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A SPECIMEN VIEW 

As my writings on this site are mostly about the pursuit of larger fish by myself and the lads that I fish with, I thought it might be good to try to define specimen angling and specimen fish, The inspiration to write this piece shouldn’t be hard to find!  Its 6.15 am on the last day of August and I’m sat halfway along the mile float fishing for tench.  The nights are getting longer and it’s only been light enough to see the float for the last twenty minutes or so.  There’s been a heavy dew, and the canal is shrouded by a dense mist, swirling and dancing like ghosts silently treading water.

It’s cold now and I’m wrapped up well, but below the tree line to the east the first tentative fingers of the sun are beginning to poke through.  I know that in only a few short hours the best time of the day will have past, but for now with the pin prick streams of bubbles breaking the surface film around that little orange float tip, optimism is running through my veins. This for me is as much what specimen angling is about, as of actually catching your chosen species.  Being there at the waters edge when nature is waking up or (at the other end of the day) going to bed, and the largest fish are venturing out to feed.

Fishing for specimens is about targeting one particular species and then trying to catch one of these of above the average size.  In a full year at different times I am after a large variety of species, such as carp in the spring, tench in summer, perch in autumn and pike in winter.  There are also times when conditions are right that I will fish for these species at less traditional times of the year. My specimen angling takes me to many different lakes, and rivers where I love to target barbel and chub, but for the relevant purposes of these articles most of my writings are based on our particular stretches of canal.  (And hopefully in future years, of our newly acquired lake!)

There should be no overall, all-inclusive standard set as to what size any one species of fish has to attain to become a specimen.  Every water has different standards in which to measure a larger fish.  For instance it would be no good reading the angling press and seeing carp of 30 and 40lbs coming out of venues all over the country, and then wanting or expecting anything like that from the canal,On our waters 10lb is probably the average, 15lb+ would be a specimen and a carp over that magical 20lb barrier would be the fish of a lifetime.  Far more emeritus a capture than a 30 from a syndicated carp lake! Our pike size is similar to the carp, although with a smaller average weight.  ‘Doubles’ are not too hard to find, but it is catching those ‘high doubles’ and maybe ‘low twenties’ that we are striving for.

As a benchmark for specimen fish on our canal I would list my personal aims as follows:  roach -1.5lb, bream- 5lb, perch-2.5lb, tench-5lb, pike & carp-15lb. Catching all of these fish to just under these weights happens often enough, but catching them above and they become far more elusive!  This is my challenge and gives me the same buzz as say, a match angler winning his section. While writing this I have been pleasantly interrupted by a typically sized canal tench of about 3lb, a nice start to the session, and hopefully his mum is down there at this moment cautiously picking up kernels of corn, getting ever closer to the one with my size 14 hook in it!  Maybe she will, maybe she won’t, but if she doesn’t never mind, there will be other trips, other seasons, and those ounces gained in between times will make her eventual capture to somebody even more rewarding.  Fingers crossed…

Till next time…

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