Canal Fishing at its Very Best – Ladys bridge

Pewsey Angling Club own a stretch of the Kennet and Avon Canal at Ladys bridge, just outside of Pewsey. To get to the stretch you had to go down a little farm road and across a little stone bridge. You would turn to your right and peering up the length of canal you would see a bay. The bay concerned was where the long narrow boats would turn around as further up the length it got  more difficult to do so as it was very narrow.

 Because I had spent a lot of time fishing the canal I knew it was a bit of a hotspot for catching bream. They ranged from about 8 ounces, known as “skimmers”, up to around 3 pound, which are known as “slabs”, which were big fish by canal standards. If you could keep the shoal feeding without scaring them you could catch some big bags from the bay. My friend and I decided to give it a go midweek as we thought that this would give us the best chance of doing well.

There had been a club match there on the Sunday and we knew that there was to be an evening match on the Wednesday. The Sunday match had been won with two 30 pound bags from the bay, so we were feeling that the little two day rest would have done it good providing no-one had fished it on the Monday.

The fact that quite a bit of bait would have been put in on the Sunday and that we did not have a frost overnight were reasons that boded well for a decent days fishing for us. We arrived just before daylight and breathed a sigh of relief that the two swims in the bay weren't occupied. We couldn't get to the bay quick enough. We set up our tackle well away from the side of the canal so as to create the least disturbance to our swims. We were able to climb down into our swims and settled in so our outlines were not showing on the horizon. We had both brought two keep nets each so as the fish would have sufficient space without putting stress on them.

The water had a good colour to it, something between green and brown, so we knew that there were feeding fish in the bay. As we knew the shoal was in residence, we didn't mess about. We both mixed and deposited 10 large balls of ground bait laced with casters and pinkies into the swims. We aimed our ground bait at about two thirds of the way across, at around 4 rod lengths out from the bank. Filling in a swim like that on a normal canal swim would normally be the kiss of death as the shoal would probably vacate in a hurry, but as our shoal was resident and in great numbers, it would take a lot to scare them out of the bay.

They were used to big disturbances as the long narrow boats used the bay to turn in. We knew that the shoal would initially move back to the far side reeds for protection and that we would have to slowly coax them back into the middle of the bay if we were to do well. We decided to loose feed pinkies and casters after each cast and to introduce a ball of ground bait every 20 minutes or each time a boat came through the swim. We had to keep the shoal getting their heads down and feeding.

After the first hour, all we had to show for our efforts were a few small perch. I was just starting to think our bait bombardment had put the fish down and that we were doomed. Had we screwed it up before we had really started?

My friend then hooked into a decent fish which turned out to be a slab. We knew from experience that 12 slabs usually equaled around the 25 lb mark, so that would be our aim. It did not make sense to start weighing in huge numbers of fish and we felt that as a pleasure session, it would be rather cruel to put them through that ordeal. We decided that if we caught more we would go by numbers rather than weighing in at the end, as it was much easier and more humane.

The canal depth was no more than 2 to 3 feet in depth and if we were not to have the hooked fish crashing onto the surface we would need to strike to the side rather than upwards, keep our rods just under the surface and guide the hooked fish quickly and quietly away from the main shoal. This would keep the disturbance down to a minimum and give us the best chance of landing good numbers of fish.

Slowly but surely we started catching fish regularly and after 3 hours we were getting slabs one after the other. Because there were such a high number of fish feeding in the swim we could not avoid foul hooking the odd fish every now and again. We minimised this by fishing well over depth so that about 2 feet of line was laying on the bottom rather than high in the water.

To keep up the catch rate we had to put lots more ground bait than we had planned, but it seemed to work and did not put the shoal down.  This was fishing par excellence and was an absolute joy. We could not go wrong and it was really a red letter day for us.

We had been fishing hard for about 7 hours and the sun was high in the sky by early afternoon. The bites started to tail off a bit and we didn't have much ground bait left. We had had enough and decided that we would call it a day. I am sure that we could have carried on catching for a couple more hours had we wanted to but at a slower rate. We were covered in bream slime and we were being targeted by flies and midges. We counted the fish as we released them from all 4 keep nets. After releasing all the fish we totted up the scores on the doors and we both had over 100 lb bags.

This was an unbelievable pair of bags from a canal and to this day I have never heard of bigger catches, unless the anglers responsible have kept it quiet as we did for a long time. It was a session that went perfectly and one that I will never forget. The stretch of water has changed considerably in the last 30 years since we fished it.

They have stopped boats turning in the bay and placed obstructions halfway across the bay. Subsequently the bay has silted right up and the shoals of bream are long gone. Recently a friend of mine reported anglers blanking in the very same spot we had our magnificent catches. What can I say! Humans are their own worst enemies and unfortunately my tale is not an isolated case of a downturn in fishing quality when we are being told all the time of improved water quality. I don’t think so!!