Closed Season Canal Zander Quest PT88 – Chuff and Chunder

The classic onomatopoeia, this ‘chuffing’ and majorly perspiring, red faced jogger looked so out of shape and struggling I was in fear of possibly giving mouth to mouth after I had visions he might have collapsed right in front of me. He’d already go by once with Sam asking, “what’s up with him Daddy” but upon his return he’d propped himself up against a tree with one hand, had his face down and looked like he was about to chuck his guts up whilst sounding like he’d swallowed the ‘Flying Scotsman'.

Now I’m always up for helping a damsel in distress but a middle aged man who should know better testing his body beyond his limits I’d have to mull it over before phoning a friend and then maybe going in with a 50/50.

A reckon he might have over done the pulled pork and short ribs the night before, and was suffering with the meat sweats, basically a variation on the food coma.

A medically unsubstantiated phenomenon in which, after eating a ridiculous amount of animal flesh, one’s body is overtaken by a severe bout of protein-based perspiration.

The supposed premise behind the meat sweats is that by ingesting an abnormal abundance of protein, your gut would have to burn a ridiculous amount of energy on digestion. This, in turn, would raise your core temperature by such a significant margin that your body would have to resort to sweating which is usually reserved for fevers and vigorous exercise just to get it back down to normal.

Try and combine the two, well game over !!!!….

Luckily for me he seemed to make a pretty good recovery like a nut allergy sufferer had been given an EpiPen and had just been given that much needed dose of epinephrine. I doubt he’d attempt to try that again in a hurry, not in my presence anyway, and he certainly wasn’t selling me that strenuous exercise is good for you, I’d stick to plenty of low impact walking ta very much.

So this session was at pastures new, with birthday boy Sam who turned 7 on Wednesday in tow I wanted to fish an area that has been on my radar for a while, mainly as apparently this area of canal contained Chub, yes you heard right Chub. With the Zander at the tail end and preoccupation with spawning and the fact they don’t in my experience feed particularly well when the water is the temperature it is, I wanted to at least have an exploratory session here out of intrigue.

Sam would man the float rod for this morning trip out and I’d be manning the float deadbait rods.

The location looked superb which is a hop over the paddles to a peninsula and you could see why Chub would like it here, reeds and lots of them and cover in abundance, I'd fed a few swims and fished them in rotation throughout the session but it proved very tough indeed. A dropped take on the smelt within the first half an hour was the best we could muster up after a couple of hours. With Sam getting bored we couldn't buy a bite, all very off because the area looked ideal for fish holding areas.

Eventually after casting the deadbait rod close to some reeds within seconds the float was off on its travels. I struck in to the fish but knew it was a Pike as soon as I felt the resistance. The jack pike was landed and released and headed back to the car with tail between ones legs it got me wondering what I'd done wrong. Where had all the fish gone, maybe I should have moved ?

Oh well on the next one !!!