A trip Ruffe Hunting

[mithrandir]

Steve and I met up on Saturday morning at Devizes to take a trip to the Kennet and Avon canal near Pewsey to start this seasons hunt for Mr Ruffe.

It was -2 when I got into the van to start the trip, but by the time we got to the canal it was 3 and rising, was still very chilly but the clear sky and forecast warm temperatures meant it should be a nice day, but bright sunshine might make it harder work.

I had been warned that the canal had been very hard fishing the previous week by the man in the tackle shop that we got bait and day tickets from, so finding loads of barges moored up and a very muddy towpath we made the decision to try different section of the canal than normal.

After about a 5 minute walk the towpath was getting difficult for Steve to pull his trolley through so he decided to fish between two moored barges near the second bridge, I was feeling brave so I trudged a further 10 minutes or so through the mud to find a spot near the third bridge I had fished a couple of years ago.

I had decided earlier in the year to try and make a bit more effort at float fishing this year, I tend to cop out and take the easy option of fishing leger tactics on a feeder and be a bit lazy on the bank, so I set up a single rod on the float with a size 18 hook and double maggot, having plumbed up I found it was about 5 ft 6 ins deep in the centre, so I balled in some basic groundbait, scattered a few maggots and started fishing.

Within about 20 minutes I had my first fish of the day, a small skimmer type bream, in the canal there are a lot of hybrids but I think this one is reasonably close to being all bream, just small.



I will not claim the points for this until someone else can confirm or deny its true identification, I am not that good with them when they are so small and possible mongrel!



You can see from this one that it is very "snotty" and has a definite bream appearance. I am just unsure if the blue back is hybridisation?

I had about 3 more of these before the swim just died on me. The only action I had after that was the magpie that was determined to have some of my bait before the day was out. Here he is waiting to see if I am going to walk back to the bridge to have a little dabble so he can nick a few more of my maggots!



After a couple of hours of no more bites, and a float hanging in the trees ( I remember why I get lazy and feeder fish!) I decided to move back to where Steve was and see how he was getting on.

So I route marched through the mud and arrived at Steve's swim to find he had a new fishing buddy, not sure of the colloquial name, but definitely a prime example of "youthious obnoxious". So saving Steve from the futher rantings of this mouthy little kid, I set up right next to Steve and the kid took the hint and went off to see Daddy and his sisters.

Steve was pole fishing and seemed to be doing well, I will let him report his catch, so I found a couple of trees on the opposite bank about 30 feet from Steve and started my fishing there.

It was still slow here for me, Steve was just getting fish after fish whilst my sorry little float sat untouched in the water.

Eventually I had a take, which I lost ( typical roach take, with lots of head shaking, I think I struck too early to set the hook!), then shortly after I had another, this small blighter. Again with the canal I am never that sure if it is a good example of a roach or hybridised, so I took a couple of shots, and took it over to Steve for a second opinion. He was confident that this was a roach, the mouth is right, so are the fins and colour, I was just unsure about the blue back.





It went quiet again for a while until I pulled it this little perch



Very pale but they all seemed like that at the canal this time.

Then I had a slightly larger take and reeled in this one





I immediately decided this was a rudd, the fins and the mouth are a dead giveaway, so I trotted over to Steve for a second opinion, which he confirmed for me and pointed out the extremely bad anal fin on this fish, it had been injured at some time and healed with a deformity.

Soon after this I lost another float, so decided to have the last hour on the feeder, nothing happened so Steve and I packed up and walked back to the carpark.

No Mr Ruffe, a few nutters on the towpath, only 5 boat movements all day, but at least we had some points out of it.

Steve and I were discussing the lack of Ruffe, and we wondered if they are a twilight feeder, due to the large eyes, and whenever I had caught them before it had been overcast or rainy days, and today being bright sunshine may have been why they did not show.

Anyway, a good day, despite me having "manflu", and good to spend some time with Steve again.

[Wilza]

great report mate, I think thats a silver bream! dunno what anyone else thinks

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Crack read

[cuckoo]

Great report mike , unlucky on the ruffe though

lee.

