Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.148 (Canal Zander)

There comes a point in every working man’s life when retirement stops being some distant fantasy involving garden centres, sensible cardigans and a mild interest in bird tables. It becomes something far more important. A target. A finish line. A desperate crawl toward freedom whilst sat in a design studio pretending that I'm enjoying working on rugged Indian SUV's. 

By half three my brain had liquified somewhere between a client email and a discussion about steering wheel ride-down conflict to the CAS surfaces, so naturally the only sensible course of action was to head for the canal and attempt to catch zander. Because if there’s one thing anglers excel at, it’s replacing one form of disappointment with another.

Now this particular stretch had been ridiculously good for zander over the last couple of years.  Of course, as happens with all good fishing spots, word spread quicker than a scandal in a village pub. You only have to casually mention “had a few zander” within earshot of another angler and suddenly there’s more blokes in camouflage hanging around than a surplus army warehouse. 

Nic from Avon Angling soon decided to get involved after hearing about my recent captures, only by then the fish had vanished into thin air. Typical canal zander behaviour. One day they’re stacked up in numbers like shoppers outside Aldi at Christmas, the next day the place resembles an abandoned bathtub. Poor Nic blanked completely, which is the fishing equivalent of turning up to a birthday party after everyone’s gone home and the balloons are being deflated.

Still, despite all available evidence suggesting otherwise, I fancied my chances this evening. Anglers possess the memory retention of goldfish when it comes to bad sessions. We conveniently remember the magical evenings whilst mentally deleting the six-hour blanks in sideways rain where we considered selling all our tackle and taking up bowls. 

Before reaching the canal I stopped off at Sainsbury’s Local for supplies and immediately experienced the modern British condition of laughing bitterly at the price of basic bread. Warburtons now sits on the shelf like some luxury artisan product for hedge fund managers and Premier League footballers. I picked up a loaf, checked the price and genuinely considered whether I’d need finance options.

Fortunately salvation appeared in the reduced section in the form of toastie loafs marked down to forty pence. Forty pence! I nearly applauded. At that price I considered buying the entire basket and opening a small independent bakery out the back of my car. Perfect for river season too because chub absolutely adore floating bread. 

Frankly, some of those river chub probably eat better than most families now. Somewhere under an overhanging willow there’s a six-pound fish refusing budget crusts like some sort of underwater food critic. “Hmm yes… disappointing texture… insufficient fermentation on the crumb…” Cheap bread in hand and optimism restored, I headed toward the canal feeling oddly victorious despite technically celebrating discounted carbohydrates.

Conditions looked absolutely spot on when I arrived. Slight tinge of colour in the water, warm evening, low light and that lovely stillness canals get where everything feels fishy even when it absolutely isn’t. The kind of atmosphere that convinces you every cast could produce a personal best or at the very least justify ignoring responsibilities at home. 

I started at the exact stretch where I’d caught before, already mentally rehearsing how I’d casually describe my captures later as though this sort of thing happened all the time. First cast, nothing. Second cast, nothing. Third cast resulted in snagging what I believe was either a submerged bicycle or the last remaining fragments of British manufacturing.

An hour later I’d worked every inch of that fifty-yard stretch with absolutely nothing to show for it. No follows, no knocks, not even a tiny perch stupid enough to save my dignity. You know things are getting desperate when you begin convincing yourself that random twitches in the line are bites. Every tiny tap suddenly becomes evidence the fish are “just being finicky tonight.”

No Mick, they aren’t being finicky. There simply aren’t any fish there. I stood staring into the canal trying to project confidence whilst internally unravelling like a pension fund during a market crash. Eventually boredom overcame stubbornness and I decided to move up toward the proper hotspot where the fish had been stacked previously.

Now this is where the dangerous optimism kicks back in. Every angler knows the feeling. The second you approach an area with previous form, your confidence returns despite overwhelming historical proof that fish operate entirely outside the laws of logic. I started fan-casting every likely feature. Lock mouths, reed lines, dark shadows beneath moored boats where shopping trolleys and human ambition go to die. Everything looked absolutely textbook. 

The sort of spots magazine articles point at with arrows and captions saying “prime predator holding area.” Yet once again, absolutely nothing happened. It was deader than a town centre on a Monday morning. Even the ducks looked bored.

Then a boat came through and churned the canal bottom up beautifully. Normally that’s prime time. Zander often switch on after disturbance and begin hunting in the coloured water, so naturally my confidence shot through the roof again for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I stood there clutching the rod with renewed anticipation, already imagining that float off at any moment. 

But no. Not a sniff. The only thing that came alive after the boat passed was my lower back and a sudden awareness that I’m no longer physically designed for standing on uneven towpaths for four consecutive hours. At one point I made a noise getting up off my tackle bag that sounded like somebody slowly crushing a packet of crisps.

Eventually I admitted defeat and decided to call it a day. Sometimes canal fishing feels less like a hobby and more like a prolonged psychological experiment designed to test how much rejection one human can tolerate before taking up gardening instead. 

