Warwickshire Avon - Eunice and Eudaemonisms

A whole entire book all about canal zander, who would have thought it. Ignore the quick put together cover design a quick look through it covers all what any angler interested in canal Zander needs to know from someone, like me, who is a passionate advocate of the species. 

The book had been delayed a couple of months due to printing problems but it landed on my doorstep yesterday, all 192 pages of it.

Clearly John's own views come out in the book, but then why wouldn't they, a book like this should be written exactly that way.

If we all had the same thoughts and views about angling it would be very boring now wouldn't it.

Chapters include, The new Fens, The Ideal Environment, Culling, Venues, Live baits, Dead baits and lures. 

I'm surprised by the specific fishing locations given but then it's hardly a secret where Zander are established in the canal network these days.

It is clear from the book John and his compadres fish rather different areas in the main, only one venue I know we share the towpaths and that is an area only known by the likeminded thankfully. 

To properly target canal Zander it is surprising just how much walking is involved and ok, after nearly 5 years of searching I managed to catch a double figure fish, but it won't stop me fishing for them in the closed season again, because I want one bigger, and we really are lucky in the Midlands with such a wide variety of venues to fish for them. 

Spoilt, yeap for sure !

The roving with deadbaits rods makes up much of my exercise where 10,000 steps can be ticked off quite easily, give it a go. 

That approach can often put anglers off as its not a sitting around affair but often the best locations where the bigger fish reside are the areas that are unlikely to see much angling pressure, now talking about angling pressure....

Anyway enough of that, back to tis session, almost 3 years to the day I caught my PB Warwickshire Avon Barbel of 12lb and 14 ounces and that caught was right smack bang in the middle of winter where many hang up their barbel rods, but fish are there to be caught especially with the weather almost being mild and with a water temperature higher than normal.

Now this is a regular match fished stretch where barbel numbers have been on the decline for a while and with me likely to give up this club book up this year and look for waters new, maybe one last hurrah especially with red weather warning Storm Eunice on the way with. 

I suppose there is only one way to find out !!! ? 

The river was well up and chocolate brown but the swim I caught the fish from (twice) has a nice slack on the inside and perfectly fishable despite the levels and again this would be a post work smash and grab session. 

I decided to leave the location I fished yesterday for a while though but hopefully will make a return visit before the season end. 

Anyway less than 2 hours, a lump of spam and some freebies....

....anything doing ?

The rain started almost as soon as I got out the car and it was a rather wet walk to the chosen peg where I was hoping a bite was forthcoming.

The river was motoring through but as I said before as this is on a bend where the river widens luckily despite the river levels usually here its fishable even when the river is over its banks.

A few nibbles ten minutes after the meat bait settled with a lovely ding at least I knew the bait was presented nicely and I'm sure feeding a few pieces of meat helped the fact that it attracted fish in to the swim.

Usually when the river is this coloured though bigger fish if they are in a feeding mood show themselves within half an hour or so but nothing was doing at all. There was clearly fish in the swim judging by the state of the lump of spam when I checked to see if it was still on.

A thumbs down picture taken an hour and half before dusk I almost knew what the outcome would be. You see I expected a blank and that's exactly what the outcome was when it was curfew times half an hour after official dusk.

Even the chub didn't seem to be interested and yet I've caught some fish over 5lb here and sunset usually means feeding time, not this late afternoon though, an off day ? nope the norm here for me of late, so another blank and on to the next one !!!!