Warwickshire Avon - Waltonians and Wallydrags

Luckily the capture of the huge canal Zander came just when the drawbridge on the river season was about to be lifted. If I'd caught it the middle of May I would still be twiddling ones thumbs I think wondering what to fish for.

The quest conclusion means I've some thinking time now so when the closed season comes round again where hopefully I will have an idea one what the heck I am going to target next.  The roving aspect of canal Zander fishing was very much part of the appeal of it where often 4 to 5 hour sessions I'd ticked off the 10,000 steps really quite easily. 

Zander got to me like no other fish really, well apart from one other and I'll get on to that later. You see I've already some ideas where one involves roving the other no so much and that will have to feature in the decision matrix because I'd have to do one or the other.

 Carp naturally is another species that could offer similar rewards as the previous quest because again, its all about finding the fish but to catch a 20ber on the canals on my radar I'm sure will be another needle in the haystack challenge. The stretch this big Zander came out of also used to have big carp in it (rumours are a >30 fish), I say used to, because there are Otters there now, so their time may well be up here and they might well have to relocate or succumb to the inevitable.

I did hook one when after a canal Tench though so the odd one or two may well be around thankfully. I've seen plenty of carp over the 6 years I've been chasing that double figure Zander I just need to repurpose the tackle, from overdepth deadbait rigs to floater set-ups and bolt rigs. The biggest I've seen ironically near my house was easily over 20lb, so you never know despite carp being well of my radar, maybe the could now be firmly on it.

Pole fishing also has some appeal though especially at the hallowed stretch where in some swims there seems to be more fish than water, A bite a chuck on maggot, a sleeper rod out for an even bigger Zander ?

Again I've got so many ideas in my head, I just need to channel those thoughts and make a decision. Over those 6 years I've spoken to so many anglers who have their own stories, even pictures to back-up their ramblings so maybe acting on one of those could always feature ? A canal Barbel, yeap really and the last conflab with a carp angler a flight of locks where a catfish resides, there is no smoke without fire blog readers, maybe I'm the stupid one to actually try and target it....

Decisions decisions, luckily I've time to mull it over now and whilst I'm waiting for that Barbel bite it will give me some decent thinking time....

Now talking about thinking time, none of that here for the first trip of the 2021 river season, I'd be off chub off the top you see and maybe try and winkle out a Barbel from the fast shallows by rolling a chunk of meat along the gravely bottom amongst the stream weed. 

 I'd a well deserved day of work though so after a few hours wading in the morning I maybe well return after dinner and fish in to dark at the syndicate stretch, where a couple of days before I'd hacked a load of the 5 ft stingers down to make a few swims fishable. Whilst I was there I also put some bait down in a swim I'd caught 11lb Barbel from and that was the swim I'd fish past dusk to try and snare an early barbus.

Chub are probably my favourite river species where this year I want to catch a Warwickshire Avon 6lber and the Barbel, well a 14lber will be nice despite the bites thinning out significantly from previous years. They are still there to be caught and they suit my short sessions, they really do. 

Anyway back to the chub, I'd seen some nice ones at the start of the week bridge gazing where they were tucked up under some cover and ventured out in the main flow for a few seconds and then tucked themselves back under again. A couple of them looked in the magic 5lb mark and that would be nice to mark the the start of the season now wouldn't it.

I always approach surface fishing for Chub the same way I like to have a small crank bait rod that can be cast further than bread (often they grab the bait as soon as it hits the surface) but the main attack would be well, a rod and a large hook, that's it. I can wade here so its matter of feeding some chunks of bread till you see a rise and then keep on feeding pieces till they get confident and actually swallow the bait rather than nudge it and snatch at it. 

They are the most cautious of fish Chub at times, but then they are confident in feeding the change in behaviour really is quite dramatic, they will hook themselves when they engulf the bait you just need to watch the line tighten and the disturbance in the water from being quite dramatic when they are circumspect to one of certainly and the wake changes from a dive bomb to a perfect 10. 

Get them when they are in the perfect 10 mood, a fish is guaranteed. !!!

Enough of the prelude lets get fishing !!!!

It was great to be back on the river and literally with the first drift down of the bread I was playing a nice chevin. Ok not a monster but most welcome especially when the tactics need a hook and a piece of bread that's it. 

It didn't help a couple of ducks were hanging around the swim for ages and to be honest they were a pain in the backside trying to get at the bread at any opportunity they could, even the lure got their attention so in the end after two fish I went to try another few swims.

All but one swim I fished produced bites and I probably had 8 fish, most on the bread but a few small ones on the lure. The river is very low as you can see in the pictures but in places I was wading up to mid thigh level. 

One swim was perfect for rolling meat but run after run not a jot despite seeing a couple of smallish Barbel in the swim.

The pool swim which you can only get to when you wade really produced one small fish but the larger ones spooked off down the tail end of the swim but were not interested at all. 

Not a bad start to the season though and nice to bump in to a couple of likeminded anglers.

I'd got bankside for 6.30am and was off 4 hours after, the sun by this time was high in the sky and the bites had dried up.  So only one thing for it, a beer and chicken wings with salted caramel and honeycomb for lunch (don't knock till you've tried it 😀) and I continued on that vein when the Wife turned up to join me.

