With the weather getting colder this week and the rain abating hopefully river conditions will be a little improved because I fancy trying for not only Pike but also some Chub. I finished work last week you see so intend to stack the sessions up.
Now with the Wife getting her nails done and some last minute shopping, that left me to look after the two tearaways. I was eager to go fishing but I'd have plenty of time in the coming days, so a fancy breakfast rustled up for me, a couple of buttered pikelets for Ben, a bacon sarnie on THICK bread for Sam.
Hog's pudding is a traditional sausage-like meat product from Devon and Cornwall. A spicy kick and contains flavourings such as basil, garlic, cumin, and black pepper. The sausage is typically prepared with pork meat or offal, pork fat, bread, suet, and either pearl barley or oatmeal.
So on topic with all this recent doom and gloom and scaremongering over the 'mutant' strain, Dover now a carpark, the French shutting their boarders to UK travellers and incoming freight, countless other countries following suit. A political own goal for BoJo after scaring his wage payers and the world witless, seems that way doesn't it. Luckily as I type this Freight will start moving again and the FTSE starting to recover again from the big hit it had when initially the markets opened.
Project Fear most certainly, just look at my elderly Mum and Dad, who after being comfortable again walking up the road to get the local paper, are back peering from behind the curtains and now won't be visiting my Sister for their Christmas dinner. Ben's routine out of sync and now he has been asking "Can we go home now !!! " after a short while outside which is not like him, even he know something not right with the world.
All this because of the 'The New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group' (NERVTAG), those that advise the government on the threat posed by new and emerging respiratory viruses.
By the way one on the panel paid for by the public purse is Professor Neil Ferguson, yeap that bloke who resigned from the Government after heeding his own advice in the lockdown and visited his mistress for a knee trembler, how is that even possible with his track record ?
Still this is a diary, as well as a blog, got to say what I think haven't I....
Anyway I've had enough of it all to be honest, so where to go fishing to get away from it all where 3G is, well if you're lucky. So it was back to where my Zander challenge really took off big-time. You see after a 9lber turned up out of the blue, and then not long after a 8lb and 10oz lump this 2 mile stretch really showed some form.
The problem was that after plundering it for a good while, nothing of note turned up again and it largely had fallen off ones radar. Before I join another club on the commencement of the quest again, I fancied one last look again to see if it was worth another look.
Bites used to be regular, blanks rare but then it went off big time, so much so, I wrote off the whole canal network and moved ones overdepth float rods lock-stock to an entirely different one. This change paid off especially when I discovered the 'deep bit' where before the cover was hacked back to nothing after the CRT's clippers were set to number one.
Again back to catching half decent Zander, a few 5lbers and the best over 7lb if I recall. Now anything over 5lb is a good'un on the canal, the humdrum schoolie being the norm.
There are no secrets to this canal Zander lark, you need to do the miles, put the work in. When the canals are muddy like there were for this session, the banks are quieter too.
It was the lifting of some of the restrictions after the first lockdown where some of those family walks and bike rides in the good weather, highlighted just how many baitfish were still here.
Shoals and shoals of small snack sized roach and also perch of similar number and statue. Zander need to feed and there was plenty here because I could see them. It's those transient big'uns that may well be lurking here it's a stretch that will always hold dear.
I've made some adjustments to ones set-ups of late, mainly reducing the gear down to the bare minimum, 2 short'ish rods and compact reels, a small bag with only the essentials and this time on its first outing a rucksack to remove.
A few tweaks here and there really can make or break an enjoyable session, and when you ankle deep in mud, a bag that can be easily cleaned is a Godsend for example. The mud seemed to get worse and worse the saving grace I didn't see a soul, well tell a lie, a dog walker as I was walking back to the car at the end of the session.
So anyway lets get the smelt out, a proven Zed attractor if there ever was one !!!!
I got there at dawn and when the light lifted the gloom one look of the colour of the water I thought I'd be in for a good morning. After 4 usually productive swims the floats were motionless and me scratching my chin what was wrong.
Ok it can be a waiting game this canal Zander lark with deadbaits but if you do drop on the fish you tend to get a bite quite quick. I think I spotted 2 topping fish throughout the 4.5 hour session when I covered 12k steps. Even the banker swim didn't produce and one that I dropped in some bait and set it to rest.
It was one of those days I think, the water seemed a decent colour but it did change from 6inches of visibility to next to nothing. With heavy wellies traipsing through the thick mud it wasn't exactly an easy session either because moving from cover to cover can mean a good ten minute walk to the next spot.
Still it was nice to be about despite the loads of dumped cider cans and also the randomly placed dog poo. I'm going to enjoy the quest in March especially when there will be new water to cover and maybe a pub open to enjoy a hand pulled pint in.
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