Giving it a go: Back to the canals.........

Saturday morning saw us both up at ridiculous o clock and on the road for another go at the
hybrids. I had dropped on to the spot the evening before after work to put in a bit of bait.
Hemp, corn and dead maggots were liberally spread in 3 swims. Last week we couldn't buy a bite after about 7 a.m. and having spoken to another guy who fishes that stretch he confirmed that he was having the same problem. Plan was that we'd be there at 4 a.m. and by giving us a bit more time we might do better than the previous week.
My good friend and long time fishing buddy Stephen Shannon joined us

Nice start to the morning

Myself and Rob were using similar set ups to the following week, Stephen was fishing rod and line which proved difficult, due to the weed. It's one of those spots where you need to fish into holes in the weed so casting was allways going to be difficult. Some work seemed to have been done on
the stretch by the weed cutting machines but it was still difficult getting presentation just right.

Theres no doubt that corn is the best hookbait on this one, mags will get you fish but more ofthen than not they'll be intercepted on the way down by blips, so we were all on corn from the off. First cast for Stephen saw a nice result and we're off. I'm getting lots of indications on the float and Rob as ever
is catching before I am. The next two hours saw a similar pattern to the previous week unfold, allthough I had more fish this week than last and for a pleasant change I weighed more than Rob
when we packed in at 08.30. At that time none of us were getting bites and the early start was
catching up on us. Stephen didn't weigh, Rob had 8 lb odd and I had 10 on the button.
We had all lost fish at some stage which I'm sure was down to hook selection, more accurately
hook size. I've been using various Drennan hooks for my canal fishing over the last few months and am converted. In particular the Drennan Red Maggot hook has definitely improved my catch rate.
Not having a supply of them or anything else bigger than an 18 with me was a mistake. As long as we learn from that and add some to my canal rig box then we'll be better geared up for the next time.