It is 27 degrees as I type this and I had planned to go later for a Barbel but with a smattering of rain on the way I will go tomorrow evening now, I'm sure it was spice things up a little and the evening was too nice not to enjoy with the rabble. 

Slip and Slide anyone ?

The Close Season Zander Quest Pt.217 - THE FINAL CURTAIN - A CANAL MONSTER

Although I'd fished for canal Zander prior to this quest of mine I didn't fish exclusively for them in the closed season until 2015. This was the 217th session and this year in-particular I've been finding it very tough indeed. Some nice fish have been caught for sure but bites have been at a premium and nothing to get anywhere near to conclude the quest had been caught. 

Since the 9lb'er that was caught a good while ago despite putting the effort in I've been largely been going backwards. There was a change this year though, and that was when Nic managed to land a monster at a new stretch he'd been fishing. 

That 10lb 12oz fish was caught at a stretch of canal that is chock full of fish, the biomass really is quite staggering, fish maggots crudely under a float like I do from time to time here its a bite a chuck when you get the fish feeding and unlike what the CRT want you to believe there are snack sized fish in numbers as well as the usual large bream and hybrids. Tench, silver bream, rudd, roach it really is an eyeopener.

Nic kindly put me on to the exact swim but I'd fished it quite a few times even in to dark with nothing bigger than 4 lb succumbing to the smelt or roach. In one particular shared session the pike were queuing up in the swim and were attacking everything that moved. A spawned out 13lber eventually broke my Pike PB but it was the Zander I wanted so badly.

Now this trip was no different than my usual approach to tackle canal Zander, two overdepth float set-ups and deadbait. Zander are scavengers and take whatever they can, I'd been doing quite well with inch thick sections of larger roach recently but after 3 swims without even a bobble on the float I just fancied a bite.

Now this swim is around half a mile from the 'hallowed' swim but I've never blanked here and bites can come quick and fast like they did for this evening session.

The amount of Zander in the swim was an eyeopener and within minutes of the deadbait being out a bite developed. I'd caught pike in this swim as well so both rods were fitted with 7 strand wire. I usually use fluorocarbon but 7 strand wire is used on this stretch because the chance of catching one. 

It seems a crude set-up for Zander because the wire seems thick and cumbersome but it really isn't an issue they don't seem to mind at all, as well as picking up pieces of roach when they have so much on offer here. I caught 3 or 4 fish quite quick with the best being this 4lber but I also missed a few bites as well. Zander soup, but the best was yet to come.

As the sun was starting to set on this very hot day the left hand float was getting some attention and after bobbing around a little on the spot eventually a decent bite develops. 

When I reeled in to tighten up to the size 1 Sakuma 440 hook this felt much different, it was solid, the fish didn't move standing its ground. This was a good'un, it bolted off initially and I had to release the clutch a little as it was taking line with the rod bent double. I got on top of it though and after another run I had it under control. With a huge boil on the surface I thought it was another decent pike but then a kick of the tail I could see its flanks and it was a massive Zander.

 

My legs had gone to jelly by this time but a stroke of luck the fish almost swam straight in to the inadequate landing net and I scooped in what I knew was a quest concluder. 

A canal monster was in the net Wow WOw WOW !!!! 

I'd been messaging Nic during the session but decided to FaceTime him to show him what I just caught. The amazing thing is after a few checks whilst it was in the net it was a different fish. The sun was quite strong still and after a decent rest I took it a hop skip and a jump away to an area of thick grass that was in the shade so I could take a better look at it and weigh and photograph it.

11lb 8 ounces, 11lb 8 ounces !!!! 

A fish just shy of a crudely measured 80-85cm's and the fish of my dreams, they do exist and effort does indeed equal reward. I could have well gone home after that but stayed and fished the float and maggots for another hour in a swim half way back to the car. Small silver bream, bream, a hybrid and a decent perch it was a bite a chuck. Canal utopia, most certainly !!!

So that's it, where do I go from here ? God only knows, but with the river season upon us at least I'll have a bit of thinking time. 

So here are the pics, 6 years in the making !!!!

The Close Season Zander Quest Pt.216 - Toe-rags and Translocation

In days gone by, those who couldn’t afford shoes or socks would tie a rag around their toes and feet as a make-shift sock. This ‘look’ was worn by scoundrels, criminals and thieves hence it’s offensive connotations  but I’ve also heard that boys wearing toe rags might hang around canal tunnels. 

They would offer to leg a working boat through for a cheaper rate than the official leggers might charge hence they were cheeky little toe rags!

Legging or leggin’ it means to propel a boat through a tunnel (without a towpath) by lying on planks and ‘walking’ along the walls or the roof. Toe rag is now sometimes spelled as tow rag because the original background story has long since been forgotten. 

Now the 433 yard long horsepath tunnel (called either Rowington or Shrewley Tunnel) not far from me takes the Grand Canal through a steep bluff south of Shrewley and I bet that must have seen plenty of tow rags in its time. 

