Twente Canal, Lochem - 07.12.2014
A couple hours drive north on the motorway and I arrived in Lochem to fish the Twente Canal with Roger and Theo. This is another new part of the canal for me, but it is similar to the stretch in Eefde.
We were going to go to the canal in Oranjedorp, but I didn't fancy the 500 km round-trip, so we opted for the Twente canal instead. Thanks guys. :-)
Plumbing up, I found a flat ledge about 30cm wide at 11 metres, in about 5.5 metres of water. We all found this ledge but Theo caught all his fish at 6 metres.
Roger plumbing the depth and smiling, even with a bad back – dedication!
My peg today is great - comfortable and the car is parked directly behind me.
Bait for today is as always - white maggots, white pinkies, caster and hemp - although I forgot the worms today. I add a little turmeric to my maggots to give them a bit of colour and a nice tang. I don't use dips for my hooks bait - with one exception - but I'll speak about that another time.
I'm feeding a dark groundbait today; the Zammataro Canal Mix with a little Roach additive mixed in. It's mixed to break up after hitting the bottom, keeping the fish on the bottom.
My plan is to feed five small balls of groundbait with casters and hemp via the pole cup at the start, and top up with the pole cup every now and again. The feed is going directly on the ledge I found.
Bait was mainly a single white maggot. Every 10 minutes I fed just a few grains of hemp and caster with the throwing stick.
Theo uses a nice net from Senses to place his groundbait balls in the right place.
My first rig today is a 2 g Drennan Carbo that I will fish just touching bottom. The second rig is a 2 g Drennan G-Tip 2 that I will fish about 15 cm over-depth.
Both rigs are fished with a Preston No.6 elastic through the top two sections.
I use the Drennan Carbo and the Drennan G-Tip 2 for a lot of my fishing. The Carbo has a cane tip that I find great for the Roach bites, and the G-Tip 2's thicker tip is great for larger baits.
Roger lost a fish when a boat was going past. Every time a boat goes by you need to build-up the swim again - it can be annoying.
It started raining after a few hours so up went the brolly. I use the 'V' on the Preston flat-back brolly to see better out the front - I can have the brolly lower than normal for some extra protection.
The wind was strong, but the bank was good and the trees behind us took the force out of the wind.
I managed to get two small Roach and a nice Rudd when another boat went past destroying the swim.
I was wearing my new Preston DF20 suit with my old RAF fleece jacket and was really warm.
I had a visitor during the day - probably wanted a few maggots!
I put just six fish in the net today but did lose two larger fish - probably Perch. I couldn't get any bites holding the rig still or setting the rig over-depth. All of my fish were on the Drennan Carbo rig, fished just touching and running through.
Roger managed to catch some nice Perch and was unlucky to lose the big fish went the boat was going through.
As usual, Theo had the most Gobies - I'm thinking of calling him the Goby King!
It was a hard day today, and the catches were quite small. If I'd have caught the two fish I lost, and Roger would've caught the big fish, it would have been a little different - but that's how it goes.
I made a big mistake today by not having Dendrobaenas with me - it won't happen again!
Still, all three of us managed to avoid a blank, which is always a good end to the day. Next week I'm fishing with an old friend in Gennep - I'll post a report.
Until then, tight lines,
Steve
