. A couple of handfuls of hemp/corn mix were chucked in to see if anything bigger was present.
An hour later while having our tea outside the van, I saw a big patch of bubbles. Tea was put on hold and a big bit of flake put on the hook, under a piece of peacock quill.
A couple of minutes later the float slid away and an obviously much larger fish was on. Small carp I thought, but no, a lovely tench around 3lb. That'll do.
After tea I didn't, as you might expect, carry on fishing. I got on the bike and had a recce at another,slightly larger canal, just outside the campsite.
A few hanfuls of the old faithful hemp and corn mix was deposited in a couple of swims, ready for an exploritory session early next morning.
Arriving at dawn, the swim was full of bubbles,it was like a cauldron ! But.....not a bite!
Not to be beaten, I returned the following morning and had a great result. Decent roach and rudd to 1.25lb, chunky silver bream, two nice tench and a huge great bream. All on a simple float set up and the old classic Mk1 Drennen Tench rod.
"On the bike" , a rod, net, bait bucket and bits and pieces in your pockets. The crazy thing is that in all the miles we've cycled over the last few days, we've only seen two anglers. There's so much to go at, but you just have to "suck it and see" and find out yourself.
More cycling and fishing planned.
