The Close Season Zander Quest Pt.166 - Mollydookers and Monosyllables

This week I've mostly been working and de-weeding, no rest for the wicked, you see a new section of the Warwickshire Avon has been added to the WBAS syndicate for this coming season and the stingers are a shoulder high, the ground not trodden. The roadside parking needed some attention too, lucky with the hedge trimmers battery charged to the brim is was down to the hacking. A little like fishing, very therapeutic indeed,

Now luckily being only 10 minutes away by car I've had a couple of visits to see the lay of the land so to speak and to cull some of the towering high stingers that will be a hindrance when the clock strikes midnight the 15th and the date rolls over to the 16th of June.

It's a stretch not been in club control for a good 7 to 8 years so almost virgin territory in these parts where much of the Warwickshire Avon has been under various books and syndicates for a good while.

It's good depth among its length and being wide and sluggish I'm sure it will be home to many species and I cannot wait to wet a line. It's always tough at the start of the season but catching any fish whatever the size on a new water will I'm sure get me through the tough few weeks till conditions improve.

Now 13 weeks working from ones home office thus far is very scary indeed, now that's not far off a quarter of a year, which if you told me I'd have to do that before the lockdown came I'd be telling you you're having a giraffe. As a design engineer to be fair ones work is suited to it, with the odd meeting via teams many an hour is spent looking at a computer screen, and ones backside hardly moves from the chair.

We’ve already seen gruesome models predicting humans that spend too much time at the office and too much time playing video games. Now it’s the turn of Netflix. Yes, we’re all enjoying the streaming service a little too much now apparently because we’re basically confined to our own houses. But it’s still a bit of a stretch to think we’ll end up like Eric and Hannah. 

This pasty pair are supposed to represent what two decades of bingeing our favourite shows will do to our bodies. They were created by Online Gambling who reckon that we’ll all develop pot bellies and baldness.

A few too many episodes of Stranger Things and we can expect varicose veins, obesity and even ‘dead butt syndrome’. The latter is known as gluteal amnesia and occurs because ‘sitting for too long puts persistent pressure on the pelvic region, which damages your glutes causing backache, and pain in the hip region and ankles.’ To be fair, the reasoning is sound.

Netflix (and other services) have seen their usage skyrocket thanks to global lockdown measures. Now I'm not a huge TV watcher but maybe if I didn't work in the works things may be different, still we've been getting out daily as a family and now the restrictions have been lifted a little that's on the increase.

Even in the week I get out most days for a stroll, the weather, ok isn't brilliant as I type this but to be fair during lock-down it's been great. Ones weekly steps now averaging well over 10k which ain't bad for an office worker. 

Now I thought I'd struggle with be kids being here all day especially with eldest Ben who can be noisy because of his issues, but the Wife has been brilliant with the home schooling and during the working week I lock myself away in the main, an 'On Call' sign on the office door to see if they can enter or not.

Mixcloud fired up, the Skull Candy Crushers donned and with it's haptic bass feature I consume ridiculous amounts of repetitive beats to not only keep ones sanity and well-being on track, but it also means I've probably been more productive because of it. The ear drums take a pounding, but then I'm conditioned for that.

Luckily with keys to press and a mouse to twiddle I'm less likely to get angered by those mob rule lefties running amok amid COVID-19 just so they have something else to protest about to add to their ever growing woke list.

As welcome as a squirrel at the bird feeder !!!! luckily they are in the minority, you only have to look at the landslide at the last election.

Sticking within ones own family bubble, stay off social media and the news has had its advantages for sure. For sure there are good and bad days productively wise, but the good days out-way the bad, especially when my thoughts are with those fellow automotive engineers, designers and others in the trade who find themselves out of work at the moment.

Squeaky bum time for sure because you never know when the next axe is ready to fall. Now I remember the last bad time work wise which was the Great Recession, the financial crisis of 2007–08 was a severe worldwide economic crisis.

It is considered by many economists to have been the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. where pay-cuts were inevitable, contractors like me culled and P45's given out in droves.

If you found yourself out of work at that time , you might be out of work for 6 mths or maybe more. Now this pandemic may well rewrite the history books as it pans out in-front of our eyes, and the economic impact as well as the health impact quite staggering.

If the Great Recession was a long-term degenerative illness, then the coronavirus economic downturn is like a natural disaster that takes out everything at once.

You just can't pull out the playbook of 2008 and apply it to 2020.With a pandemic, there's no place to really hide everyone is affected around the world.

The uncertainty of this recession is mostly biological in the beginning, we didn't know how deadly the disease was, what its side effects were, or what kinds of treatments might be effective.

But as time goes on, science advances....

....as soon as a vaccine is developed, companies will be able to reopen without fear, which means they can rehire people.

Whereas in 2008, it wasn't clear when it was going to end. Some encouraging signs that we are getting closer to the other side, and we can just about see the light at the end of the tunnel, so let's hope it can continue that way. Who thought we'd hear that the pubs will re-open a few weeks back ?

So anyway to the fishing, this was a ramble wasn't it, so yes another session after canal Zander, this time at a section Nic from Avon Angling Uk put me on to.

A nice section of cover that not only produces Zander but I caught my biggest ever canal Pike from this feature filled stretch. I really did think I'd concluded this Zander quest when I felt the first proper bend of the road and the weight of the fish on the end.

Sadly it wasn't to be but it's always been on ones radar because of the potential of it.

Now after a dropped run quite early on I thought I was on to something but after leapfrogging the thick cover and features nothing was doing at all. There was a couple of lure anglers who were managing the odd perch but the Zander didn't seem to be interest in ones smelt offering.

There was a couple of big fish sploshing really tight up to the cover of the far bank but I'm not sure what they were and they were certainly not interested in a deadbait. The banks started to get busy and when it's starts to get like that I don't enjoy it so I called it a day with another blank to add to the tally.