St helens (canal)

Hi i fished the canal many years ago and had some half decent carp. i was thinking of getting me son a permit so i can take him down there as i had many good time on. But can you tell me on the stock of the carp that are still in there,? it's the hot end were i use to fish once you get past all the kids that turn up recking the place its not to bad..

best advice is to walk down the canal at 1530 on a wed for the weigh in after the match, view yourself the fish stocks, matches are rarely won with silver fish since the stocks were depleted years ago, it was dragged and the fish moved to a stretch of the canal that does not get fished (why?????). There are still some good carp in occasionally a double figure appears and the mystery of the bigger cats has not been resolved.

markobrowning wrote:best advice is to walk down the canal at 1530 on a wed for the weigh in after the match, view yourself the fish stocks, matches are rarely won with silver fish since the stocks were depleted years ago, it was dragged and the fish moved to a stretch of the canal that does not get fished (why?????). There are still some good carp in occasionally a double figure appears and the mystery of the bigger cats has not been resolved.

it was dragged and the fish were moved to were.???? Wot strech is this ur on about

I know when I have walked into town via the canal which runs along side Pocket Nook College, that on a sunny day you can see huge shoals of rudd just under the surface. Most of these only seem small but there are some decent size one's mixed in. I was told that the canal on the other side of the road from the college is good for silver fishing. I have not fished the canal for many many years tho.

My brother fished the campus end of the canal last year and he had some very nice crucians tench out at the far end as the canal goes into the pipe by the factories.

Carpman the canal was drained about 12 or 13 years ago as It was in a bad way.
It was blocked off just after the overflow next to peg 32. The water was drained and most of the fish were took out. From what I can remember the fish were spread out across various waters on the St Helens card. Lots of fish died including plenty of carp!!

As for the other stretches of canal, lennons stretch used to be a great stretch but over the past few years has gone into decline, poor parking, not well baliffed etc.
It's like most waters around here, they come a distant second to Carr mill. Lennons does hold good carp, tench, bream, plenty of silvers. It used to be a very productive match length for me. It was stocked about 10 years or so with loads of tiny Rudd and roach but these quickly found their way into the other stretches. Also about 50 tench and 50 bream were put in from leg o mutton around the same time. Lots of the bream died over the couple of months after they was stocked. Lennons struggles to hold any colour which makes it hard to fish.

The college end is full of fish, and it's rarely fished. This stretch holds some good quality fish including plenty of good carp, a few better bream, a few tench but loads of silver including some great stamp roach. There are quite a good number of crucians along with a few chub too!!
One problem is snags, it's full of them as when it freezes it gets allsorts dumped into it by the local kids who also like to throw bricks etc at you in summer.

I have fished all the 3 lengths on a regular basis for the past 17 years and on their day they are all fantasic stretches.

I think it was drained about 15yrs ago but since then it was netted again probably 10 years ago, i walked down there and watched the EA with 4x4 trucks and containers on the back. when i turned up they had just done the surface of the gusher stretch and were stood at the overflow. then with a boat and people on each bank they walked the stretch from 32- 9peg. I believe Joe Jones was there with me. This was after the blocked off section was cleared at 32peg. There must be a committee member on here who can tell us the true dates but they were not together. Definately been drained once and dragged again since 1995. Fish were put in lennons stretch which is not the best for fishing with its clear waters sometimes 3 foot from the bank to water level. Frank Fletcher should know.

Mark you may be right with 15 years ago but I don't recall it being netted again, I used to fish it most days with Barry Clark, Frank fletcher, ray roughley to name a few. Maybe I missed it lol!

I walked it everyday on my dinner to see what was going on! I remember how it used to look compared to what it does now. I also remember it being deeper too, must be silting up.

On the day the canal got re-opened I was fishing the shallow side and a bloke called tommy(the tench) fished it and he caught within hours. Maybe my memory is failing me though! I wonder where the huge perch went to, those were good days!

I remember fishing the shallows with my daughter when she was about 7, i have a photo of her first carp of 7/8lb and we used to catch loads of decent skimmers then. She is nearly 18 and i know the netting of the fish i watched was after then when loads of skimmers were removed. That would make this netting within the last 10 years. I then started commercials because the canal became full of idiots everytime i went on my own or with my daughter. She even witnessed bag heads fighting ending up in the water fighting, one nearly drowned, paramedic, fire boat crew, ambulance, 3 police cars and i was asked why i didn't give him cpr instead of watching him turn blue. When they revived him he started fighting again. Roxy had a quick lesson in life.

iv fished the canal at the hotties lengh quite alot last year and got to say i loved it i caught carp and skimmers on the pole every time i went and twice had carp weighing 12 pound
i did very will on paste pn the end peg up against the stick ups,also i fished it right next to my car untill i was moved by the ballif,being a new member i didnt realise u couldnt fish there can any one tell me becuase i was geting carp one after anougher there??but as a natural venue i dnt think u can get much better than the st helens canal.
cheers lads

I do remember they hotties being netted, some fish come out that day, I think they recommended it should of netted on a regular basis

im sure the netting was around 95

there are still daft amounts of fish in all the stretches

isnt the college end free fishing now

dnt think so its all st helens aa isnt it