[Greenheart]

Nice one Mike. I think the Ruffe thought that I was going to join you. So they stayed in bed.... Sounds ike I made the right choice by going to the Bike show instead.

[fishypaul]

well done mike,i'm sure that first one is a hybrid,the colouration definately suggests some roach in there somewhere,
some nice pics there mate

[Norfolkboy]

Nice one Mike

[Banana Steve]

It was just over a year ago when I meet Claudia and Mike at the 2007 Zander meet, and since then we have fished together on a fairly regular basis, It was mike and Claudia that re-introduced me back into fishing the canal, as I swore I would never fish a Canal again after an inexperienced barge owner grounded himself on the far bank opposite me in a match, an event that cost me the match and a reasonable payout. But thankfully I went with Mike and Claudia last year and I now enjoy fishing the canal, mind you I think I will stay away in the summer I may find the boats annoying again.
The day started with meeting Mike at the tackle shop in Devizes, I purchased my bait, ½ pint of Squat, ½ pint of Pinkie, ½ pint of red maggots with a hand full of white and a bag of Sensas “Matchblend” and off we went to the canal.

We arrived at the Canal at around 8:30 and as Mike said we went left instead of our usual right. As we walked along the tow path we passed two barges moored up, there was a lovely peg just in the middle and I quite fancied it.

We had a look a little further up on the canal, but I did fancy the peg I had just passed. I said to Mike that I was going to fish the peg between the barges, for which he replied that he might try a little further up, I assumed that he meant a couple of yards up from me. However, when I went to stretch my leg and wonder down to see him, he was no where to be seen.


I set up my pole and decided to fish the cut {the centre of the canal}. Plumbing up the depth gave me 4ft of water with a raise to 3ft on the far shelf.

My plan was introduce 3 small balls of ground bait into the centre and 1 larger ball laced with squat as well. After cupping out my four balls of ground I left the centre alone for 15 minutes and fished the far shelf with pinkie. This produced two fish, a small roach and larger roach. However on retrieving the larger roach, I jumped out of my skin as a double figure pike broke the surface of the water at the end of my keepnet in his assault to catch my poor little roach, in the roach’s pure panic it managed to throw the hook and swim away, mind you I am relieved I didn’t hook the pike, it would have been a pain re-tackling up again, I would have bound to have lost the pike.

So it was back to the cut and because I fed a lot of squat at the beginning I started on white pinkies, which produced a bite straight away. After an hour or so I had around 15 fish in the net and I was starting get slightly better fish, 3 to 4 oz fish and I was getting these on a single white maggot. I kept the feed going in steadily during the day which helped me to keep the fish there.

It was around 11:30 when I hooked a better fish, it felt like a Tench, however after the fish powered itself of into the far reeds and shedding the hook I will never know.
After a while the bites started to slow down, for which point I was getting the odd small roach. A kid turned up behind me and started to talk to me he was full of enthusiasm; however there was zero levels of noise control and movement. Thankfully Mike turned up and the young lad disappeared for a while, even on his return the voice control needed to put in check, by me saying “Shh”, thankfully his father took him off further along the Canal.


As the Afternoon progressed the bites became fewer and fewer. However, I did manage to bag my self a small skimmer {1 ½ points thank you very much}

As the day progressed, my back started to ache and I decided to knock the pole on the head and fish a small feeder. This only produced 3 more fish. At 4pm I decided enough was enough and called it a day, I asked Mike to help me weigh in what I had caught. The total weight was 3lb 15oz’s, not to bad for the Canal in winter, and I did have a great day and there was very little boat traffic as well.

I had enjoyable day and some good company as well, I will be back, but next time I am taking some special bait for the Ruffe. Mind I won’t tell Greenheart what it is as he may nick it. I mean this great White Ruffe will need taming if CPT Ahab Greenheart wants it.

[Twiddler]

Superb reports and pics guys.....maybe I should have come with you, at least the fish showed for you.


P.S Thanks for the pole rigs Steve.....now all you gotta do is show me how to use them

[cuckoo]

great report steve , and another 1 1/2 points .....damn i need to get me ass in gear

lee.