Well myself, my Dad and a friend fished the cut on sunday morning and it was hard work but very enjoyable! We arrived at around 7am and had a quick walk to make sure there wasn't a match on and then picked our pegs. We fished the section just off the A5/A45 crossroad and didn't walk too far as my dad didn't fancy a walk!
I opted to fish squatt from the start while my dad and my friend fished bread. I plumbed up and found the shelf at about 4m and 9m so opted to fish at the base of both shelves, the inside line using my top 3 with a section added on and the same rig at 9m. I also set up a overspray rig at 10m and a worm rig fished at 9m (11m of pole) to my left well out of the way of the squatt line.
After reading this months APF article on squatt fishing I decided to try some of the dynamite baits groundbait (silver x bream and frenzied hempseed) which i mixed on saturday night. I cupped in 2 orange size balls with squatt, caster and hemp cupped in separately on the 9m line and fed one ball and squatt on the 4m line.
After about 20 minutes on the 4m line i'd had a couple of gudgeon but it was pretty slow. My dad and friend were taking a few fish over the bread line so I decided to try the 9m line. I shipped over with single white squatt on the hook and caught a couple of net roach on 2 put ins. This was followed up with smaller roach and gudgeon so I decided to start loosefeeding squatt over the top with occasional hempseed too. From then on I caught steadily all morning on this line feeding a good pinch of squatt every fish or every bite.
I had my float dotted right down and bites were really hard to spot, They were barely moving the float and the slightlest indication I struck and 9/10 times I hit the bite. The canal was towing slightly from right to left and I found the that if I lay the rig in from left to right I had a bite much quicker! Also holding back gave me bites from a couple of net perch too. I mainly fished single squatt but I switched to double squatt and pinkie occasionally which gave me a few better fish then went to small again! (some fish were incredibly small!!) I fed one ball of groundbait about 1.5hrs from the end when bites dried and bites picked up again!
The overspray line worked well too and I picked up a couple of better fish aswell as small gudgeon, roach and perch. The worm line didn't produce at all which I thought was odd but I was catching on the squatt line so it was ok.
After about 4 hrs we packed up and I weighed in 2.5lb while my dad weighed in 1.5lb and my friend weighed in a 1lb. It was hard going but I really enjoyed as you really had to work for the fish.
The bread didn't work as well as we all thought it would but maybe there was too much colour in the water? A couple of other guys were fishing too and they found it hard too. They said it had been fishing hard in the week aswell. So definately the squatt approach worked the best but maybe when the water goes a bit clearer the punch might work better?!
I think we might try the oxford canal next weekend and see how thats fishing!
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