It officially opened on 19 December 1799 when the rest of the Warwick and Birmingham Canal was completed and must have been quite a task when it was constructed due to the amount of excavation required.

For much of its length a conventional horsepath leads the towpath over the ridge but at its western end the difference in height is so great that a separate tunnel to accommodate the towpath was required. Some of the paving and western portal of this tunnel seem to be original even today and it's plenty of character which on some stretches of canal is sadly lacking.

Slightly off topic but talking of excavations I got talking to a fella (still in his orange workwear when he was after Zander) who works on the HS2 up over at Southam / Leamington way and after I mentioned the scale of the devastation of the landscape that I'd seen he put me right. You see the main construction hasn't started in anger yet, this is all about archaeological searches (eye watering daily rates) and making sure the newts are safe, yes newts, and yes those ecology money earners are paid a pretty penny too.

Newt fencing is a barrier designed to control the movement of great crested newts, other amphibians or reptiles. It consists of a low fence of plastic sheeting, buried a short way into the ground and supported by lightweight posts usually made of wood or plastic. 

It is used to keep animals out of working areas, to keep them inside safe areas of their habitat, to intercept migration routes, or to control their movement to help their capture for translocation. 

So this guy I got speaking to is often twiddling his thumbs in his digger waiting for the newt nurtures to finish their search so he can fire up the hydraulics again. Prehistoric remains, Roman settlements, forgotten medieval villages and Georgian burial grounds are among the sites that are expected to be excavated over the next two years by more than 1,000 archaeologists, by far the largest number employed on a UK dig apparently. 

The cost for the trowel scrapers, well not that much, only about a billion quid and probably like the HS2 program as whole probably more than double when they have finished. 

Pecksniffian springs to mind !!!!

Anyway back to the fishing the hallowed stretch is a bit of a mixed bag, lots of features for fish to hide out but overall unlike the HS2 excavations its a pleasant place to be. Boat movement can vary considerably, from nought to nauseating but footfall is very low indeed because it's a pain to get to for starters and there is good fishing yards from the car door if you want it.

For this session I'd fish a few swims, the moored boats, some cover and the hallowed and then settle down in a transitional gateway from a safe haven to the main canal. In the last swim I'd fish a method feeder with some small dumbell boilie to try and pick up one of the canal Tench Nic (Avon Angling Uk) had been catching and then have a deadbait rod out with a smelt to try and intercept one of these elusive big Zander that I know reside here.

The problem is as I said before there is such a huge volume of water here between locks the big Zander are hard to track down, but then this needle in a haystack challenge is much about right time right place. 

I've just been in the right place clearly despite catching my PB pike here, a spawned out 13lber. The biomass of baitfish is unlike any other section of canal I fish though and lots of fish to eat not only means big Pike but big Zander too. Would one succumb to the smelt for this evening session ? Only one way to find out !!!!!

It was a sunny and warm day when I got there but I had 4 or 5 hours to fish so enough to try and snare a big Zander. There was a chap and his girlfriend already fishing when I got there. A pleasant chat and he was after carp and his girlfriend was already catching fish on the float with maggots as bait.

He was after carp and had done really well here, well until the Otters had turned up (more of that later) but there will still bites to had despite them being at a premium now. I mixed up my planned swim order a little and fished just up from him but an hour in and nothing on the deadbait and a bream on the method rod I decided to have a stroll to the locks.

They were leaving not long after so I had the swim to myself when I returned. Within seconds of putting the deadbait out I had a bite within seconds and the float after a couple of bobbles was being dragged from left to right. I was straight in to a fish and yeap as per the norm for me here only a schoolie. 2 more schoolies in quick succession it then went dead.

So back to the middle of the stretch and after getting the deadbait I noticed something had churned up the water without even a boat going past, hmmmm a carp I wonder ? So the method feeder went out where the disturbance was and there was left on an alarm and a baitrunner.

The deadbait rod was undisturbed for a good while and I moved it about the swim a bit without any interest. Then out of the blue a screaming run on the Dwarf rod and I lifted in to a decent fish, the problem was the fish had already made ground and the line contracting a rounded metal upright and with the line under pressure the hook pulled before I could get any inroads on it. A carp yeap, I'm sure of it.

10 minutes after though you couldn't make it up, I'd by this time recast and moved the deadbait rod smack bang in the middle of the funnel swim when I noticed a bubbling under the water right out in the middle of the canal heading towards the deadbait. The otter didn't surface till it was out of sight but having not seen one here up and till now, it decided to say hi today.

Another hour without a bite the last hour and  half would be in the hallowed swim. The light was going by now and an ideal time to get the rods out to settle in for the remainder of the session. A bream succumbed to the small dumbell boilie but the deadbait rod remained untouched till the light went completely.  Illuminated by a focussing torch the float was being dragged from left to right and a fish was on.

I knew exactly what it was from the donk donk felt through the rod, yeap another small Zander. I've caught quite a few Zander here now and nothing over 4lb, what am I doing wrong ? Another hour fished well in to dark I left here again with the tail between my legs, would the last session here bring up anything of note ?

Let's hope so, thankfully the rivers are open soon,  ones resolve to continue the challenge is being tested again.