Closed Season Zander Quest PT48 – Lucky8isation

I was in Shanghai when the Beijing Olympic Games kicked off, all very bizarre it was too.

It wasn’t the fact that I was watching it in a tiny corner shop with a tiny cathode ray TV 6,000 miles from home with an inquisitive audience thinking what is this funny looking Westerner doing here, but the opening ceremony began at 8.08pm on the 8th of the 8th 2008.

No 8 is the luckiest number in Chinese culture because 八 sounds like 發 (fa), which means 'wealth', 'fortune', and 'prosper' in Chinese.Multiples of eight are even better, as 88 bears a resemblance to 囍 (shuāng xǐ), or 'double happiness'.

While the Chinese will go to great lengths to avoid 4 in daily life, they will try to incorporate 8 wherever they can.

Now clearing out ones wardrobe the other day I found the few pairs of lucky 8 embroidered boxer shorts and keyring I bought on the said business trip in one of the tourist tat shops along the Bund in downtown Shanghai

It’s a big money earner too, the number plate A88888 went for a bucket load of dosh as did the phone number with all digits being eights, which was bought by Sichuan Airlines in Chengdu for CN¥2.33 million. Also many airlines routes have 8 in their flight routes for obvious reasons.

So with my lucky 8 pants donned and the keyring secured on ones permit holder for this and subsequent fishing trips.

In the quest for a cut double I will need any luck I can get, it really is a needle in a haystack challenge and the more I fish for big Zander on the canal, you need luck and plenty of it.

Now talking of lucky captures, take a butchers at this Barbel, Leamington Anglers Association Bailiff Barry Swain caught from the canal recently, yes you heard right, the bleeding canal.

Now if I caught it I’d want to relocate it back to the river but then I’ve caught a couple of reasonable Barbel out of one of the local pools and they don’t seem to mind being contained within still water looking at their condition. Judging by the large carp that reside in the cut there must be an adequate supply of food and this Barbel must have managed to get its pies from somewhere.

Heck, I bet even an otter doesn't come to visit.

Come first of May if I’d caught that I’d be looking at 10 Brucie bonus points in the bloggers 2017-2018 challenge.

It didn’t quite look like the claimed size if you ask me, but then who am I to judge it was still a decent fish all the same.

I think I know where it was caught from too, Danny fancy a dabble ?

One rod out for Zander the other out for Barbel, who'd have thought it.

This short after work session in to dusk or thereabouts I was at an area that has been quite productive in the past with a proper'un caught and one that got away but with only a couple of hours to dangle ones roach sections I decided to stay put in one swim rather than move around in my usual roving fashion.

I've found they can be here one day, but not the next. All very disheartening, but don't want it too easy now do I.

Now they are coming up to spawning time too, so if there is ever a time to catch a big Zander it's now. Big Zander are females you see, they visit the spawning site quickly and then continue their way back to feeding areas. Male Zander stay to protect their site and they aggressively hit nearly everything that dares to come close them, dare I say it, find a spawning area they can be quite easy to catch.

I want a big female though, don't we all !!!!....

This I'm sure is a good feeding area, in fact out of all the locations I fish this area appears to be very well populated and having spoken to a pleasure angler fishing with maggots, many'a species too.

So it holds fish, so much so, I'm planning to revisit the same time next week.

So the first bite came after an hour and it turned about to be a huge tree stump, but not one to look down on these things, at least it tested the strength of the set-up as dragging that from the bottom wasn't a mean feat.

It was weirdly quite so I decided to up sticks to an area with some cover to see if they were tucked up out the way but after half an hour without even a nudge it was back to the original swim.

On the way back a barge had lost it's front mooring and it was drifting aimlessly around, despite my efforts to get someones attention there was obviously no one on board.

Luckily in 20 minutes a boat came down to the blockage and with the aid of a rope it was sorted.

Hmmmm wonder if salvage rights exist on the cut.

Within minutes of positioning the deadbait rod the floats starts to go and a fish was on.

That's the thing with float fishing for them, the bite doesn't vary that much, you could be connected to a 10lber or a scrapper...

Sadly this was a scrapper, a small schoolie with eyes bigger than its belly. Now on removal of my hook as much lighter hooklink was half way down its gullet, probably someones worm and size 16 hook it took a fancy to. I cut the line as far down as I could so at least it wasn't as tethered as it was before.

With ten minutes to go before my self imposed finishing time the float rod goes again and this was a bigger fish, but still nothing to right home about.

Weirdly nothing on the lure and yet the conditions seemed perfect, clarity about a few inches that was it.

I might try some red predator liquid next time....

now where have all the Zander gone, this area is usually a hotspot.

Lucky 8, well they are getting bigger, I'll give it some time.

Closed Season Zander Quest PT47 – Up at West Nipple

The mornings indulgence of super thick sliced white bread, three Lincolnshire sausages, two slices of black pudding, tomatoes and brown sauce was sitting like a veritable brick in my stomach, it wasn't particularly pleasant if I'm honest but lucky I'd be able to walk it off come home time.

The bottleneck needed to be shifted....

