Piscatorial Quagswagging

...the diary of a specialist angler in around the Warwickshire Avon and its tributaries.

Thursday 2 May 2019

The Close Season Zander Quest Pt.122 – Long Nights and Lazy Man’s Loads

After a great chilled family holiday it was back to the daily grind this week, and the ever increasing need to fill ones coffers, top up ones reserves. A ridiculous amount of Mixcloud catching up and some good TV with her in doors got me back in the mood again luckily as I thought I would struggle. So this week episode 3 of season eight of Game of Thrones titled “The Long Night” aired on Monday and had some viewers wondering and moaning why the heck was the epic Great Battle of Winterfell, filmed in the dark, yes you couldn’t make it up.

Luckily for me as a social media avoider I only caught snippets of some of the comments as I’d have only taken to one keyboard post rum and that wouldn’t be a wise idea. For me it added to the atmosphere and cinematic experience of what has been a TV series unrivaled up till now, and for more to watch lots of TV is rare these days.


And yes the battle was epic, an hour and twenty minutes of it !!!!

Maybe I was spoilt as the Wife and I viewed it on a HD projector which when projected on the wall the image is >90"'s. and like many projectors it helps that the room is dark anyway. Now it took my Wife a good couple of years to get me watching it, and it was the promise of boobs, battles and gratuitous gore that eventually persuaded me to dedicate some of my valuable free time to it. After a few weekends of splurging and binging we caught up with the latest episode, and I’ve been hooked ever since.


Unlike my Wife, my brain cannot absorb a novel, music is my thing you see where I can properly zone out and get away from it all. So luckily for me she is on hand to fill me in on any GOT question I have, because it’s based on a novel after all, a very complicated one at that. She should go on Mastermind, ok, she might have to skip the general knowledge questions !!!!, but get to the specialised subject of #GOT she would clean up for sure.

So now the Night King and the Army of the Dead is no more, bring on Queen Cersei Lannister who is the widow of King Robert Baratheon and Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. She is the daughter of Lord Tywin Lannister, twin sister of Jaime Lannister and elder sister of Tyrion Lannister. So who will sit on the iron throne at the conclusion, after the last episode I know who my money is on...

....can you see what I'm getting at !!!!


She would certainly have more success than I’m having with these canal Zeds, as fishing for them is off a little at the minute, because of their preoccupation in all things more exciting, they don't appear to be feeding. So I decided to fish an area very much forgotten, a stretch with potential as it was not 'that' far away from the ‘deep bit’ where some nice canal Zander have been caught, 3 or 4 fish over 5lb and one of 7lb 8oz, that’s rare I tell thee from such a small area.

This stretch has remained on ones radar for a while however despite only fishing it a couple of times, and those times to be fair, my usual regimented approach ended up being rather lackadaisical.


I blanked, both times !!!!

Results were therefore poor but there is no reason why there shouldn’t be here, because let’s face it, Zander are here to stay, and in numbers too, and when the waters are beginning to warm, the fish get on the move. Now I did think about visiting an area patrolled by a battle-axe harbouring under her bridge waiting for unscrupulous anglers to accost, but that would be put off for another week or so when ‘Nora ‘could be caught off guard and I could sneak unnoticed via the neighbours backdoor.

With the geriatrics and holidaymakers beginning their fair weather cut cruising the boat traffic will only ever increase from this moment forward, so my session apart from this one will be early mornings or post tea in to dusk jobbies.


Sometimes when it’s cold and the silt gets lifted from the bed by the boats propeller, that can shift a laying up leech covered Zed off the bottom, and it can often bring bites. However when it’s warmer and they are moving around more it can be more of a hindrance than a help.

There are stretches that I know that are quieter for sure, but for me I want sessions on my terms, having to move floats frequently can become a pain in the backside and I often cut sessions short because of it.

A boat moving at 7.20am, what’s all that about !!!!

Now a change for this short afterwork session as I’d leave one of the deadbait rods behind, and replace it with a lure rod equipped with a bright green shad.

The theory was a threat of from an aggressor might spur a fish to at least have a go, rather than dormant looking at a washed out piece of smelt waiting it to do something.

These are predators after all, they cannot but help acting on their inbuilt instinct. Green out of the all the colours I use when lure fishing for them, does seem to be the most consistent if a bite is required.

This area is nice and open as well, with cover on the far bank so the 400 metres or so could be covered nicely with a lure, whilst a deadbait tight against some cover would be used as a sleeper, with the weather about to turn to being cold again, it was just nice to be out.

Now the session didn't go too well, a dumped poo bag right where I wanted to fish, a small motorboat went through and caused a wake like no other. A small dog off the lead jumping up at me "Sorry, I've been trying to stop him doing that",it was raining as well so much of it was sheltered under a tree. Not long in to the session though I had a bite on the lure which ended up being a small jack which ended up dropping off as it was nearing the bank.

When two more boats went through I decided to up sticks and drive to an area which is a veritable banker. It's home to a fish of 8lb 10oz which is in my title banner but there are fish here in numbers more often than not. The float had been out for twenty minutes or so and sure enough after staring at a blank with a motionless float and a lure unhindered, the float bobbed, and bobbed again and it sailed under. Not a huge fish, probably not even 3lb, but most welcome all the same.


From this day forward and to project my sanity, early mornings and post dinner in to dusk sessions will be the order of the day.

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