A day on the darkside - Exeter Canal 14/02/10

BaggieRich · #1 02-14-2010, 09:29 PM

Dropped the M.I.L. the missus and kids at the station this morning and began another week of freedom!

Fishing and beer are planned, however seeing how totally crap the beaches have been round here lately, we thought we'd try something a little different and take another trip to the darkside today.

Dave and I have heard some tales of big fish in the canal of late, so we decided to fish the lower stretch just above the basin of the Turf locks. The original plan was for me to get down there at around 12ish and wonder down from the car park with my spinning rod and meet Dave a bit later once he got out of work to do some dead baiting. Unfortunately, the sofa proved far too comfortable (I was in relaxed mode, ok!

), so instead I picked him up straight from work and we were setup not long after. Well, I say setup, Dave was setup in no time at all, but it's been 18 months since I've waved a pike rod in anger, so I took me, shall we say, a "little bit" longer!

It was a beautiful day, hardly any wind, some lovely bright sunshine (which wasn't going to help the fishing, but was a pleasure to sit in), the rugby was on and it was nice to just be out there.

It was a good job really, as the fishing was proving to be every bit as good as the beaches have been! A couple of bleeps from the various rods we had out were all we could show for the first couple of hours fishing. In the end I got a little bored, so grabbed the spinning rod, armed it with a 5" perch storm shad and wire trace, and took a wonder off down the basin to see if there were any crocs hiding under the boats. I worked my way down, right to the end with no joy, so decided take a little walk past the pub and down towards the river. The salty side in me noticed some cracking looking gullies and channels which look very fishy indeed. Wonder if the Bass and Flounder get this far up the river.

As the afternoon wore on, we both changed baits and repositioned a couple of times. There were a few bubbles in the basin mouth and another couple of bleeps on Dave’s rods, but other than that every thing was deathly quiet. I decided to give the spinning rods another bash as the light faded and on my first stop, I got a bite. One very short fight later and up to the surface came what I thought was a tiny little jack, only when I got it into the net, I realised it was this.

Perch

The weight in the net went 5lb 3oz and the net after she'd gone back went 1lb 6oz, so around about the 3lb 13oz region. Whatever the weight, it was a PB by a mile! Quite pleased then, and not a little surprised - That was a big shad.

Something you'd select for Perch?

We fished on well past sunset, but the dead baits hadn't moved and the temperature was dropping, so we packed up and headed back to the car about 6pm ish. It had been a beautiful day - we didn't encounter a single boat, it wasn't that cold until near then end and we watched a magnificent barn owl working the other side on the canal for a while, not to mention the PB Perch. I will doubtless be tempted back to the darkside on the canal one day, but next time, there had better be some damned Pike!

A couple of days of out with me mates will now follow

, before the next fishing of my week off, a day/night trip to the North Devon Coast. I need to see waves on the water again!