Where there's muck there's brass

Not a great start to a trip to the Grand Western Canal.  Walking up onto the banks and finding cloudy, algae filled water rather than the gin-clear aquarium of previous visits.  

Eventually I came across some fish that had their mind on meals, and after tempting out a small rudd and roach, I became aware of a far more blimp-like presence in the middle of the shoal as a rudd that dwarfed the rest of the shoal ghosted below the tiddlers.

Normally at this point I'd manage a cack-handed cast that would send the fish into hiding, but somehow it went right for once.  The fly started to sink, the fish swung round and sucked it in with no hesitation.  A lift of the rod and that strange experience of a fish on the end of the line that seems to not to have realised anything is amiss, swimming on with the same unhurried wiggle.  Trying to bring it up to the surface finally woke the beast and a minute of to and fro ensued. 

Then it was lying in the net, fat and gold and red and ready for it's portrait.