fantasticmrfox Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 Hi all! I've been thinking of hitting the grand union canal, between Daventry near Drayton Reservoir and Weedon, with a spinner, a few small rattling plugs, my feeder rod and spinner rod and some maggots and bread. I can't find out anything about this stretch on the internet and wondered if anyone on here has any experience with this stretch of the canal. who run's it? will I need to purchase a day ticket from anywhere or is it one of the stretches that are currently free to fish? What species of fish does it hold? I was thinking of going for small pike and perch predominantly, but the chance of a tench, bream, chub etc would be nice if they're in there... are there any areas that stick out in peoples minds that are productive areas in this stretch, or any features common to canals that hold fish? As bait goes, am I correct in thinking maggots and bread are the main winners? how well do boilies fish on canals, should a take some with me? what about corn and luncheon meat? As I've not done much in the way of canal fishing in the past, any general advice, or any advice specific to the area would be greatly appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james666 Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 i haven't fished that stretch myself but i have fished the grand union before so ill give you what advice i can. maggots will work great generally on the canal especially with the colder weather coming. sweetcorn and meat will work also. as for bollies, i have seen bollies work on my stretch of canal however i have never seen anyone else using them before so may worth a try on the canal. sorry i couldn't of been more help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantasticmrfox Posted October 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 i haven't fished that stretch myself but i have fished the grand union before so ill give you what advice i can. maggots will work great generally on the canal especially with the colder weather coming. sweetcorn and meat will work also. as for bollies, i have seen bollies work on my stretch of canal however i have never seen anyone else using them before so may worth a try on the canal. sorry i couldn't of been more help Mate, that's all ready a great help, only ever time I've fished the canal was spinning for jack's in London somewhere, so I don't have a clue on canal fishing. To hear that what I have guessed is a good choice will work from someone with more experience than I have fishing canals is a great help thank you! Should be taking the missus with me so maybe I can get her into fishing by landing a few perch or roach, I guess a lot of it is down to locating the fish, same as fishing a small pond or a huge pit! If anyone has fished this stretch and could provide a bit more information I'd greatly appreciate it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james666 Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 well as for locating the fish, over hanging trees or brambles are great, stay away from locks as it is annoying having to bring your rod out of the water for periods of time while people use the lock. in your bit of canal i will presume there will be bream, roach, perch, gudgeon and most likely carp aswell. i find fishing a stick float with maggot works great for roach or with a lob worm for perch and ground bait is good aswell a standard match mix is good enough but if you want to make your own, then heres what i use on the canal if i dont use a pre maid match mix. brown bread crumb mixed with red bread crumb with hemp sead mixed in works great on my bit of the canal. also chopped worm work great for perch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantasticmrfox Posted October 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 well as for locating the fish, over hanging trees or brambles are great, stay away from locks as it is annoying having to bring your rod out of the water for periods of time while people use the lock. in your bit of canal i will presume there will be bream, roach, perch, gudgeon and most likely carp aswell. i find fishing a stick float with maggot works great for roach or with a lob worm for perch and ground bait is good aswell a standard match mix is good enough but if you want to make your own, then heres what i use on the canal if i dont use a pre maid match mix. brown bread crumb mixed with red bread crumb with hemp sead mixed in works great on my bit of the canal. also chopped worm work great for perch AWESOME! I've got some chocolate groundbait left over from a session a few months back, been using it every time I've been fishing and it just won't run out lol, so I'll be using that, but I'll also dry and blitz a loaf of bread and mix it up with some corn or maggot and put this in a wire feeder thanks for the advice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantasticmrfox Posted October 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 Well after doing some extensive research on-line I have found that this stretch of canal holds Carp, Bream, Perch, Pike and Roach... Oh how nice it would be to catch my first ever canal carp, or a nice pike! How often are these species in the same areas of a canal? could I feeder fish for carp and spin for pike and perch from the same swim? or would I be better off going with a 1 rod approach and casting to showing fish, choosing to target pike or perch, carp and bream? I was hoping to feeder fish for perch, roach, carp and bream, as these will all take a maggot hookbait, and then spin for pike with a second rod to cover all my bases, but if these species tend to stay away from one another then I guess I would be better off taking one rod and choosing to ignore the pike. How do you guys go about fishing canals? do you find a swim that hold fish and stay there or walk up and down picking off fish you spot as you go? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james666 Posted October 14, 2011 Report Share Posted October 14, 2011 i have never caught a carp on the canal before but i know there are carp where i fished the canal!!!! they keep evading me! however there typical canal fish and will be found in most of the canal, i cant see any reason why the pike wont be in the same swim as the roach, perch since the pike will eat them so its natural food for them. i dont see many fish showing on the canal, i generally fish in one place if im using ground bait but you could be moving up the canal and look for bubbles ect coming up and spend 20 or 30 mins fishing on spot. using two rods i cant see being a problem unless your getting a fair amount of bites on one. i personally would set up the feeder rod with a cage feeder with a bait alarm and wait 10 mins and see what happens before putting the pike rod in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantasticmrfox Posted October 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 14, 2011 i have never caught a carp on the canal before but i know there are carp where i fished the canal!!!! they keep evading me! however there typical canal fish and will be found in most of the canal, i cant see any reason why the pike wont be in the same swim as the roach, perch since the pike will eat them so its natural food for them. i dont see many fish showing on the canal, i generally fish in one place if im using ground bait but you could be moving up the canal and look for bubbles ect coming up and spend 20 or 30 mins fishing on spot. using two rods i cant see being a problem unless your getting a fair amount of bites on one. i personally would set up the feeder rod with a cage feeder with a bait alarm and wait 10 mins and see what happens before putting the pike rod in. I hadn't thought of that, I was going to watch the tip as I span the second rod, bite alarm would be much easier! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james666 Posted October 14, 2011 Report Share Posted October 14, 2011 glad i could help a bite alarm would be great since it allows you to concentrate on your lure fishinh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beanz Posted October 14, 2011 Report Share Posted October 14, 2011 the stretch is massive,the are no locks from whilton all the way to blisworth and includes the gayton junction to the northhampton arm. so the is plenty of water for them to hide, but the have been some big carp out over the years. good thing about canals unlike rivers is the tow path,get on a push bike and do some scouting or the winding hole at whilton for a quick starter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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