Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt. 3

The historic coastal region of Mangalore is known for its deliciously complex curries. Dishes are often made with favourited local ingredients such as coconut, tamarind, deep red Mangalorean chillies and a wide range of spices.

Layers of flavour are achieved by individually roasting the spices, chillies and even the coconut, so the flavours are unique and rich. 

The toasty sweetness and light creaminess of the coconut helps all the flavours blend harmoniously together.

Now this prawn version I concocted has just about the right amount of heat as the two different types of red chillies used were on different ends of the Scoville scale. The birds eye was the hottest, around 100,000, enough heat to put the Wife off mind you which meant I had it all to myself, then again she doesn't like prawns anyway.

Caring is sharing I suppose, but not in this case because it really was one of those curries where every mouthful just got better and better.
....recipe ?

All in my head my friends !!! I probably couldn't repeat it again even if I tried. 

With ones fishing opportunities this week very much lacking, this small window of opportunity needed to be grasped with both hands. Again, convenience was key for this session so with the main road to my right under the watchful eye of the temporary traffic lights I turned left and decided to head to an area that was 'once' home to my biggest canal Zander of 9lb.

That remained my biggest canal Zander for over 6 years and to be honest that fish is one of those that will be up there with my most favourite captures. Who would have thought a fish of that statue could live in such a shallow canal. An 8lb 10oz fish was caught not long after and this stretch will always remain on ones radar. 

The plan well, as you know I always have one was to walk to some cover just down from the laryngeal prominence and work myself down the stretch where the turning bay where I caught the 9lber from would be the last swim I fished.

Only a couple of hours fishing but hopefully a few bites. Another cold'un overnight the fish are unlikely to be thinking about spawning just yet. But with warmer days and nights forthcoming I'm sure the fish will start to change their tact and get on the nests where lure fishing really can come into their own.

I don't lure fish nearly enough because when I do, especially when I catch something you can see why it has taken off bigtime in recent years. As a roving angler at heart it suits my style doesn't it, and who says fishing is for the lazy. Not for many anglers these days it isn't.

Anyway, better get fishing hasn't I....

So the first Zander lure session for a while and naturally I'd have a sleeper deadbait rod out too. 

A small lure is often good for searching out water and can often bring more bites from the smaller stamp of fish that can often stay hidden if using the larger 12cm lures I usually use. 

Anyway best laid plans and all that, because wow, a canal certainly out of sorts, not only was most of the surface littered with what looked like post strimming / hacking / bankside butchering that the lure couldn't really be used. 

The water level seemed much lower as well and bare in mind this canal is knee deep at the best of times. 

I was there for 2 hours and didn't see one single fish top even when dusk was approaching. I fished three areas of usually decent cover but only one remained and even that has been seen to with the clippers set to number 1.

Now I fished those swims that I could with the lure and nothing doing whatsoever. The turning bay thankfully was the only bit of canal that wasn't covered in surface crud and in desperation I switched the lure to a circle hook and a deadbait and fished it quivertip style using ones bag to hold it upright. 

Dusk came and went and nothing was interested in having a nibble at all. The most action was when the bats arrived when they kept on banging in to the braid on the lure rod which was high out of the water.