Warwickshire Avon - Hoydons and Hodmandods

I'd a couple of hours to kill afterwork before picking the wriggling wallet raiders up, luckily I was near an area where zander are present, it would be rude not to have a dangle wouldn't it, it's a stretch of convenience, the Jimny making a meal of the rutted road of rumpus. I've lost a big Zander here some time ago so it's always been on my radar. The stretch despite the river over its banks in many places, is just about fishable.

The rivers at the minute are still a little out of sorts and the other river species I'm after to try and maintain my lead at the head of the table on the running stuff, would unlikely to be interested.  However a canal zander or two may be forthcoming in these testing and turbid water conditions, I find that canal fish in-particular seem to get bigger when the weather gets colder.  But then I suppose fish are wanting to get their winter coats on, it's a good time for fishing, if you can get to the water that is.

Now for those that have read this blog of mine for a while, and ones quest to catch a canal double figure zander will know my method to tackle these fascinating fish by now, I fish a deadbait under a small pike float which has banked canal zeds to 7, 8 and 9lb's in weight.

The labouring lunkers more conducive to picking up a static deadbait rather than chasing a lure.

The baits (usually roach or smelt) are fished over-depth and with the float sat on the surface any interest whatsoever is registered on the ridiculously sensitive set-up, the sensitivity needs to be believed.

So 2 rods in the armoury and I leapfrog sections of cover, it just works, regimented I suppose but for fishing short sessions an ideal method.

For the river however I tend to fish for Zander the same way, albeit everything is upscaled and as there is a chance of a pike, wire replaces fluorocarbon.

Obviously floats are fine fished where depths are suitable and allow it, but anything over about 8 foot the float is ditched and I fish a simple running lead setup with a light bobbin and an alarm. Zander are known to be tackle shy and don't like resistance but I've never found that to be an issue.

The float I believe is the best way to fish for them, not only is the tackle required reduced which is great for roving, but you can see what the fish is doing under a float far better that you can a moving bobbin and beeping alarm.

This area is deep in places though so one sleeper rod as a running set-up and then a float set-up to fish the slacks.

So a quick session this, anything doing ?

Well when I got to river I was very hopeful indeed, despite the levels where most of the staging was underwater some of the swims looked ideal for Zander. However after the 2nd swim without a beep or a bob I needed to try and drop on the fish that would be holding up and give it fifteen or twenty minutes in each swim.

The last swim looked perfect and after the float was stationary for a while it moved off station and I thought eventually I had a bite. Sadly it was debris on the line which to be fair wasn't an issue throughout the 2 hour session.

A friend Dave was catching decent Barbel further down the stretch so with a morning free tomorrow I fancy trying for one myself. So another blank to add to the long list, sadly these short sessions seems to be getting shorter, I'm struggling for time at the minute, they are just not long enough.