Closed Season Zander Quest Pt.25 – A rush of blood to the Zed

With the Zander caught from ‘Mick’s Bush’ still fresh in my mind and the potential we may have uncovered I was eager to get out on the bank again.

This short after work session may be 20 miles away from the scene of the capture of my PB but this stretch has been reputed to have produced some decent Zander in the past and it’s far too handy for me to ignore.

Expect the unexpected it’s really that simple…

The lure rod remained in the garage and was swapped for an identical float set-up and it was an all out in to dusk deadbait attack. I’ve had a handful of session trying for a river fish so I’ll not comment, but certainly for canal Zander in my neck of the woods every size of Zander likes a chunk of roach but rarely do I catch anything sizeable on the lure.

Well you say that, my best lure caught fish equaled my previous PB of 5lb 4oz’s but that was a one-off as that was a standout fish out of all the schoolies I'd caught. I’ve tried a large lure but anything over a 5g jig head I don’t feel like I’m control of it and I pick up so much rubbish from the bed it starts to get annoying.

Small ‘schoolies’ like the sanctuary and security of a large pack but I’m sure then they are confident and big enough they leave their friends and foes and eventually their mothers gill strings to tackle the big bad wide world on their own.

I’d had mediocre results fishing here previously but the more I fish for Zander the more I appreciate them as a species. Having spent a considerable amount of time fishing for them I’ve gone from utterly demoralised to merely confused. However I’m gradually starting to work them out and my catch results have improved because of it.

I only fish small sections within my patch so just looking at my local canal network I’ve hardly scratched the surface.

Of course there are double figure fish to be had, that’s why I'm fully in to this quest….

I do love a challenge….

So how big can they go in the canal network….? I’m talking proper fish not those embarrassing photos that appear in the angling press and social media from time to time.

I bet there are some proper freaks around so at a guess over 12 or 13lb, quite possibly I reckon.

I’d modified the two Drennen Zeppler’s and superglued on a ‘skimmed’ buffer bead to hold an isotope and planned to try the other side of a bridge from when I was here last where it's narrower to properly give the Zander (if they were in the vicinity) time to find the bait.

I’m yet to find my perfect Zander float set-up but I’ve adapted this overtime and it’s getting there. I like it because it’s suitable for fishing at all depths and surface conditions which has proved troublesome in the past.

Anyway back to the fishing….

The first swim had some nice far bank thick cover and the baits were positioned but after an hour without any interest I decided to fish next to the bridge, one of the baits next to some reeds, the other right under the shadow of the bridge.

I've never been that successful in and around bridges but not long after the baits were positioned the float 10 yards from the mouth of the bridge narrowing was on the move. Only a small schoolie that was hooked nicely in the scissors but a fish all the same.

I decided to sit it out in the last swim for the last hour and well in to dark, not a jot.

I've not given up yet as I've only fished a small section of it, so here's to the same time next week.

Closed Season Zander Quest Pt.24 – The Next Rung Up

The rain had been lashing down overnight and with the kids still suffering with their post viral cough I could have easily stayed in bed and try to catch up a little more shut eye.

I had some fishing to do though and had planned to meet up with Danny at a section of the local canal network. The driving conditions on-route were pretty dire with loads of standing water on the roads and I expected the cut to be a little more coloured than it actually was. It had a nice green tinge to it though with about a foot or so of visibility.

I enjoy fishing with Danny, a fountain of knowledge and....

.... I swear he thinks like a fish

The forecast had been horrific and I parked the car in a torrential downpour but it eventually eased up a little so the Poncho was donned and it was grim and bear it. The wind was gusty, the air cold so for the first hour or so it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Before he arrived I had lost a small schoolie that took a liking to the red headed small shad but as the morning went on it was obvious bait was the preferred selection on the menu and really got me thinking about possibly dumping the lure rod for an all out deadbait attack.

Danny lost a fish that which was nibbling his roach head but then eventually managed a super fat spawn filled Perch on the lure. Soon after the float was on the move again and a schoolie which was well hooked in the top lip was banked.

The wind was howling down the towpath and with the area becoming bleaker than a bleak thing we retraced our steps and fished in-between some moored boats. Not long after it was my over-depth float that was on the move this time but a fluffed and probably premature strike the fish after a few runs managed to lose the hook, they can be tricky fish to hook.

The bait was re-positioned and sure enough within 10 minutes or so it was on the move again. I gave it a little longer this time and struck in to a scrappy little angry Zander. Only a small fish but at least it wasn’t a blank.

My float set-up is fairly hefty in the scheme of things but maybe it’ the change in resistance that ‘apparently’ the fish don’t like, I’ve never found it a problem personally and found Zander can lift a heavy bobbin or drag a float around without issue.

