Hi Guys

Popped out the other afternoon on the forth and clyde canal (my local) i was anstonished when i moved hear many years ago just how many "small" jack pike were in it when i lived down south "small" was 3lb, 4lb, i rarely saw a pike smaller.

The forth and clyde is "littered" with small jacks and im talking 8",10",12",14" on a sunny days you can even see pike of 4" at the margins

The are a real pain whilst course fishing try fishing a worm under a float for perch and pretty soon you will get a pike one day i had a half dozen or so nice perch best 3/4lb however i hooked six pike but only landed 4 as i was using 3lb mono.

At times i almost gave up perch fishing due to the amount of hooks i was loosing to wee jacks My daughter even caught a pike on a size 16 hook ans single maggot !

Whilst there are larger fish, they seem pretty scarce compared to other waters plus the vast amount of tiny jacks.

Im pretty sure that its due to the natural balence being badly upset by the killing of the larger specimens, course fishing is pretty rare locally and the most common past time is "spinning" or possible bubble float dead baiting with spinning rods, i think its problably due to the lack of education of the like course fishing brings i.e returning fish etc thats leads to youngsters killing and parading there trophy

Result .............well see below slightly over gunned by a 9' 9# skinny fella too !

__________________
Englander

"Barbless since 2008"

Vision GT Four catapult 9' 6#
Vision GT Four SW 9' 9#
Vision 3 Zone 9' 5#
Vision Cult 9' 3#
Shakespeare Trion 9' 5/6#
Cortland Endurance 9' 6#
Shakespeare Expedition float tube
Vosseler DC3 reel
Okuma Helios 8/9 reel
Greys G series 3/4 reel
Snowbee Geo 3/4 reel

The bigger jacks are there aright



and one 5 mins later:


Just a couple of miles outside the city gets away from the usual spots the bams fish!

__________________

http://urbanflyfisher.com/

that top fish has stripes all over it from our beloved cormorants i see....

__________________
I HATE BUNGS.........

The first pike I caught on fly was one about 4" on Barrhead dams, the small dam at the roadside. Never seen one that small since though.

It's a shame you get pestered by the tiny jacks wen floatfishing, I can honestly say I've never had one take bait on the canal. They do take my clousers etc intended for perch quite a lot. I've only ever caught one decent pike from the canal at around 9lbs, I've seen a couple more roughly the same size but nowhere near as many as you'd expect with such a huge head of baitfish.