Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.102 (Canal Zander 8lb 9oz beauty)

Well the grass need mowing, spring is definitely here, it's just a shame it's not a bit warmer. I really do hate gardening, it's just not for me. 

Thankfully I've not got a great deal to look after, although saying that having landscaped it when we moved in back in 2008 (I think) and replacing the deck sice, the sleepers could do with replacing. Now, for a start gardening has got nothing to do with looking after the bit of mud and grass and trees outside your back door. That's just such a narrow view of what a garden is. So you can just forget it.

And it's got nothing to do with those shops where you can get green plastic fencing and peat and flowers and plants and growbags (growbags not grotbags !!) and things, although I quite like the little concrete gnomes.The worst experience I ever had at a so-called 'gardening centre' was when I once bought a growbag.

I took it home and watered it for like months but nothing grew out of it. Nothing at all. Someone told me that you had to plant something in it but that was stupid if you have to go to all that hassle, why bother to get a growbag in the first place? 

I decided it was a rip-off until one day I looked at it and realised that, although nothing had grown in it, the bag itself was ever so slightly bigger than it had been. And I thought, 'So that's what they mean by a growbag!'

I stopped watering it at once. I mean, I didn't like the idea of killing a living thing but who knows how big it could have grown? I think that's really dangerous-they should put a warning on the side of the packet: A GROWBAG IS FOR LIFE NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS.

Oh no, I just thought! What if it gets really angry that I haven't watered it for ages and decides to eat me instead? What if it's a killer growbag? There might be killer growbags everywhere. Watch out for killer growbags, everybody. Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the greenhouse! The Growbags That Ate Paris! Invasion of the Growbags!

I bet the guy who invented growbags feels really guilty now. Maybe he's had to get himself a new identity so that he can live with himself and the ugly, evil thing that he created. The growbags that turned out to be far bigger and more powerful than man's ability to control them. 

 

The Growbag Syndrome. Hey, maybe someone should make a film about it before it's all too late and get Kate Beckindale to be in it, and Emily Blunt could get a load of people together to do a benefit for it. GROWBAGS AT DRURY LANE. But, even then, it might be too late.

Well, that's definitely the last time I visit a garden centre for anything. No, there's more to a garden than that. Because a garden can be anywhere. In your mind. In the fridge. 

In your shoe. In-fact, if you have your head together, life is a garden. This blog of mine could just be a lovely little rock garden, with coloured stones and pixies with fishing rods and psychedelic kingfishers freaking out among the marigolds. 

Mick, have you lost your mind ? , quite possibly but No !! this was a dream I had post some rather nice stilton cheese !!. An extremely vivid one as well which was nice because Emily Blunt was in it. Anyway to the fishing, a much needed roving session this away from the CAD screen where I hoped to tick off circa 15k steps. So Zander were the target naturally and leapfrogging those sections of cover where I was hoping they would be laying up. 

Now where there are herons there are bait fish to be had and I scared a couple off when walking to the area to fish, and there was another one when I fished the first bit of cover.

A lure angler was already there and he was asking what I was doing, so I showed him the ways and means to catch Zander using the float. It didn't take long to get a bite either the float going on a confident run with a 3-4lb Zander taking the bait.

After a natter we went our separate ways and first cast of the crankbait in the next swim he managed a small jack pike that engulfed his lure.

An 8lb 9oz Grand Union Canal Zander 🆒

What I didn't expect was that fifteen minutes or so after he left another confident bite but then this time I've tightened up to a solid lump that was hanging low and not doing much. Till that is from the first bend of the rod which then it went off on a mad run. This was giving me a fight, a proper fight so much so I was waiting for that moment when it came off.

The circle hook had a good hold though and after following it down the canal for twenty yards I managed to turn it where I saw it's flanks. A cracking fish I didn't want to lose and luckily after it realised the battle was up I managed to net it. The scales went 8lb and 9oz's what a fantastic fish that fought like a right beast. Those that say they don't fight are mistaken. 

I managed another 4 Zander so they were definitely on it with the rest being schoolies. Now Nic from Avon Angling had fished another stretch earlier not that far away, the stretch I caught 2 6 lber's on consecutive sessions but he never has a nibble. I was keeping him in the loop of what was happening with my trip out and he decided to head over after picking up his daughter from school and continue where I left off. 

I had to get back sadly and we crossed paths when my curfew was up. I certainly didn't expect that session today and to catch another big Zander from the canal just makes me appreciate the fish we are lucky to have in this neck of the woods.  The length weight relationship graph I created a while ago stacked up as well because the stocky fish measured 71cm's giving 140oz and 8.75lb on the graph.