Canals play a massive part in match and pleasure fishing through the colder months and if you can locate an area which contains small fish then the chances are the predators won’t be far away.
If you’re fortunate to know such an area or lucky enough to draw one out of the hat in a match then you need to make the most of it and feeding at least one chopped worm and caster line is paramount.
Colin Sheppard knows of a few such swims on the Kennet and Avon Canal and here he describes his worm rig that catches him loads of big perch, bream and even tench and carp.

- Connect a pole float, in this case it’s a 4×14, onto the main line first by passing it through the top eye.

2. Thread three small rubbers onto the line.

3. Pull these onto the stem of the float and position these, one at the top, middle and bottom.

4. Create a loop in the mainline using a figure of eight overhand knot.

5. Remove the hook length from its retaining spool, reduce to twelve inches and tie a further loop to this.

Connect to the mainline by first passing the hook length loop through the mainline loop, then the hook through the hook length loop and carefully pulling down.

7. Shot the float with a bulk of small No8 shot, just above the hook length and positioned these slightly apart.

8. At this stage, and a very important part of float fishing is to plumb up using a heavy plummet.

9. Shot the float perfectly by adding two tiny No12 shot to the hook length and position these equally between bulk and hook.
Components
Sphere Zero-G F1+ Pole
Stretch 7 1.90mm Blue Elastic
4×14 pole float
0.12mm Cenex Hybrid Power Mono
0.13mm Cenex Fluoro Carbon Hook Line
Sphere Size 16 Match Hook