So for this quick after work session after a decent walk the floats were positioned in the holding water of the West Nipple where my results up to now have been pretty mediocre if I’m honest but there ‘HAD’ to be some big fish lurking here.

It’s good to share information with a fellow Zed head and sometime back now my suspicions were confirmed giving me the incentive I needed to give it more of a go despite the poor results I’d had.

These Zander may well be transient but I’m sure just like the greasy spoons that stations themselves in the nations lay-bys’ from time to time out of the schoolie great unwashed that tuck in to the sausage sandwiches eventually an Ambulocetus would turn up and a second frying pan would have to lit.

Now these Roach deadbaits are ideal as a belly buster as you can cater for every large Zanders palette, think of it like this, as a boob man, the squidgy middle bit would tempt me, the head, someone how likes a pretty face and the tail, well my mate Steveo, he loves a nice posterior.

I’m sure they have a preference….

So these sized baits are easy peasy, chop in to three and you have ideal sized baits to service the requirements of a hungry lunker.

So far the squidgy middle bit seems to be most productive, you just needs to puncture the swim bladder otherwise the bait will float.

The best I’d manage from this area was a 5lber, but what was encouraging was not just the fact that I know for a face bigger fish have been here sometime in the past but also that I’d lost two reasonable fish before I discovered a hook and method that I’ve utter confidence in.

Ok from time to time you lose fish, but hey that’s Zander fishing for you, anyhow, like me and those that fish for them will agree they are the epitome of angling frustration.

You've just got to stick with it, tweaks the rigs and eventually you will hit a sweet spot.

So with blue sky and clear it was going to be a difficult session and indeed it was. It took an hour or so for the first bite but it was a classic schoolie bite and I struck in to thin air.

Re-positioned the float moved again after 10 minutes but this time I connected to a fish, a scrappy little schoolie. I moved North of the West Nipple and positioned the baits in an area of shade and thick cover.

Nothing, zilch before it was time to pick Ben up from school.

If you struggle hooking up with Zander usually it's a schoolie mouthing the bait, so be patient, you're not do anything wrong. Chop the bait in half usually works if you just want to bank a fish.

On to the next one....

Closed Season Zander Quest PT46 – Gobbler’s Knob

During the 131st celebration of Groundhog Day fat and fury Punxsutawney Phil left his cosy burrow in Pennsylvania's Gobbler's Knob near Pittsburgh, saw his shadow, and broke the news that the locals are doomed to another six weeks of winter weather rather than treated to an early spring. Every Bill Murray fan knows the basics.

Legend has it that Punxsutawney Phil communicates his yearly forecast in the language "grondhogese" to the head of what's known as the Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, who just so happens to be fluent in the ancient, animal tongue. The Inner Circle members actually decide ahead of time.

What a load of balls....then again I’m all for keeping up traditions....

We also like to talk about the weather in the UK also don’t we. Thing is I’m always amazed those that are moaning about the cold weather we are having seem to have forgotten about the season we are in, we have just come out if winter after all.

But then the early 90’s film and namesake Groundhog Day maybe has some similarities to ones fishing you see. Murray plays Phil Connors, an arrogant Pittsburgh TV weatherman who, during an assignment covering the annual Groundhog Day event finds himself caught in a time loop, repeating the same day again and again.

Maybe that’s where the similarity ends though, as after indulging in hedonism and committing suicide numerous times, he begins to re-examine his life and priorities.

I’m not ready to partake in those pastimes just yet, but this pursuit for a ‘Cut Double’ does seem to be very much Ground Hog Day.

You see it can feel very samey and monotonous if you will, especially when retracing ones steps to find the transient lunker when the only returns to grace the hook are the same sized schoolies.

It would be enough to break even the most pertinacious.

Luckily I’m very much pig-headed and nothing thus far has made me stray from this needle in a haystack challenge. Well I say that, looking at the recent Leamington Anglers newsletter where a ‘double’ figure Zander turned up at the canal stretch it’s surprise me how lean the fish looked as all the larger Zander I’ve caught have all been extremely rotund and clearly not shy round the Roach buffet.

It’s the transient nature of canal Zander I’m intrigued with as their river cousins don’t seem to be that way inclined from what I can see.

This early morning session is a new stretch a mile above the Laryngeal Prominence, so before treading a familiar path to start the self inflicted drudgery all over again I decided to see what was about, it certain looked a nice stretch looking at google maps and a few likely holding areas of big Zander.

Now usually I can tell what the session is going to be like by the colour of the water and with the sky clear and the sun coming up I knew it would tough....

The odd small knock on the lure, one schoolie type run on the deadbait it was hard going.

I bet if the boats started moving then I would suspect things my be different and there is plenty of shelter here for fish to hideout so maybe if it's clear when the light start to go they will start moving. What was odd though there was some undertow and the drilled bullets were struggling to keep station so even without boats moving the floats were difficult to keep station.

Maybe a running set-up is the way to go here....

I decided to move down the stretch to an area of cover and after an hour with the baits untouched it was back the starting point.

A foul hooked bream saved a blank but there you go, it's not as easy as you think these Zander.

I'm back to trying to work them out with a bang, but then thats why I love fishing for them.

Don't want it too easy, I could fish a carp filled lake if I wanted that....