Closed Season Zander Quest PT57 – Maggotfication and the Shirtless Gardener

It’s official canal boater’s are a bunch of hoodlums and tyrants, two weekends ago, 4 moored boats over a few hundred yards, a domestic, hard liquor and tramp juice on show, skidder kegs and tank tops (yes really) drying in the morning air and then past the last moored boat with a rancid smell of excrement you wouldn’t believe.

A porta potti disembarkation and malfunction I assume.

I love a good stereotype I really do….I could sell up I suppose, oh for the life on the cut.

Anyway time to think outside the box for this short evening session, a handful of maggots, a float rod and a fish holding area….

float dips, hopefully a shirtless gardener, a veritable female Zander head turner….

I was in no rush either both deadbait rods were already positioned, one in the main channel, the other in the shallows.

So out with a small pole float, and a sprinkling of maggots….

Now with a pyramid of floats to watch, that ain’t going to help ones occasional visual hallucinations, is it, but hey, needs must if I’m to land a double.

I was expecting small perch in the margins, maybe even roach in the channel, these Zander are getting fat somehow.

I’d tried similar tactics at Hatton Locks as did fellow angler and good friend Simon ‘feed the worm’ Champion without even sucked maggot to show for our efforts and again on the Severn and Avon where it was more successful, bait fish were easy to come for starters and it proved quite a productive method especially when the light was starting to go.

But the canal is different, much different, not just the added attraction of dog baubles and delinquents,but the levels vary more so but are linear, water clarity can go from clear to mucky over a short session and the fact of the matter is there is a load of water to cover and the Zander could be anywhere. Schoolies travel in packs, the big’uns staying in the sidelines or somewhere of solitude.

Over 10 sessions,with utter mediocrity, God knows what's going on and where the big ones have disappeared to.

It's certainly testing my resolve.

So as expected best laid plans, as I really do plan them, over a couple of swims not even a sucked maggot despite regular feeding and a nadger of swim stim as feed.

All very odd too as in the morning here, the swim is alive with fish, maybe a little like the river if I'd stayed another hour or so then the fish would have been more active.

The deadbait rod however received some attention with a few fish banked, the best probably would scrape 3lb if the bait reached its stomach.

Yeah, bit bored now.

I need a proper bend in the rod. I'd maybe bring a lure rod to the next session, at least a Perch might be biting.

I really need a change of fortune, It's like Groundhog Day, trapped in a time warp and I'm catching the same fish over and over again.