Yet weirdly, despite the blank, despite the disappearing fish and despite the increasing certainty that retirement cannot come soon enough, I still enjoyed it. For a few hours I forgot about politics, taxes, inflation and the general depressing circus that modern life has become. I wasn’t thinking about energy bills, work emails or whether I can justify buying branded bread anymore. It was just me, the canal and several thousand pounds worth of fish completely ignoring my existence in peaceful silence.

And honestly, that’s probably why we keep going back. It isn’t entirely about catching fish, although obviously that helps enormously. It’s the escape from all the nonsense. The quiet wander along the towpath . The ridiculous optimism that maybe this session will be the night everything comes together again. Of course next time I’ll probably blank once more and spend the drive home muttering darkly about deadbaits and boat traffic like some unhinged conspiracy theorist. But I’ll still return. Because somewhere in that murky canal there’s a zander waiting to completely ruin my evening in exactly the right way.

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.10

The alarm went off at an hour normally reserved for milkmen, insomniacs, and people who have made deeply questionable life choices the night before. Naturally, I sprang into action with all the urgency of a damp sponge, eventually peeling myself from the duvet and setting off for Tramp Alley Canal with the kind of optimism that only a fisherman—or a fool—can truly muster. 

The sky, bless it, was a perfect overcast grey, the sort of sky that whispers, “Today, my friend, you will either catch a fish… or develop character.” I packed light, confident, and—crucially—maggotless. Because today was not a day for wriggling protein. No. Today was bread day. A full-scale, no-holds-barred, gluten-fuelled assault.

The plan, inspired by the legendary George Burton method (a man who I suspect once bullied a roach into submission using nothing but a crust and a stern glance), was simple in theory and ludicrous in practice. 

Two slices of bread sacrificed themselves heroically, mashed into what can only be described as a stodgy, beige soup of destiny. The idea being that the smaller fish—those finned freeloaders—would gorge themselves senseless, waddling off in bloated defeat, leaving the larger, more distinguished roach to saunter in like aristocrats at a buffet. It was a beautiful theory. Nobel Prize-worthy, even. Unfortunately, fish have not yet read the same textbooks.

Upon arrival, I was greeted not by serenity, but by betrayal. A boat. Not just any boat, mind you, but one moored precisely where I had mentally placed myself catching a personal best. It sat there smugly, like it knew. I considered knocking on it and politely asking it to move along for the sake of destiny, but thought better of it. Instead, I trudged further down the canal, settling opposite a stretch of reeds that looked vaguely fishy, or at least less offensively boat-shaped.

Out came the gear, and with it, the pièce de résistance: the lift bite setup, complete with a Drennan glow-tip antenna float. A float so rare and precious it might as well have been forged in Mordor. I handled it with the reverence usually reserved for fine china or last biscuits. For added luxury, I even brought a seat this time. Yes, a seat. I sat upon it like a king surveying his watery kingdom, albeit a king who had just mashed bread into soup and was about to throw it into a canal.

The first bite came after 25 minutes with all the subtlety of a firework display. The float didn’t just lift—it launched. I’m fairly certain it achieved temporary orbit. Reflexes engaged! Strike! Nothing. Not a sausage. Not even a sniff of a fin. “Ah,” I thought, “just a tester.” A reconnaissance nibble. The fish equivalent of knocking on the door and running away. But then it happened again. And again. And again. Seven times in total. Seven glorious, dramatic, heart-stopping lift bites… and seven complete and utter failures to connect.

At one point, the float shot up with such enthusiasm I’m convinced it could have been spotted from low Earth orbit. Somewhere, an astronaut probably turned to his colleague and said, “What in the name of Neptune was that?” Meanwhile, I was on the bank, striking like a man swatting invisible flies. 

Was it small fish? Was it line bites? Was it me reacting with the speed and precision of a tranquilised sloth? The answer, as always, was probably “yes.”

I adjusted. Oh, how I adjusted. I scaled the bread down, from “hearty breakfast” to “polite canapé.” I moved spots like a restless ghost, trying two additional swims that offered all the excitement of a damp sock. Not a bite. 

Not even a suspicious ripple. Meanwhile, fish were topping mockingly in the distance, breaking the surface like they were auditioning for a nature documentary titled “Look What You’re Not Catching.”

Time ticked on. Three hours passed in a blur of anticipation, disappointment, and increasingly creative internal monologues. My landing net remained tragically dry, its mesh unstained by victory. 

It looked at me, I swear it did, with a kind of quiet judgment. “You had one job,” it seemed to say. And I, in return, could only shrug and mumble something about bread soup and orbital floats.

In the end, I packed up with all the dignity of a man who has just been thoroughly outwitted by creatures with brains the size of a garden pea. No fish. No glory. Just memories, mild humiliation, and the lingering suspicion that somewhere beneath that canal surface, a particularly smug roach was recounting the morning’s events to its mates, complete with impressions.

