The Close Season Zander Quest Pt.201 - Pomposity and Pogamoggans

Things getting back to normal in the UK ? whatever normal means these days ? well there are encouraging signs so much so I've made up for last years damp social squib already and have booked up three different dance music events. (and still more to come)

So I'll be partying at an outdoor festival in August, having a whole weekend of all things repetitive beatery with the Ibiza Legends and a load of other old gits who want to relive their youth in September and not long after my 49th birthday bouncing with the beats thrown about by one of the worlds most regarded DJ's. 

So something to look forward to, which to be frank about it (who's Frank ?) not something we could have said soon after Santa disappeared back up his COVID chimney. 

Things can go off track though so lets keep ones fingers and toes crossed, you see, this week France had threatened to cut off electricity to Jersey, the largest Channel Island and a Crown dependency. 

Two Royal Navy ships and two French vessels ended up having to patrol near Jersey while about 60 French and Jersey boats are at the island's St Helier port.

French fishermen say their rights are unfairly restricted by licences issued by the island under a new system. 

HMS Severn, which has previously been used to shadow Russian navy warships off the English coast, can be seen from the port, sitting off about a mile from the French boats. HMS Tamar is nearby and both ships are maintaining a socially distancing presence and not making any effort to intervene

Luckily for the cod haulers and the kettle switch pushers a conclusion could well be on the cards because as I type this a high level meeting is taking place and all could be good in their worlds again, shame the same couldn't be said about my Double Figure Canal Zander quest....!!!!

....you see one's motivation to get out fishing for canal Zander has wavered big time this week. The weather is still ridiculously cold overnight and the water temperature after the bought of cold rain that has come with it would like me, probably put the fish off from feeding. (To be fair had dropped but not as bad as I thought)

There is also the fact that the hallowed swim is thirty five minutes drive away and knowing me I'd catch that big pike again rather than a canal double I've been after for neigh on 5 or 6 years now. 

A chance conversation last weekend however from a gongoozler who fishes the river Severn for Zander mentioned a picture displayed in his local tackle shop of a huge Zander caught in an area of containment not far away from here. Luckily it was a place he named without the need for a prodding of the landing net pole. 

What was encouraging about this snippet of information shared was that it wasn't the double that I knew that did exist here at one time but actually another fish that is most likely an entirely different fish altogether. 

Obviously that raised ones eyebrows and got my thinking about more of a local fishing session this week rather than reliving a Zander blank. It's an area that has never thrown up anything decent for me whatsoever but it will always stay on ones radar especially when a confidence inducing conflabs turns up out of the blue like it did recently trudging the towpath. 

The last time I fished here I did manage a small Zander or three if I recall, nothing bigger than two pounds sadly but when I was roving the cover filled stretch above the containment an Otter in almost broad daylight was patrolling up and down the cover without a care in the world. It wasn't bothered at all that I was following his trail of bubbles and his clear pomposity was there to see. 

These Zander are getting it in both barrels at the minute and are always watching their backs from all manner of potential life impactors. The fishing is harder of later most certainly because as someone who has spent many a sessions chasing them the numbers are down as are the chances of me catching a lunker.

Nic's recent capture which I've been kindly been show a preview of the video shows that they are still there to caught and I'm sure my chance will come eventually and most likely when I least expect it. Its all these glimmer of hopes that will remain in the back of my mind till ones turns up then I'll move on to something else most likely. 

What, where, when ? I don't know ? maybe the fish that is reputed to swim in one of the pounds at a series of locks where it seems a little like the Zander it was 're-located' with no fault of its own and had been 'Sent to Coventry' to live out its life. 

A fish that believe or not could well rival ones burbot challenge, but this time for real not just a mediocre April fool.  

So please Fishing Gods can you been kind to me and grant me that trick shot and I can bury that ball in the ever deepening pocket as once again ones resolve is being tested. 200 sessions down this quest of mine doesn't seem to be getting any easier. !!!! Remember my PB of 9lb turned up 28 sessions in 😣, 172 sessions later I'm still at it.

So before conditions improve  and I go back to the hallowed stretch and the other productive stretch I was put on to, for now local is the order of the day till the fish start moving again. Here they can lay up their fins and rest up in relative comfort with a nice canopy over their heads. 

So anyway two rods, two and a bit hours, anything doing ?

Well for an hour and a half nothing happened at all and I did move the bait round a bit but here is usually got for a bite you just need to sit tight.

The bigger fish here who knows but as soon as the light started to go I had the first bite, the fish taking the roach from right to left quite quickly. This usually means a small fish not a pondering beasts and sure enough when I reeled in I could feel me pulling the bait out of the fishes mouth.

A tiny zedlet most certainly but the second bite came quick after the bait went back out but this time the bite was much slower to develop, the odd bob and nudge and then the float jumped in to life.

Quite a hard fighting fish for it's size but not what I was after. Another one of similar size came 10 minutes after but despite fishing well past dusk, that was it.