An end of season Barbel...

So the closed season is upon us again, I didn't have a great one to be honest but managed to get out every weekend and caught some nice fish. I had planned to fish the float down the 'Brook' but with heavy rain the day before the river was up and coloured so I decided to stay in one swim and fish a couple of rods with pellet as bait. Much fresher than I thought with a bitterly cold wind, not exactly pleasant.

In the first hour I had a couple of Chub and then the swim went dead. I had a whacker of a bite that much have been another Chub but eventually I had the classic four foot twitch and I was playing a Barbel. A powerful fight in the flow but eventually in the net. I didn't weigh it but it was something like 5 or 6 lb. Most welcome though.

So the double figure canal Zander challenge is here and I'm looking forward to it. When I get a chance to get to the cut that is, holiday and Fatherly duties are getting in the way. I'm now a lure anglers canal club member so I can fish from Hatton Bottom Lock all the way through to Stockton, approximately 12 miles of canal to try and search out an elusive double figure fish (They are there somewhere and I've been given a couple of leads). I'm planning to use a lure rod to find some fish then exclusively fish deadbaits. I'm hoping a few nice Perch might get in the way.

Zander come with a bit of a reputation, and often disliked. I personally love them as a species and for us lucky Midlanders well worth a go in the closed season. As the evenings are getting lighter I'm also going to use my Chinese toxic float set-up :) , it's geared up for an isotope and I've never float fished for them before, even though I've done pretty well catching plenty of Zander I think I've been missing a trick.