Piking On The Bridgy

This article is about my exploits on the Bridgewater Canal in the Manchester/ Cheshire areas. I am not naming specific areas/ hotspots not because I am particularly secretive or at all selfish, but because I do not want to inadvertently publicise an area that someone else may want to keep under wraps. Saying this, my experience is that the Pike are fairly well spread out on this water, and there are miles and miles of it!

Now please don’t expect stories of multiple twenties here as this has just not happened for me. I have had them just short of this mark and lots of doubles/ upper doubles which, in this area, represents quite reasonable fishing.

Most of you will be familiar with the mechanics of live/ deadbaiting so this is not intended to be an instruction course. What I am going to do is highlight my general observations and particularly put forward some questions that remain unanswered. Hopefully you can relate to these in your own fishing, and may even be able to provide me with some of the answers!

Water clarity- Deads versus Lives

I prefer to use Deadbaits wherever possible. This is not because I am opposed to Livebaits, far from it. No, to be honest, I find it difficult to consistently obtain the right baits when I need them: in the Winter. I will explain…

From around mid-April until mid- November the Canal is fairly coloured. This is not the chocolate colour of some canals but medium colour, with perhaps 12-18 inches of visibility. During these months Deadbaits are all that is needed. Livebaits do work at this time but the Pike taken on these average several pounds less.

When the water is clear Deadbaits, especially on the bottom, are a waste of time. To emphasise this point where you might average 4-5 runs per session in coloured water, you might go 4-5 sessions without a run in clear water. The only way to get a run on Deads is to fish them mid-water. Livebaits at this time will again average 4-5 runs per day.

There is another variable here i.e water temparature. I think this is less important though as in some years the colour has dropped out earlier. During these years Deadbaits stopped being effective as soon as visibility got to about two and a half feet.

Canal profile

The Bridgewater Canal is relatively deep at around five feet in general and up to nearly six feet in some areas. Like most canals the margins are shallower and hold the majority of features e.g Weedbeds, snags etc. Where the Bridgy differs though is that in some areas the near side is the same depth as the middle. One area I know is five and a half feet deep, one foot from the bank. These areas, or certainly the ones I have found, run for no more than a hundred yards or so but are certainly worth finding as they are real hotspots. The trick here is to fish just one foot from the near bank. I think that the Pike lie up against the bank or even in holes in the bank. Whatever, if you can find an area like this it’s well worth giving it some time.

Safety first

As you may guess the canal is full of snags. Shopping trollies, bikes etc. etc. While I have never lost a fish to a snag I did at first lose a few rigs when I retrieved them. Leaving a bait with trebles in it in the water is clearly unacceptable so I devised a way of dealing with this.

Quite simply, this involves a Jerkbait rod, 80 pound Braid, 1 oz Lead and some 5/0 Trebles. Tie on the lead with a Granny knot leaving a 4 inch tail then attach the Treble and bingo! You have "The Snagmaster". I always cast this around before fishing so ‘dangerous’ areas can be eliminated. Some interesting ‘snags’ lie on the bottom of the canal I can tell you. So far my tally is one landing net handle complete with net, one keepnet (shucks, no livebaits in it) and one Leeda Pike road complete with Daiwa Baitrunner!

On a more serious note this does highlight the amount of junk in the canal. Plastic bags are all over the place and God knows what is in them half the time. Wearing gloves is a sensible precaution before handling any of this stuff.

Hot spots

Apart from the deeper nearside areas I have already mentioned there are a few more obvious features on the canal.

One area that springs to mind is an outflow from a factory which pumps out warm water and food waste from a basin off the main canal. There is a bridge over where this basin joins the canal proper which offers an excellent vantage point to view the canal’s inhabitants. The area is ‘solid’ with large Pike but Jacks are very few and far between. Despite being right amongst loads of doubles and several twenties the fishing around here is extremely frustrating. One day you might get three or four doubles. Fish it for another five or six sessions and you might not get a run.

This is even more perplexing as other, more featureless areas are fairly consistent whereas this area is clearly not. What is going on here?, I really have not got a clue. The area is heavily pressured including by a lot of inexperienced anglers so Fish do get damaged. This pressure might lead to generally smaller catches but why the inconsistency? I have tried to apply Rickard’s hot spot theory but really cannot see that it applies in this case. Anyway I’ll keep on trying to work it out and one day, when all my hair is grey, I might be able to give you the answer!

Baits

I have tried all manner of deadbaits and to be honest have not been able to find anything that works better than anything else. I am quite happy with a bag of frozen Sardines as they are cheap, soft (my preference), the right size and work as well as anything else.

With livebaits my choice is fairly limited. Roach are sometimes available as are small Bream. I find the latter a bit frail on the hook though. My favourite would be a Perch as they last longer and seem to work harder than either Bream or Roach. Unfortunately most of the Perch you catch are a little small as I prefer, ideally, a 3-4 oz bait.

Where are the biggies?

Quite a few 20 pound plus Pike inhabit this Canal. A few are caught and reported each year. Probably a few more are caught and not reported. At least 2 authenticated thirties have been caught in the last 10 years. Saying this, I have never had a twenty, neither have my companions, nor have I seen one banked. On the law of averages this would not be the case. I’ve got 3 theories here:

1/ I’ve either been very unlucky or I’m an awful angler!

2/ The bigger Pike feed mainly at night.

3/ The bigger Pike feed mainly on large Bream (the canal is stuffed with 2-5 pounders)

While it’s not for me to comment on the first theory the second and third may have some validity. Anyone who nightfishes the canal will tell you that the larger Bream are very close to being nocturnal, spectacular catches can be made at night. Is it possible that the Bream, whilst pre-occupied by feeding, are less cautious and become easy pickings for the largest Pike?

Well that’s it for now, hope this has been of some interest to you. Next time I’ll tell you a bit about my Spring/ Summer Lure exploits.