Suburban Piking

As I approached the canal the the roar of the M4 was very obvious and this would be my background noise for the next couple of hours, it certainly was a far throw from the secluded banks of the Wye.  I decided to fish a short stretch of canal near the city centre which a friend of mine recommended after he had taken some pike earlier in the year on livebaits.
I chose to lure fish, as I had never seen the stretch before I wanted to stay mobile.
It had been raining constantly for the last couple of hours, with no signs of stopping anytime soon so I was resigned to the fact I was in for a soaking! 
The canal was gin clear and the weed was prolific, it wasnt going to be easy to fish, I put on a sub surface lure that had a good wobbling action hoping it would entice a few toothy critters.  I put my lure bag under one of the graffiti daubed benches which was next to a burnt out bin, well I was in the city. 



Not what you call secluded

 The lure came back covered in weed on the first few casts which meant I could only crank it down to about a foot to keep it above the thick weed that carpeted the canal bed.  I was flicking the lure to the far side of the canal just short of the reed beds and floating weed and reeling it back trying to impart a bit of action with every cast.  An hour into the session the rain became heavier and the wind got colder, and with rain running down the back of my neck I had my first follow as a jack pike snatched at the lure falling just short, a quick recast and he followed again however he decided not to commit.  I stayed in this area for a while as I noticed a shoal of roach swimming above a clear patch, some of them looked a decent size certainly worth targetting in a future session.
A familiar face walked down the towpath, it was my mate Josh who had told me about this stretch.  We chatted as I changed lures then carried on casting to the far bank.  As we walked a bit further down the cut I spotted another jack in the margins, I gently lowered the rubber shad in front of the pike and made it dance about right in front of the jacks face!  He didnt move, I even plonked the shad straight onto his head this only made him move a few inches, perhaps he had just eaten!



Rain on the lense

 By now the towpath was littered with puddles, my Goretex jacket had taken a hammering and my summer hat was floppier than ever!  As we walked back up, I cast to likely looking areas then we spotted another of around 6lb I quickly chucked the lure in front of the Pike several times, even changing back to my original lure to try and get a reaction out of him but he just didnt want to play ball.  Time to call it a day, for whatever reason the Pike just werent in the mood, maybe livebaits are a better tactic on this canal.  Even though I didnt manage to persuade one of those Pike to take, they are definately there and in some numbers as we spotted another Pike in the 5-6lb bracket on the way back to the van.  We will return when the weed has died back in the colder months, Ill also be back to target those Roach.