fishplate42
Well-known member
It may be called a river, but The Medway, above Allington Lock, is more like a big canal.
While my brother and I were fishing it this week, it was dead flat with no detectable flow when we first started. An hour or so in, and there was a definite flow for a while, then it stopped and almost seemed to run in the opposite direction for a while, before reverting back to no flow at all.
It dawned on me that maybe we should be treating it like a canal, rather than trying to fish it like a river. My local river here in London is a tiny little trickle in comparison, but because it has no physical barrier (so long as the level stays above the shallow weirs) it flows constantly down and eventually into the tidal Thames. I fish it by trotting a small float down the flow and it works very well (most of the time).
Do the fish differently in this 'canal' type environment, as opposed to the fish in a river that constantly flows?
Ralph.
While my brother and I were fishing it this week, it was dead flat with no detectable flow when we first started. An hour or so in, and there was a definite flow for a while, then it stopped and almost seemed to run in the opposite direction for a while, before reverting back to no flow at all.
It dawned on me that maybe we should be treating it like a canal, rather than trying to fish it like a river. My local river here in London is a tiny little trickle in comparison, but because it has no physical barrier (so long as the level stays above the shallow weirs) it flows constantly down and eventually into the tidal Thames. I fish it by trotting a small float down the flow and it works very well (most of the time).
Do the fish differently in this 'canal' type environment, as opposed to the fish in a river that constantly flows?
Ralph.