But fear not. This is not the end. Oh no. This is merely Chapter One in what will undoubtedly become a gripping saga of persistence, questionable tactics, and bread-based optimism. Because one day—mark my words—a 2lb roach will grace my net. It will happen. It must happen. And when it does, I shall nod knowingly, as if it was all part of the plan.

Until then… watch this space.

Canal Roach: Trapped in a Sisyphean Loop - Pt.9

After a rather nice impromptu late lunch with Mrs Newey with some thai nibbles in the beer garden of a local pub I got back and wondered what the hell I'm going to fish for the following morning. But then there are moments in angling that feel less like fishing and more like stumbling into a watery conspiracy.  One minute you’re minding your own business, unhooking what can only be described as a canal mud sifter with delusions of grandeur, and the next—bang—the surface erupts like someone’s dropped a family-sized bath bomb into the cut. 

Not subtle, not polite, not the sort of thing a well-mannered roach would RSVP to. No, this was a full-on aquatic kerfuffle. Now, I’ve seen my fair share of surface signs. The gentle sip of a roach, like a librarian quietly judging your choice of bait. 

The confident swirl of a rudd, all swagger and no apology. But this? This was neither tea nor coffee—it was a full English breakfast of disturbance. Boils, swirls, the odd flick that suggested something down there had either found religion or lost its temper.

And here’s the thing—this wasn’t gin-clear, aquarium-style water where you can name the fish and ask after their families. This was proper coloured canal water. The sort that looks like it’s been steeped in builder’s tea and regret. Normally, you’re fishing blind in conditions like this, relying on instinct, experience, and the vague hope that something with fins shares your optimism. Yet here were signs. Actual, undeniable signs. Fishy graffiti on the surface saying, “We’re here, mate. But good luck guessing who we are.”

Naturally, this triggered the ancient angler’s reflex: curiosity mixed with mild delusion. Only one way to find out, I thought, which is usually the prelude to either brilliance or embarrassment. Sometimes both. So for this session, out came the lift float—my old, faithful conspirator in all things roachy—paired with a bit of groundbait and maggots, because if there’s one thing roach love, it’s a free buffet with questionable hygiene standards. 

The morning itself was one of those rare gems. Quiet. Still. The sort of calm that makes you feel like you’ve accidentally walked into a postcard. Birds chirping, the occasional ripple, and at one point what I can only assume was a lamb expressing itself in a deeply personal way. Nature, as ever, keeping it classy. 

I'd only a few hours with a busy ahead as with family stuff in the afternoon I was heading to a DJ gig in Brum with Lloyd Barwood one of progressive houses brightest new talents being both a producer and DJ and a lovely fella he is too, this picture taken before the gig started and a nice chat about him living his dream. 

I'd seen him in Liverpool not long back warming up for Sasha before he went b2b with his hero, but this time the Hare and Hounds a venue where UB40 performed their first gig was ideal to showcase his banging beats of repetitiveness. 

In contrast to quiet fishing with only bird song or a lamb trumping the solitude but variety is the spice of life you know. Anyway, beneath this serene surface, there was mischief. You could feel it. Every now and then, another swirl. Another hint. Like the canal was winking at me, saying, “You’re close… but not that close.” The float behaved itself for the most part—lifting here and there with just enough suggestion to keep the brain ticking. Classic roach behaviour. Delicate. Thoughtful. The sort of bite that says, “I’ll take it… but I’m not happy about it.”

But then !!

The canal, in its infinite wisdom (and questionable hygiene), decided that today was not a day for heroes but for mongrels those suspicious, vaguely fish-shaped entities that look as though they were assembled from leftover parts in a damp shed. Out they came to play, nudging at liquidised bread like pensioners at a reduced bakery shelf, while my maggots dangled with all the dignity of a soggy chandelier. 

I fished one swim, then another, then another—like a man searching for a lost remote in increasingly unlikely places—only to discover that the fish had the collective enthusiasm of a committee meeting.

What did I catch? Ah yes—creatures. Not fish in the proud, silver-flanked sense, but… beings. Tatty little customers, each looking like it had lost a bar fight with a shopping trolley. Not one of them particularly large, mind you, though each carried itself with the baffling confidence of something that believes it ought to be bigger. Canal fishing, as ever, served up its daily special: unpredictability with a side of mild disappointment. You turn up expecting a story; you leave with a shrug and a faint smell of skimmer regret.

Still, there were bites little taps of encouragement, like the canal whispering, “Go on, keep trying, this might improve.” It did not improve. And where, pray tell, were the roach? Not a single one. Vanished. Evaporated. Possibly attending a conference elsewhere on more agreeable waters. It’s the sort of mystery that keeps anglers awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering if the fish are unionising.

And so, with spirits neither lifted nor entirely crushed just gently sat upon I packed up. Another session concluded, another tale added to the ever-growing anthology of “well, that happened.” Onwards to the next outing, where expectations will once again be inflated beyond reason, only to be expertly punctured by a canal that knows exactly what it’s doing and refuses to explain itself.

Back to the full-on bread attack, I think—this isn’t going too well.