The Close Season Zander Quest Pt.175 - Interlopers and Intussusception

I fancied a change for this session, a venue I'd not visited for a while and an area over the years I caught some half decent Zander from.

There are bait fish here you see and wherever there are bait fish on the canal the Zander are not far behind. I full expected to do lots of walking on this session but when I returned to the car and checked my Fitbit I didn't realise just how much. 

Fishing is exercise for me, it always has been.

Anyway smelt on one rod a small roach on the other exactly like the last session where I banked a half decent 5lb Zed. There is room for a big lump here you see because between locks there is a good volume of water for a larger fish to roam. 

2 of my biggest Zander came from waters very much like this....

...I've also seen some good fish caught here over the years because treading as much towpath as I do you get to recognise stretches quite easily. 

As soon as the travel restrictions are lifted I intend to go further afield but for now I'm quite happy visiting local stretches to almost cross them off the list I suppose.

These stretches are away from the masses, traffic noise minimal. open countryside in the main, what's not to like....

Well ok, my pet hate, and it's not exactly hard to guess what it is I suppose.

Now I'd fish above and below the two locks first because as well all know locks hold fish. It's effectively containment for fish, locks have been good to me in previous sessions.

With the water still relatively clear any oxygenated water is a Godsend because it does colour up the water more and also because its a a feature, and any feature is worth fishing.

2 hours in though swim after swim there was nothing doing at all and even the small fish topping were suspicious in their absence. With this roving approach of mine if there is a fish in the swim they reveal themselves rather quickly.

Ok you could probably sit it out and let the fish come to you, but on canals with so much water you could be waiting a heck of a long time.

Another hour down I was getting desperate and by this time I'd covered the whole stretch. The odd jogger a couple of cyclists, maybe other anglers knew something I didn't. To be honest I mostly have the stretches to myself anyway so no change there.  

Above where I started though there is a nice wide swim where I'd caught Pike and Zander before so I retraced my steps and got the baits out for the final part of the session.

One bait in the deeper track the other just off some cover. 5 minutes in the right-hand float has twitched a little and then 30 seconds later has a proper bite and a fish is taking it to my right.

Zander rarely run towards you but this fish did went it felt the hook and I know exactly what it was before it surfaced. Yeap a small Jack Pike that had taken the smelt. No more fish after that, a least it wasn't a blank I suppose.