Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.32

Preparation in my cooking carries over to my fishing where the rods are pre-rigged, the baits are sorted and often the car already loaded prior to the session. It means less dillydallying around in the morning where often I roll out of bed and within 10 minutes after dropping the kids off at the pool I'm on my way. 

I'm sure much of it is my engineering make-up where often planning and preparation is a key part of the job and it's just something I have done since day dot. 

Holiday's like a military operation, the Wife rolling her eyes not getting the reason why I do it, humour me, you needn't get in the way my Dear !!!. 

Now luckily the countdown to river season the time has passed far quicker than I thought because these short and sweet sessions just fishing for bites has thankfully kept me interested.

What has also kept my pecker up has been the word from the street from the likeminded which has been something I wanted in on before the rivers open. 

You see the Hallowed over the last week or so had produced some cracking Zander even bigger than my quest concluder and after listening to the jungle drums beating louder and louder I needed to fit in a session in to ones busy schedule. 

A 13lb'er caught on the lure witnessed by an angler I've shared towpaths with a few times Buffalo Si as he fishes the same waters as me, who not long after witnessing the lure angler putting the fish back caught a double himself, a fish of 12lb and 5 ounces. 

His one session though would take up 5 of mine, but hey it's probably why his numbers came up far quicker than mine did, clearly more resolve but his probability massively reduced when he decided to spend time on a water that didn't appear on my radar until very late in the quest. 

All very encouraging mind you, as in the Midlands we must have one of the best bits of canal for not only variety of fish but also the size of the predators. So before that kick up the backside I need to go and try for an even bigger canal Zander than my 11lb 8oz quest concluder it was back to the grime, back to the slime. 

The last session at the bream and zander swim I'm almost certainly I saw tench roll so to be honest I didn't need much of an excuse to try out the glowing led floats fashioned up by lathe user and blog reader Jon Pinfold.

A tiny CR322 battery provides the power to the LED within the tip and once they are  assembled together the assembly is completed by mating the tip thread to the battery housing thread which is packaged in the main body. 

Ok probably not the type of float I'd used for canal fishing as it's more of a trotting pattern but these are not tackle shy fish, but wild fish in the canal so despite being 5 and a half BB weighted the size of the float didn't bother me.

So an old rod (Middy White Knuckle CX 10ft Waggler Rod) gathering dust in the garage was dusted off and an unused centrepin in need of a service was fitted with 5lb line and I was all ready to go.  

Baits well after balling in some sweetcorn and dead maggot laced groundbait I'd fish a piece of sweetcorn and a worm on a size 12 hook and fish in to dusk and beyond. I much prefer fishing early morning on the canals if I'm honest but maybe I was missing something ?

I'm sure dusk may well throw up the bigger fish so after losing a good zander here and catching a couple of nice fish I'd also fish a zander sleeper rod tight to some reeds over at the far bank. 

A boat had just gone by when I got there a 6.45pm but then there was no boats till I left so the balled bait went out and the swim had a decent amount of time to settle. 

Obviously there was no need to put the battery in the float just yet as dusk was around 3 hours away. The float was shotted in a tall glass with water and that meant without the battery in the float was sitting a little taller than I'd like.

It just meant I had to add a no4 and jobs a good'un. The first bite came quite quick which I missed but soon after a bite developed again a fish taking a liking to the worm corn cocktail.

Unlike the light method which are quick bites that you need to be on it straight away, this couldn't be more different. You could brew a cup of tea and take the first slurp before striking in to the fish. Not a bad thing especially at my age where my reactions are not like they first were.

6 bream succumbed to the tactics and as dusk was approaching I thought it would kick up a notch, oddly though the bites tailed off.

No sign of the tench whatsoever and even the Zander rod remained motionless. There wasn't any fish topping either almost like the fish had gone to sleep or something or put their feet up and donned their smoking jackets. 

Shame really as the illuminated float was doing a cracking job and was so easy to see even in the pitch black.

I illuminated the Zander rod by torchlight and fully expected that to move, but no the Zander were not at home. A little disheartened really, but when a match on a local canal was one with a 1lb, to be honest I shouldn't moan. A few nice fish and the float, well, the picture say it all, good job Jon.