Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.146 (Canal Zander)

Ah, St George’s Day when the flags flutter, the ale settles warm in the gut, and a man feels duty-bound to face his own private dragon. Mine, of course, has fins, sulks in the margins, and answers when it answers at all to the name of Zander. Like the saint himself, one must approach with a blend of misplaced confidence and stubborn ritual: a well-thumbed lure box instead of a lance, and faith that somewhere beneath that sullen, tea-stained water, something wicked eyes your offering with grudging intent.

For Zander are no patriotic celebrants. They care not for saints nor songs, only for the slow, deliberate trespass of your bait through their dim dominion. And so, while others toast St George with cheer, I stand towpath side, engaged in my own quiet crusade half myth, half madness hoping, just once, to strike true and feel that unmistakable, dragonish resistance on the line.

Now It was one of those evenings where the sun is doing its absolute best to convince you it’s spring, while the air quietly reminds you that winter hasn’t packed its bags just yet. A nippy wind it was, out of the sun. The sort of nippy wind that sneaks up your sleeves and sits there, grinning. Still, the canal was calling, and like a mug with a fishing rod, I answered. 

The big zander? Nah, they’re still in their winter sulk, probably sat somewhere deep writing passive-aggressive notes about water temperature. But after a day at work, expectations were lower than a limbo stick at a worm’s birthday party.

I wandered down the towpath with that familiar “might just have a quick chuck” optimism, which, as we all know, is a complete lie we tell ourselves before losing two hours and most of our dignity. Bright sunshine blazing away like it’s auditioning for July not ideal for zander, who prefer a bit of gloom and mystery, like teenagers or tax returns. Still, I had a plan. A line of narrowboats sat there, all smug and floaty, casting lovely shady patches beneath them. Perfect ambush spots. If I were a zander, that’s exactly where I’d be tucked under a hull, waiting to mug some unsuspecting scooby snack drifting past like it hadn’t a care in the world.

Now, I’ll be honest, my fishing mojo lately has been wobblier than a jelly in a tumble dryer. One minute I’m obsessed, next minute I’m wondering if I should take up something sensible like stamp collecting or competitive napping. But the weather had that “go on, you know you want to” vibe, so off I went, chasing that elusive tug on the line and a brief escape from reality (and emails).

Anyway, there I am, creeping along like a canal-side ninja, when I nearly stepped in what can only be described as a biological weapon. Dog poo. Not just any dog poo the stealth kind. The kind that blends into the towpath like it’s been trained by special forces. And it got me thinking… we’ve got all this fancy tech in cars now — sensors, cameras, things that beep at you if you so much as think about reversing near a leaf. Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems, they call it. ADAS. Sounds very impressive. Makes you feel like your car’s got a PhD.

So why, in the name of all things fishy, can we not have the same for anglers on towpaths? Imagine it: a lightweight head-mounted device. 

Bit like a futuristic fishing hat. Built-in smell sensors, ultra-HD cameras, maybe even a polite but firm voice that says, “Oi, watch it pal, that’s a size 5 Labrador special at two o’clock.” It could map hazards in real-time. Sync it to your phone. 

Towpath Navigation Mode. Avoidance protocols engaged. You’d look like a complete plonker, obviously, but you’d have clean boots — and frankly, that’s a trade-off I’m willing to make.

I’d invest. No hesitation. In fact, I’m calling it now — if anyone out there is building this masterpiece, put me down first on the Crowdfunder. Early adopter. 

Beta tester. Chief Avoidance Officer. Because nothing ruins a perfectly good fishing session faster than that slow, sickening realisation that your boot has just found something it really shouldn’t have.

Anyway, back to the fishing. Did I catch anything?

Well There are days in fishing when you feel less like an angler and more like a mobile garden ornament strategically placed, mildly optimistic, and largely ignored by anything with fins. 

This, I can confirm, was one of those days. The plan had all the hallmarks of genius: canal Zander, moody conditions, a roach suspended temptingly beneath an over-depth float practically a Michelin-starred offering in piscine terms. 

Naturally, the fish responded with the enthusiasm of Starmer at Prime Ministers Question time. 

An hour passed in what can only be described as “leapfrogging the armada” that familiar canal ballet of edging past moored boats, muttering polite apologies to potted geraniums, and wondering if one more cast might finally convince a Zander that today was, in fact, the day. It wasn’t. 

Not even a murmur. The float remained as motionless as a taxidermy exhibit, while my optimism quietly packed its bags and left without so much as a forwarding address.

The towpath, however, was in full swing. A steady procession of humanity drifted by, including a pair of Labradors operating at what can only be described as glacial speed, accompanied by owners who appeared to be rehearsing for a very slow-motion remake of “When I’m 64.”  (the name of their boat) They passed once. 

