It would usually take 5 minutes but with the HS2 skirting past the 'village' the temporary traffic lights over the lovely river blythe scuppered that, as did the large white arrow once you got past that to give way to the oncoming traffic, which at 5.30pm there was a land train of cars, oh well at least you could watch the planes overhead landing and taking off from Birmingham airport. 📢 I managed to safely get to the 17th century White Lion for a couple of pints of Otter after struggling to find parking due to the businesses success, Phippo and I headed down to the Soho Tavern to try and get a seat.
It was extremely busy you see, even at a relatively early midweek 6.30pm however luckily we managed to get a table overlooking the lovely garden and open countryside, wondering if judging by the car parked at the entrance whether we were about to get fleeced.
The demographic of Hampton-In-Arden changed quite considerably in this establishment but that is usually a good sign that the food is authentic. With so many staff the service was very good but that's where it ended, the food came out stupidly fast almost like they wanted those turn over of table and the food well, very average indeed really.
This boneless sizzling platter enough for 3 (£22 quid) and a post meal doggy bag contained fish pakora, prawns, chicken tikka and shish kebab over a bed onions. Nice enough but it needed pepping up with chilli sauce, as it didn't tingle the palate. A scoop full of Phippo's child portion sized curry with the garlic naan, that was average at best as well. Oh well you live and learn don't you, we won't be rushing back, the lime and soda was top notch mind you, we should have stayed in the pub and had the pie and chips, that looked great 🤣
Anyway this after work session to keep up the 10k steps a day I decided to head down to an area of canal that is throwing up some nice fish at the moment. Fish big enough to rival the 'Hallowed' albeit ten minutes to drive to get there rather than 35 minutes, which means these last minute adhoc sessions are ideal to try and snare a monster from the canal.
I've managed Zander up to 8lb 9oz from here and there has been much bigger ones caught up to 13lb for the like-minded, which is mad really because I've fished this area on and off for years, without much success, but it shows that things can change year on year.
Anyway I had a small schoolie on the bank within 10 minutes fishing tight to cover so I thought I'd be on for some good sport but how wrong was I. Whilst I was fishing, Nic from Avon Angling was filling me on a session he was having on a canal marina, where he'd finished on around 100lb of fish with countless bream, tench, rudd and even a 12lb pike.
We'd always wondered what was harbouring in these big marinas and now we know first hand, literally fish soup. If I didn't have the wife and kids in tow, I could probably make retirement work and spend my last days moored up on a narrowboat.
For me though cover after cover the big Zander just didn't seem to be showing and after another schoolie after about 2 hours of fishing I decided to head to a new area, where bait fish usually show up headed towards sundown.
After positioning the deadbaits tight to some overhanging cover it looked good for a bite because the cover was so dense but a good twenty minutes or so nada, so I decided to try the next bit of cover along. I reeled in the right rod and a pike came from the depths and made a grab for the bait in the middle of the track where it made a huge splash but missed the bait. I left the rod alone though and within a few seconds the float was off down the canal so I tightened up to the circle hook. A decent fight I must admit with a few powerful runs but eventually it was safely in the net.
A long lean fish that went 10lb 8oz on the scales so a decent pike from the canal. Its head was ridiculously big so I feel sorry for the fish that have to encounter that !! After that fish I tried a few more spots but again those bigger Zander were just not showing.
I could have stayed much longer but in the end I decided I had my quota and ended the session on the double figure pike. With a month left to the rivers are open again it's gone surprisingly quick if I'm honest. Still plenty of sessions left on the canals though and thankfully I've been enjoying my time on them.
0 comments:
Post a Comment