Aire & Calder In Autumn Form For Fishing

Now the temperatures have started to drop and the leaves are falling from the trees anglers are once more making their yearly pilgrimage to the canals. One of the best sections of cut in the country is the Aire & Calder at Altofts. Autumn sport has once more got off to a great start here with match weights touching 20lb in recent weeks.

The canal here is stuffed with roach and perch and the good thing about this waterway is that the action isn’t confined to a couple of ‘flier’ pegs either, with countless spots along several miles of waterway producing chunky redfins almost every drop in.

This canal is fairly wide at around 30m across and with a depth of around 9ft the fishing here is more challenging than on other canals but the amount of fish and the quality of fishing more than makes up for this. Despite the width you don’t need to fish far out. 11m is more than enough to target the roach and this can be done by balling or cupping in some fairly heavy, well -binded river style groundbait to help get the feed down. Lace the mix with casters or pinkies and maggots to hold the fish in the swim. Use a 1 gram pole float with an olivette or bulk shot about two feet from the hook to get the bait down with some small droppers below it for a natural fall of the hookbait. You may also need a heavier rig up to 2-gram for when the canal is pushing through. Try to avoid loose feeding particularly when the canal is moving so any re-feeding should be preferably done via groundbait. You can catch on the waggler here but if you do fish the pole try to use a slightly heavier elastic than usual as to set the hook in the deeper water and to cater for the good stamp of roach. It is also worth feeding a chop worm line short for a bonus perch which go to 3lb here. The worm can be fed in groundbait to get the bait down if the canal is moving or via a bait-dropper, whatever you prefer.

Prices: £3.50 from local tackle shops, Mirfield AC

Contact: Chris Roberts Fishing Tackle 01484 545032 or www.mirfieldac.co.uk

Location: Nearby postocode - Foxholes Lane, Altofts, Normanton, W Yorks WF6 2PE

Facilities: Parking