We moved to a more sheltered area that had some cover and set our traps. The surface was still choppy but with the drilled bullet acting like an anchor and the float laying on its side it’s just a matter of watching the float moving around the swim to see if it does anything unusual.

A good 20 minutes or so, mine was on the move, wait, wait, that’s it, that’s it carefully does it….

I leant in to the fish and felt some resistance, a huge boil on the surface and I caught the flanks of the biggest Zander I’ve ever been lucky enough to witness, it looked huge and a scale up from anything I’ve hooked in to before. I had that feeling though that only us canal Zander anglers suffer from, ‘it’s going to come off’

F*ck, f*ck, f*ck…..

Sure enough, after the third lunge the fish was off, gutted was an understatement.

Baits back out….

As the Chuckle brothers would say, ‘to me, to you’

….as this time it was Danny’s float on the move, but this time it was diving under the surface like a submarine.

You couldn’t make it up, as the whole hooked big fish, lost big fish was now being re-lived by Danny as the story played out exactly as previously described, a nightmare, not our morning.

Third time lucky? was there a pack of bigger fish here? was it a lone hungry fish who doesn’t know the term once bitten twice shy ?

The baits were refreshed and back out again, 10 minutes, hang on a minute, yeap, yeap my float is moving, it went from laying on its side to upright, to laying flat again. Danny was correct the tentative bite doesn’t always dictate the Zander attached to it, he’s had a near double figure fish after all so should know. The float moved downstream and it was then I decided to tighten up and lean hard in to the fish….

Oh yes, now this feels better, I felt like I had some control. 

The fish gave a decent fight but after a couple of spirited lunges and with Danny doing the honors the fish was in the net….

Bloody awesome, a scale of Zander I’d never seen before, my previous PB of 5lb 4oz was long gone. It looked huge in the net, a double? It cannot be can it?

With the fish out of the net with the scales ready it quickly came apparent it was a very hollow fish, we both thought because of the length and the width across its head it might make around 8.5lb or maybe even 9lb but the scales went round to 7lb 6oz and were checked twice over, what really !!, damn !!, it looked like it would weigh more than that, deceptive or what. A squeeze of its stomach to get him to proudly show its fins only confirmed this fish had plenty of filling out to do.

7lb 6oz Canal Zander

What the heck would a double figure fish look like, and what about a 20lb fish from the Severn ?, I really want to find out now.

The ‘Mick’s Bush Swim’ (® Daniel Everett)  really got me thinking about the similar looking areas I’ve walked past and ignored.

The next rung up the Zander ladder that’s for sure, onwards and upwards.

Closed Season Zander Quest Pt.23 – Dusk & Cover

I’d fished here before and despite catching not a jot it was a bit of an eye opener, the canals really can throw up some excellent fish if you are prepared to put the time and effort in and just that one session really got me thinking about the little I know about the local canals I fish (from time to time) and the amount I’ve still got to learn. The sad thing is, the more information and big fish whereabouts I’m exposed to the more I think about fishing and when my next session is….

….it’s addictive this fishing lark isn’t it.

What a great hobby and pastime we have, sadly I don’t get anywhere near enough banktime as I’d like, I’m hanging in there mind, I don’t have it too bad. For this short after work session I planned to fish in to dusk at a location a Wife’s shouting distance away. My usual 2 rod approach was deployed and it was a matter of hopefully a quick smash and grab session to see if I had been missing a trick and hopefully pick up a couple of fish before…

the 2 hours was up and I was cottage pie bound….

There was one particular area I wanted to concentrate on and if that didn’t produce over this session then a subsequent session would be a stone’s throw away at an area with contrasting features and outlook to see if that made any difference.

The trouble with Zander is finding the shoal pockets and their patrol routes, once you discover those it really does show you that towpath foot coverage is the key to catching them and although they are widely spread throughout the canals network there are huge baron stretches that unless you know any different you’d be thinking, Zander, what Zander. The are also possibly spawning at the minute so apart from no being that interested they might also be tightly packed.

An average schoolie a near 2lber, a 4, a good fish, anything over 5lb a cracker, a double, well they are there, but where…?

I’m wondering about this quest for a double and whether eventually if I do catch one it will be a massive anti-climax, what will I do when I eventually track down the Holy Grail ?, there is nothing more to do. Maybe if it fell to deadbait, I’d fish exclusively with lures? Then what, too many questions.

To be honest I’ve got to try and keep up with this mission as I’ll never find out will I.

So the report, like the session short and sweet, as I caught zilch, not a nibble or even a take.

3 dog walkers, a field full of rabbits, 2 bikers with the brightest lights I've even seen and a white owl kept me occupied. At least my new beanie hat worked as intended.

I've another session planned for Monday and then if I blank again I might have to fish the banker(s)