ZZZ - Another PB

Lee from http://thisanglinglife.blogspot.co.uk/ was right Zander, Zander, Zander was all I could think about this week and especially as I was given some information about the possibility of some huge ones in a particular short stretch.

This time I planned to use two rods, a float set-up and my lure rod which was successful last week. With another two miles of the Grand Union Canal to cover I moved along the towpath, placed the small dead roach deadbait under the small pike float secured by a single circle hook into some likely looking fishing holding areas and then work the lure in and around the swim. Ten minutes without a fish I'd move on.

 

This stretch was dark moody and largely devoid of any features, there was the odd fish moving around but looked lifeless. I know the bigger Zander are likely to be more active at night but as it was an overcast morning I thought if there were some fish in this stretch I'd hopefully hook in to one of them. I alternated between lures, the smallest a fiiish minnow and the biggest a fire tiger shad 5.5" long.

After a biteless 2.5 hours and having walked the whole stretch for the final hour I decided to drive back to the spot where I caught my 1lb 15oz PB ( you have to start somewhere ) last week. The car-park is handily a stones throw away from the  swim I wanted to fish so after arriving at the spot within 5 minutes I was fishing. I'm certainly glad I made the move because within an hour I caught 6 Zander, upped my PB to 2lb 1oz and lost a much much bigger fish at the death that bumped the hook. Promising indeed. Strangely not a touch on the deadbait, all on the small minnow lure. As the evening are lighter I might give a couple of short sessions a go. Make hay and all that.

Sole-Searching

The Grand Union canal is 137 miles long and Sunday I fished around 2 miles of it. I don't like to travel far for my fishing and today was no different, 10 minutes door to door, I'm certainly spoilt for choice where I live. The well kept banks and paths look like they are part of a pensioner’s pastime, complete contrast to the Stratford-Upon-Avon canal I’ve fished where a mountain bike is a must and so is a tetanus jab.

 
Having never fished it before I decided to have a rove around with just a few lures to try and catch a Zander that are known to reside within the cuts murky depths. Rod was a slightly over-gunned, a 8ft 6lb Savage Gear Bushwhacker with an Okuma RTX30 spinning reel.

Unlike many of the local Coventry bloggers I’ve never caught a Zander so a fish caught would be a bonus and a PB. The first cast I made was around a lock mouth, I felt the lure drag the bottom and then hook up on something that gave some solid resistance, not a fish but when it surfaced it was a manky shoe, not a great start. As I was unhooking the shoe a Carp launched itself clear of the water, looked a double too and at least confirmed there was some fish in the vicinity. Canals have plenty of features and that’s the areas I targeted. The method I used was to cast out, allow the lure to hit the bottom and then with the rod held at 45 degrees with the tip chattering to indicate direct contact with the lure I slowly retrieved it. Frequent jigging of the rod gives the lure more visual interest.

I tried a few lures and for a couple of hours or so I didn’t have a knock, the water clarity seem to worsen from when I started so I switched to a small lure with a firetiger pattern. That was the change that was needed because after a few grabs of the lure after a few retrieves a fish grabbed it. It was a small Zander too, only 10oz’s or so but not having caught one before it was a PB. I was off the mark.

The canal was teeming with wildlife, kingfishers, swans, moorhen, coots and mallards, it’s a nice environment. The canals pounds look interesting and I might give them a go in the future, a couple of them look the size of Meriden village pond. After a two mile walk and only one Zander caught I proceeded to return to where I started. About a mile in to the walk back the canal appeared darker, the boarding mature trees helped but the sky was noticeably duller. Again casting in to the lock mouth I felt a couple of knocks, it didn’t feel like catching bottom and a second cast a fish hit the lure and the line was being dragged around all over the shop. It certainly felt like a decent Fish but when it broke surface it was smaller than I thought. However at 1lb 15oz and only the second Zander I have ever caught the schoolie was still a PB.

As a reccy session it went pretty well but I think when I fish for them again I might try some of the small Roach deadbaits I have in the freezer and fish in to dusk. I might badger a mate to join me as even though it’s not known as a dodgy area I don’t like the idea of fishing the canal towpath in the dark. It’s not a busy stretch of canal either, that’s a bonus. I was the only one fishing too, maybe there is a reason for that, only bank time will tell. 

Missing in Action !!!!!

Readers of my blog will know I’ve fished Centre Parcs at Elveden a couple of times in the past, the first time I fished it a chance capture of a specimen Perch on sweetcorn caused me to specifically target them for subsequent visits. I had plenty of 2lber’s in November and on the final day I lost a right clonker of a Perch when it violently shook its head and bumped the hook. It would have smashed my 2lb 11oz PB.

The main lake is approximately 20 acres in size and sits within the middle of the 400 acre woodland setting, the majority of anglers that fish the lake from what I can see fish for the scum suckers, there are plenty of them too, apparently the lake was netted and the bigger fish removed but you only have to go over to the beach peninsula where you can feed them with bread and more or less stroke them to know there are still some big fish in residence. Tactics are to dump a load of pellets in the margins during the evening and fish over the top, in that respect no different than lots of Carp venues.

You can fish more or less anywhere on the main lake but from 10am till around 5pm the water sports activities kick in to life so during that time only the designated fishing platforms at the hotel end can be used. Our accommodation was a short stroll from the lake so within 5 minutes I can be fishing so the good thing for me as an early riser (my body clock is knackered) is I get to fish every morning for a few hours before the Wife and kids wake up and it doesn’t spoil the day.

Anyway back to the Perch, a 2 rod attack was planned. At the business end a Korum running rig is fitted with small two-thirds of an ounce lead. The hooklink is 2ft of 6lb 12oz Preston Power line and at the end a size 6 Kamasan B983 hook. Made from high carbon fine steel wire with a ground and chemically etched needle point it’s a large enough pattern for a couple of air-injected lobworms or a small deadbait. It’s also a lightweight hook and damn strong, which adds to the fairly light set-up but if need be, it’s still man enough to stand-up to a double figure carp. A small shot is pinched on to the line to counteract the buoyant hook bait.

Zandavan roll-overs provide more or less resistance free bite indication; they also allow the bail-arm to be left open. When a fish takes the bait and the indicator flips-over I lift the rod, close the bail-arm and strike when my thumb and forefinger feel the resistance, it’s such an effective method my catch rate has improved significantly.

I don’t usually use groundbait for catching Perch but for such a big lake I felt it might help with keeping the bait fish and therefore the predators within the swim I was fishing. It consisted of Red fishmeal groundbait, chopped worm, dead maggots and liquid worm. I threw in a couple of orange sized balls at the start of each session. Red maggots were also catapulted in to the swim every 10 minutes or so.

Anyway, how did it go ?

Err not very well, I managed a Perch of 2lb 9oz's on the first morning on deadbait but then that was it.  My Tenkera fishing rod provided some entertainment though, I fitted it with a pole rig and used maggot as hookbait and fished a couple of meters out I caught well every morning. The Roach were half decent up to a pound and a half and I also managed a few small carp.  I tried 3 different swims but the big Perch were Missing in Action.

Maybe a drop-shot approach would have been better as I could cover the large expanse of water to try and locate the Perch. Oh well you live and learn, 5 enjoyable mornings though. The next time and all that. !!!