Twente Canal, Enschede - 15.02.2015
Today we were all fishing on the Twente Canal opposite the Twente Stadium and we will be fishing here for the next 3 days. There was a bitterly cold wind blowing in our faces today and the water was very cold - at least it was not raining.
Roger was sat to my right and Theo to his right.
Today we were going to fish with Bloodworm and Joker that I picked up from Guido Nullens shop in Belgium yesterday.
While plumbing up, I found a couple of small indentations at about 12 metres, and from about 11 metres to 5 metres it was very flat. The depth increased by a few centimetres from 5 metres to the bank.
I decided to fish at 12 metres and 4 metres. I will be using some new floats that I picked up from Jo Adriolo's shop yesterday. Jo has the floats made by hand and I wanted to give them a go. I bought two of each size in 1, 1.5 and 2 grams. Amazingly the depth at 12 metres was exactly the same as the depth at 4 metres - to the cm!
I had an olivette about 40 cm from the hook and a No. 11 dropper about 20 cm from the hook. Main line was 0.10 mm with a 25 cm 0.08 mm bottom. Hook at the start was a 22 B512 which I later changed to a size 18 B512.
I was using quite a bit of my new Preston kit, including the Super Pro V Pole Roller and the Mega Side Tray. I must admit to being a big fan of the V pole roller.
The Mega Side Tray is more than big enough for all my bait and I can fix an additional bait waiter the the threaded end of the supporting leg. It fits great onto my Octbox too! The Preston Pole Sock protects the pole at the other end and is really easy to use; it certainly speeds up un-shipping the pole.
I decided to put just one small ball of groundbait with Joker on the 4 metre line and I fed five balls of groundbait with Joker on the 12 metre line - all with the pole cup at the start.
Later, I just fed small balls of groundbait with Joker by hand.
I started at 12 metres and after an hour it became obvious that it was going to be a hard day. I changed from the 12 metre line to the 4 metre line several times - but no bites. I also swapped from the 1 gram rig to the 1.5 gram rigs several times, and adjusted the depth from 6 inches off bottom to 6 inches on bottom. The usual 'just touching' just did not work.
I changed from a 22 and single and double Bloodworm to an 18 and a bunch of Bloodworm and got a bite.
My reward for today was just a solitary Tommy Ruff. It was hard and the wind was cold. Thankfully, my Preston clothing kept me warm and I will be back with Roger tomorrow for another go.
Roger had a Perch and Theo had a Perch and two Tommy Ruff - victory to Theo today! I may have been third! :-)
I will post some more detailed information about my rigs after tomorrows attempt at catching a Roach.
17.02.2015
On the Monday we moved about 200 metres to the right closer to the bridge and I caught 3 Tommy Ruff. After the fishing we went to see our sponsor Michael Zammataro's new factory in Essen.
We decided to fish the same pegs again on the Tuesday. Theo had to work so it was just me and Roger.
The weather remained really cold and the water was all but freezing. Roger caught a small Perch after a few hours and he also managed to get a Tommy Ruff.
On the third day we decided to try a different groundbait approach - the X22 Red from Zammataro smells great.
I'm sure when I find a venue with some fish in it I'll get them feeding over this groundbait.
The sieve and bucket are much easier to use than my old sieve.
The water was pulling sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right, but 1, 1.5 & 2 gram rigs where all that was required.
When the boats go past you have to start building up the swim from scratch - the shallow water turns into a raging torrent.
The fishing was hard every day but I managed a few Tommy Ruff.
After 3 days on the canal I have caught a grand total of 5 fish - 4 Tommies and a footballer (Perch).
Dedicated or mad - I'll let you decide.
Tight Lines,
Steve