Then, in a twist that no one saw coming (except everyone), they returned ten minutes later, retracing their steps with the same leisurely determination. Their boat, I must say, was lovely tastefully adorned with what can only be described as an honest display of laundry. Nothing says “living the dream” quite like underpants fluttering proudly in the spring breeze.

With the sun doing its best impression of a spotlight on an empty stage, I conceded defeat on the bright stretch and slipped over to the darker side a place of shadows, mystery, and significantly fewer Labradors. Fishing tight to some thick cover, I battled not only the elements but also an ongoing conspiracy of drifting grass cuttings and a surface tow that seemed personally invested in moving my float anywhere but where I’d placed it.

Then, just as I was considering composing a heartfelt apology to my tackle for wasting its time, it happened. A bite. Not just any bite a proper, unmistakable Zander take. The left-hand rod sprang to life with all the subtlety of a car alarm, and I struck into something solid. 

Now, I’ll admit, it didn’t exactly bend the rod into a heroic arc, but at that point I’d have happily accepted a mildly enthusiastic stickleback. A fish is a fish is a fish, and this one saved me from the dreaded blank a result celebrated by anglers with the quiet dignity of someone who’s just avoided public embarrassment. 

I gave it another half hour, partly out of hope and partly because packing up immediately would have felt like admitting the fish had only shown up out of pity. No further bites materialised, but that hardly mattered. There had been fresh air, a generous helping of spring sunshine, and—most importantly—proof that I hadn’t entirely forgotten how to catch something. All things considered, it was a success. Not a triumphant, chest-beating, “write to the magazines” sort of success, but a modest, contented nod-to-self kind. And in fishing, as in life, those are often the ones that matter most.

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.8

I arrived at Tramp Alley armed with a noble ambition: to experience the tranquil dignity of the South Stratford Canal. This lasted approximately eleven seconds, or until I slipped on something that may once have been either duck-related or philosophical in origin. Thus began my immersive historical re-enactmentless “Industrial Revolution transport artery,” more “man mildly at odds with mud.” 

The canal itself lounged beside me in that deeply unimpressed way only water can manage. One could almost hear it muttering, “I was completed in 1816, you know,” as if this justified the presence of suspiciously wobbly towpath edges and a duck with the moral authority of a parish councillor. I nodded respectfully, as one does when being silently judged by infrastructure. 

Tramp Alley, I am told, was once a place of spa-going refinement, where genteel visitors sipped mineral waters and discussed ailments with enthusiasm bordering on performance art. I too sampled the local atmosphere, though my intake consisted primarily of midges and regret. It felt authentic. Possibly too authentic. There is something delightfully absurd about canals. Built with grand visions of commerce and empire, they now host slow-moving boats piloted by people named Clive who wave as if they’ve just conquered something. 

History, I reflected, is less about progress and more about who manages to stay upright the longest. As I continued along the towpath, I considered the heroic restoration efforts of the 1960s. Brave souls dredged, rebuilt, and resurrected this waterway from near oblivion. Meanwhile, I struggled to resurrect my dignity after misjudging a puddle of deceptive depth. Their legacy lives on; mine will likely be absorbed into the silt.

I set off for the roach with the kind of misplaced optimism usually reserved for lottery tickets and “quick five-minute jobs” that somehow consume entire afternoons. The air had that crisp, early-morning enthusiasm about it, the sort that suggests great things are about to happen, or at the very least something mildly competent. Naturally, I took this as a sign that today would be a triumphant return to angling glory. Rods packed, bait prepared, dignity loosely attached I marched toward the towpath like a man about to be gently but firmly corrected by reality.

It’s always the same with canals they sit there like retired generals, full of stories, completely unimpressed by your presence, and faintly amused by your inevitable mistakes. I found my first swim, settled in, and within minutes had two small roach. “Ah,” I thought, with dangerous confidence, “today is the day.” This, as it turns out, was the exact moment the universe decided I’d had quite enough encouragement for one morning.

What followed can only be described as an extended masterclass in not catching fish. I moved swims with the optimism of a man rearranging deckchairs on a very uncooperative Titanic. Each new spot looked promising—“That’s got to hold something,” I muttered, as though the fish were listening and considering my proposal. They were not. The canal, meanwhile, maintained its serene composure, as if to say, “You may continue if you wish, but I wouldn’t expect much.”

There is a particular kind of silence that descends when the fish have collectively decided to ignore you. It’s not peaceful it’s pointed. Every ripple feels like a private joke you’re not in on. A duck drifted past at one stage and gave me a look that can only be described as professionally judgmental. If it had a clipboard, I’m certain it would have made a note: “Angler—enthusiastic, but ultimately ineffective.” I considered asking it for advice, but I suspected it would suggest bread and a different career path.

