The Close Season Zander Quest Pt.182 - Fairylands and Factualisms

It's quite incredible really that by the time I had finished this early morning session at the Zander soup stretch I'd ended up with 14 Zander and 10 of those fish over the 4lb mark, and all caught in quite a bit less than 24 hours.

The land of milk and honey !!!!

Those sort of numbers are unheard of for me, ok I have sometimes have been lucky and dropped on a shoal of schoolies where the fish come thick and fast, but these fish are a scale above. 

I left the house when the temperature was 4 degrees which could for the next week or two anyway put them off their spawning activities. I need to keep the momentum up because if a big one slips up here, it will likely be a quest closer such the stamp of the fish that swim here. 

I arrived at the same swim that was so good to me the evening before and within half an hour already managed 3 Zander the biggest another 5lber. 

They are not messing around with the bait either, the float properly submarining under the waters surface and often at a pace too, dragging the float at pace in some instances too. Such a great way to fish for Zed's the over depth float set-up displaying on the surface what exactly is going on under it.

Are they grouping together for their adult pursuits ?

Quite possibly but it's quite amazing that despite a biteless rove around today nearly all the fish have come from this one utopia swim.

The cover is sparse too, in-fact if it wasn't for luckily having been given this exact location to fish, to be honest I'd have walked past it. What keeps them holding up here ? who knows but this is one of those swims I'll be keeping to myself.

I fished another 5 or 6 swims after it went quiet and most of those were feature filled but not even an enquiry or a dropped take. Retracing my steps seemed to be the order of the day and the hallowed swim again delivering the goods.

No sooner than the smelt went out the float starts to move and another decent fish  is on and providing a nice bend in the rod. 

Some fought well others not so but it was so nice to see that all were in fantastic condition which is not always the case these days. These have space to roam though, space to escape and probably not watching their backs like the Zander in other stretches. 

The footfall upped a little after 9.00am and a towpath dweller who was walking his dog was amazed to see fish like the 5lb 8oz fish below (the biggest of the session ) residing in the dirty looking water. 

"Do you eat them or put them back ?"

"They go back as I want to catch them when they are bigger"

"What do they taste like ?" 

"No idea, never tried one !!! 😮"

For those not in the know you'd question if there was actually any fish in there, But these magnificent species are here to stay despite others not singing off the same hymn sheet. 

Now small whole smelt seemed to do the trick today but scaling down to a small roach when the bites dried up brought this little schoolie below to the landing net. A proper angry thing who was determined to spike me with his dorsal fin.

Again this fill not bothered at all it was dragging around the float and end tackle, resistance shy ? not in my experience they are very bolt biters I've found.

I called it a day when the sun came out and the towpaths were busier but another enjoyable session albeit not as productive as the session before.

Sam fancies joining me one evening so he can use the lure rod and I'll watch the float rod. Plenty of space for him to cast and maybe the lure could well bring something of note, we will see.