Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.136 (Canal Zander)

There comes a time, usually somewhere around the 73rd viewing of a YouTube carp rig tutorial or while daydreaming over a cup of lukewarm instant coffee, when the closed season begins to nibble at your soul. You find yourself polishing reels that don’t need polishing, untangling line that wasn’t tangled, and seriously considering whether your old unhooking mat could double as a yoga mat, if only for the mental discipline. This, blog readers, is when the mind starts to wander and wander it did, all the way back to the syndicate stretch.

Now, I’ll be honest. A bit of swim creation was on the cards, which sounds rugged and manly until you realise it mostly involved me standing in nettles, wondering how soil gets in your socks even when you're wearing boots. But needs must. The new season looms on the horizon like a long-awaited sequel, and preparation is everything. 

This season, the farmer saintly man that he is granted us permission to bring the car into the field. This may not sound like much to those unfamiliar with the sacred rituals of fishing logistics, but let me assure you, lugging gear across a field worthy of a National Trust walking trail was beginning to give me one leg longer than the other. So I took it upon myself to forge a track, skirting the periphery with all the majesty of a pioneer, minus the oxen and cholera.

After hours of this backbreaking terrain taming and swim creating (read: a couple of hours lazily hacking at grass with a half-blunt spade and pretending it was important), I was parched. 

Not just a little thirsty, but legend-thirsty the sort of thirst that demands a reward not found in tepid bottles of spring water or the dregs of last season’s energy drink. No, this thirst called for a pint.

And here’s where things got weird.

Now, you know when you’re tired, a bit sun-dazed, maybe mildly hallucinating from inhaling too much grass pollen and WD-40? Well, I walked into the pub and there it was. 

Like a shimmering golden idol on the bar McEwan’s Champion, Rum Cask Edition. My knees went weak. My pupils dilated. I could hear harps. “One of those please,” I said, as calmly as a man who just saw his long-lost love walk through the door after being presumed dead at sea. 

The bartender gave me a look of amused pity, the same look one might reserve for a bloke who confidently walks into a wedding reception he’s not invited to. “Sorry mate,” he said, “we don’t stock that. Never seen it before.” I looked down. My hand was empty. The pump was a figment. The Champion had never been there.

It was a dream. A beautiful, boozy dream.

But at least one part of this tale is firmly rooted in reality. Yes, believe it or not, I actually went fishing. Not prep, not tinkering, not wistful lawn chair based gazing at the water. Actual rods. Actual fish.

The canal was calling, specifically for zander a species so mysterious and misunderstood they probably have their own conspiracy theories about themselves. I hadn’t really been feeling the pull of the rod during the closed season, to be fair. I’d almost convinced myself that I was just in it for the gear fondling and excuses to buy tiny tackle boxes. But the zander whispered to me, probably in Hungarian, and so I went.

With only a couple of hours to spare, I didn't expect much. My first spot, tucked under some snarly cover, was as dead as disco. Not a tap. I began questioning my life choices, whether zander were even real, and whether I’d actually just gone mad and this was all a long dream within the beer dream.

But then, I moved.

And that’s when things got silly.

Four zander in under ten minutes. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Like watching someone accidentally sit on the horn of a clown car chaotic and glorious all at once. It was like they’d all got the same memo: “Meet by the reedbed at 4pm. Bring teeth.”

Then came the one that got away.

A bite. Out of nowhere. A proper thump. I struck, rod bent, line tight then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it: a boat. Not just any boat, but the kind of canal cruiser that looks like it should have its own jazz band and drinks trolley. It was steaming down the track like it had a hot date with the marina.

Panic mode engaged.

I had to bully the fish. No finesse. No letting it tire. It was a wrestle, a desperate haul to avoid an inevitable crossing of lines and shouted apologies from a skipper in a straw hat. The fish gave some serious boils, a real scrapper. But it wasn’t to be. The pressure, the angle, the chaos it slipped the hook. Off it went, leaving only my pride and a small plume of canal froth behind.

Still, I couldn’t be mad. I had a fishy smell on my hands, mud and dog poo on my walking boots, and an exaggerated tale for the pub.

And maybe just maybe next time the McEwan’s Rum Cask Edition will actually exist.

Until then, tight lines and steady pints, not long now !!!