By the second swim, I had entered what experts might call “hope management mode.” This involves lowering expectations in carefully measured increments until success is redefined as “not actively falling into the water.” Bites? Optional. Fish? A luxury. Remaining upright and relatively dry? Now we’re talking. I cast out with renewed determination, which the canal acknowledged by doing absolutely nothing whatsoever.

The third swim was less a strategic decision and more a reluctant acceptance that I had run out of convincing places to blame. “This one,” I told myself, “this is the one.” It wasn’t. At this point, even the midges seemed to lose interest in me, which felt like a new low. When insects that normally regard you as an all-you-can-eat buffet decide you’re not worth the effort, it’s time to reassess your situation.

Still, there’s something wonderfully absurd about it all. Fishing, particularly on canals, has a way of humbling you with surgical precision. One day you’re pulling in fish like a seasoned pro, nodding knowingly at passersby as if you’ve unlocked some ancient aquatic secret. The next, you’re staring at a motionless float, questioning your life choices and wondering if the fish have all relocated to a different postcode out of sheer spite.

I couldn’t help but admire the stubborn charm of the place, though. The canal doesn’t change for anyone. It doesn’t care about your previous success, your carefully chosen bait, or your optimistic early start. It simply exists quietly, persistently, and with just enough unpredictability to keep you coming back. It’s less a hobby and more a long-term negotiation with something that has no intention of meeting you halfway.

Eventually, I packed up with the slow, deliberate movements of a man who has accepted defeat but would prefer not to draw attention to it. Two small roach to show for the effort not exactly headline material, but technically not a blank, which in angling terms is the equivalent of a moral victory. A very small, slightly damp moral victory, but a victory nonetheless. As I trudged back along the towpath, boots carrying more canal than they started with, I reflected on the morning’s events. 

It had been cold, unproductive, mildly humiliating—and oddly enjoyable. Because that’s the thing about fishing: even when it’s terrible, it’s still somehow good. The promise of the next trip, the next cast, the next “this might be the one” moment keeps you hooked far more effectively than any fish ever could. So yes, a short session, a tough morning, and a canal that firmly put me in my place. But give it a day or two and I’ll be back, full of confidence, entirely convinced that this time it will be different. It won’t be, of course—but that’s never really the point, is it?

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.7

Now there is, if you spend any time among river anglers of a certain persuasion (usually slightly damp, faintly bearded, and carrying at least one item of tackle older than their knees), a particular look that appears when the coarse close season rolls around. 

It is not quite grief, not quite boredom, but something in between like being told your favourite pub has shut for renovations and will reopen as a vape shop. 

This, blog readers, is the moment when the suggestion inevitably arises: “Why not try a lake or even a commercial?” And at this point, a silence falls. A deep, meaningful, slightly horrified silence.

Because to many river anglers, fishing a stillwater in the close season feels less like fishing and more like attending a very damp, mildly competitive picnic where the sandwiches occasionally scream and pull back.

Now, this is not to say stillwaters or commercials, for that matter do not have their place. They do. 

They are, objectively, full of fish. Obscenely full of fish. Fish that appear to have been raised on a strict diet of protein pellets and low self-esteem, willing to fling themselves at anything that vaguely resembles food. 

There is a certain efficiency to it all. You arrive, you sit down, and within minutes something is tugging at your line with all the subtlety of a daily deposit specialist encountering a sausage.

But for the river angler, accustomed to the slow, contemplative rhythm of flowing water, this can feel… unsettling.

On a river in April, during the close season, there is a stillness that borders on the sacred. The banks are empty. The swims lie untouched. 

The only sounds are wind through reeds, the occasional plop of something unseen, and your own thoughts usually revolving around how big that chub definitely was last winter. 

You walk the bank not to fish, but to look, to imagine, to quietly conspire with the water about future plans. It is solitude in its purest form, a kind of gentle conspiracy between angler and river.

Compare this to a stillwater in the same period.

You arrive to a car park already hosting a small festival. There are voices. Many voices. Laughter, shouting, the unmistakable beep-beep-beeeeeep of bite alarms going off with the urgency of a reversing lorry in a supermarket car park. Pegs are lined with bivvies resembling a nylon housing estate. Someone is frying something. Someone else is explaining, at volume, how they “had one over twenty yesterday, mate, absolute unit.”

You sit down, carefully threading your way between keepnets, bait buckets, and a gentleman who appears to have brought his entire garage. You cast out. Within moments BEEEEEEP. A fish. Efficient. Immediate. Undeniable.

And yet…

There is no mystery.

On a river, a bite is a question. On a stillwater, it is more of a notification.

Canals, meanwhile, occupy a peculiar middle ground. They promise something of the old world towpaths, narrowboats, a hint of industrial nostalgia but during the close season they often inherit the same crowded enthusiasm as lakes, gravel pits and commercials. Dog walkers and poop peddlers, cyclists, joggers, entire families of ducks and swans with no regard for personal space. The water itself sits there, straight and slightly suspicious, as if it knows it is not quite a river but would very much like you not to mention it.

Fishing a canal can feel like trying to read a book in a corridor.

The scenery, too, plays its part in this quiet rebellion against “soulless holes.” A river is never the same twice. Light changes it, rain reshapes it, seasons repaint it entirely. One bend might hold deep, shadowed secrets; the next, a shallow glide sparkling like something out of a dream you forgot upon waking. You are not just fishing you are participating in something alive, something that existed long before you and will continue long after you’ve lost your favourite float in a tree.

A stillwater, by contrast, is often… consistent. Reassuringly, relentlessly consistent. The same pegs, the same margins, the same islands placed with geometric certainty. The same fish, too, though perhaps that’s unkind they are individuals, each with their own hopes, dreams, and alarming willingness to eat bright orange spheres. But the setting rarely surprises you. It is designed not to.

And that is, perhaps, the crux of it.

River anglers are, at heart, romantics. Slightly impractical, occasionally muddy romantics. They do not just want to catch fish they want to feel something while doing it. They want the uncertainty, the waiting, the quiet triumph of decoding a stretch of water that initially gave them nothing but suspicion and a nettle sting. They want the story.

On a stillwater, you often get the ending first.

Of course, there are those who happily fish both worlds, slipping between river and lake with admirable flexibility, enjoying each for what it offers. And they are probably healthier, both mentally and in terms of catch rates. But for the dyed-in-the-wool river angler, the close season presents a peculiar kind of exile.

So they walk the banks instead.

They peer into swims like archaeologists of their own past successes. They nod knowingly at overhanging branches. They mutter things like “that’ll do in September” to nobody in particular. And somewhere, in the distance, a bite alarm echoes faintly across a lake, a mechanical birdsong of efficiency. 

The river angler pauses, listens for a moment, and then carries on walking content, slightly smug, and absolutely certain that whatever that noise represents, it is not quite fishing as they understand it.
Anyway to the canal forthwith where I arrived at the stretch with all the optimism of a man who has absolutely no evidence things will go well, but a stubborn belief that today—today—the roach would queue like civilised humans, not feral pigeons. 

The canal lay there motionless, looking less like a thriving waterway and more like someone had spilled a very long puddle and forgotten to mop it up. Still, this was hallowed ground. Legends had been made here, not only decent Zander but there are carp here to be caught as well. Well, one legend. Mine. And I intended to remind the fish of that fact.

The ghosts of past glories were hard to ignore. That old zander the nine-pounder that I caught many moons ago turned into a proper canal heifer had clearly spent its days hoovering up the unfortunate descendants of those 20,000 silver fish that were stocked when maggot peddler Martyn who owns the local tackle shop used to lease the stretch. 

It must have waddled about down there like a chubby underwater landlord. And then of course came the near twelve-pounder from the Hallowed 20 miles away, which I like to think of as the canal’s way of apologising for everything else it’s ever done to me. So naturally, with that sort of history, I fully expected either a record roach or a carp with delusions of grandeur to turn up within minutes.

Tactics, as always, were flawless in theory. A gentle introduction of liquidised bread went in clouding the water like I’d just tipped in a bag of canal-flavoured milkshake followed by maggots under a lift-method float. Classic, elegant, deadly… in magazines. Alongside that, the sleeper rod sat poised with a boilie, alarm set, looking far more professional than anything else in my setup. It’s always nice to have at least one rod that suggests you know what you’re doing, even if the rest of the scene screams otherwise.

Anyway to cut a long story short I arrived at the bank armed with optimism, maggots, and the vague athleticism required to squat down for a couple of hours, only to discover the fish were already in a cooperative mood—either that or they pitied me. Before the first boat rudely announced the concept of “morning traffic” at 8:30, I’d amassed a respectable tally of bites, several of which I gallantly declined to convert into actual fish, purely to keep things sporting. 

The highlight was a plucky hybrid that fought like it had something to prove—unfortunately not its identity as a roach, which would have seen my personal best shattered and my ego inflated to dangerous levels. Still, clear skies and blazing sunshine conspired to suggest fishing should have been dreadful, yet by the ancient and noble technique of “chucking a maggot somewhere vaguely promising,” I managed to prove otherwise. 

The real spectacle, however, was the parade of humanity: six joggers pretending to enjoy themselves, five cyclists dressed like escaped highlighters, and two dog walkers being dragged by creatures with far more purpose than their owners. All in all, not a bad morning—fish caught, dignity mostly intact, and only minimal resentment toward passing boats. Oh and nought on the sleeper rod.