Canal Zander - The Hallowed II Chronicles Pt.4

A little like a Sunday roast with much needed gravy there has been something missing of late in my fishing and that is fishing for canal Zander. Not any old canal Zander though, the hallowed canal Zander really are something special and there is a possibility I could well catch a fish even bigger. 

So I was back, back in the exact swim where the quest concluded slipped up, a canal Zander of Brobdingnagian proportions that when I saw it rise up out of the water I knew it would bring the 6 year quest to an end.

It went 11lb 8 ounces on the scales and still till this day probably the fish that will remain my favourite and also my most memorable catches. It's a little mad to think that in the same containment I also caught a 17lb 8 ounce canal pike that at the time I did think it could possibly be a 'twenty'.

When I put it back after photographing and still on cloud nine I did wonder why I didn't video it like I had the odd fish before, but hey, these things happen, I just need to catch an even bigger fish now to put that tick in the box.

Thing is would the capture of an even bigger fish provide the same euphoria ? possibly not but there is only one way to find out I suppose. So for this evening session in to dusk two deadbait rods, both with snack sized roach and none of this roving around lark, I was here to stay.

To be honest to get to it is a chore in itself, not just the 35 minute drive, but the long walk after parking the car. They always say predators thrive on neglect but the reality is even for me, it's a pain to get to. Still when there are fish swimming in this bit of canal of huge proportions those thoughts are quickly banished. 

Larger baits are employed for this session as its a big bit of water and also the fish are of a much bigger stamp.

The problem at the moment is with the water temperature over 16 degrees now the fish often have other things on their minds. Breeding not banquets but you cannot catch fish without a bait in the water now can you. Anyway an hour in fishing the same swim where the big fish fell to the roach chunk tactics eventually the float next to the lock gates bobbed twice and started to move. 

When I tightened up to the circle hook I didn't realise there was a fish on the end at first but a smash when it surfaced I realised a tiny zedlet was on the end.

I've been catching these tiny blighters of late where the larger fish are suspicious in their absence. The baits went back out but even after plenty of thumb twirling and toe crossing the floats were unhindered. Hmmmm. Usually here bites can be frequent, bites forthcoming but not this evening.

To be honest, I was a little bored so I decided to head all the way back to the car and retrieve Sam's old whip and a few maggots and catch some of the fish that swim in these hallowed waters.

You don't have to fish very far out here to catch fish and within a few minutes I was catching fish whilst still watching one of the Zander rods which by this time was tight to the bow of the boat. 

Dusk was fast approaching and to be honest even topping fish seemed less prevalent that normal. All very odd. So it was thinking outside the box time and I put on a livebait which I rarely do but that was going round and round the big open swim without any interest.

It did bob under a couple of times me thinking there was a bite going to develop but it was actually where the fish managed to tangle itself around the hook link swivel. 

Still at least the whip was keeping me interested. I stayed till I couldn't see the floats and the action didn't improve really.

A little disappointing if I'm honest as I might have well stayed nearer to home but oh well, fishing shouldn't be easy now should it. The bigger Zander never showed at all but at least I know what is swimming in these waters, I'll be back for sure, next time though with Sam and his whip I think and I might even try for a Tench rather than a predator. 

Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.25

Sam turns eleven years old this weekend and seven years in to his angling pastime he has caught some really nice fish over the years. In-fact he still holds the Newey roach / bream hybrid record a fish that he caught at the rather large lake at Center Parcs @ Elvedon Forest when he was just four years old.

Scary how time seems to fly by now I'm on the countdown to my 50th birthday. Still Sam is still interested in fishing which is encouraging and he still recalls the hybrid he caught that is still bigger than Daddies !!!!

Now that lake produced some really nice perch in the end and if I think about it, apart from the odd work match I used to fish, that was the last still water I fished. I prefer more natural venues if I'm honest and in the closed season, canals are about the closest to a natural venue I can get. 

Anyway that was quite a memorable holiday as he was chased by the "big bad duck'" and even till this day unlike his Fatty Arbuckles frequenting Dad he is afraid of large birds and gives them a wide birth every time he sees them. 

A confident lure fisherman, caster and rod user he has decided himself he wants to go back to basics hence the use of a whip recently because let's be honest here, to see a float bury under the water is very addictive indeed.

We had planned to go to the 'hallowed' the evening before but I decided to postpone it for another week when there was less threat of rain and quite a bit warmer.

Some reports from the ground were mixed with the fishing tough somedays and very good the other. For Sam to enjoy fishing these days he needs bites and lots of them.

The rain didn't really materialise till much later on than predicted but then I made the mistake of relying on the various weather predictors that get it wrong more often than not !!! 

This local canal is not that type of canal sadly, so he is less than keen to join me bankside where often a good session is a fish or two. 

So for this early morning session with Sam still welded to his duvet I was back in the area with high footfall, but this time I'd stay in one swim rather than move around and also I'd have a Zander sleeper rod out.

The gear was still in the car so a lift float set-up with bread discs and liquidised bread as feed, with some roach coriander and hemp ground bait added as well as some 3mm feed pellets. I'm no match angler you know as blog readers that but it's nice to experiment on waters I rarely fish this way. 

I've been enjoying it though to be fair and even this area is quite busy as a misanthrope, weirdly its not got to me like I thought it would. Well until this session I suppose, because a boat was moored up exactly where I wanted to fish and despite me getting there early doors the first boat came through literally as I'd just fed the swim.

Not an issue in itself because we all share the water but not long after 6.00am is a little early to start moving a boat. The bottom is stirred up you see and a canal that had 6 inches of visibility now had naff all. After it settled I thought it looked good for a bite but nada, zilch, nought !!!!

On a positive note I spotted some Zander spawning in some cover on the far side between two boats and almost coincided with a Canal and River Trust pick-up driving past !!!!

Nothing to see here !!!!

Anyway I moved swims with the same result with nothing doing whatsoever and with two boats making their way towards me I decided to end the session early and head to the tackle shop that had just opened to buy some large roach deadbaits. The hallowed here we come !!!!

Transient Towpath Trudging - Pt.24

A belly buster of a paella needed to be walked off, even Saffron was used for this one which is by far the world's costliest spice by weight. Why so expensive ?  it's because such a small part of the flower is used, it takes 75,000 saffron flowers to make one pound of saffron spice. 

The small amount of saffron spice per plant, along with the fact that harvesting must be done manually, leads to saffron's being majorly expensive. It adds bot only flavour but also colour to the dish though and no paella should be without it. 

Anyway better get to it hadn't I !!!

<---match tactics------------------------------------------------------------------Mick---> you see the rather large canal roach I caught the weekend didn't mind that I was using 5lb line straight through to a size 12 hook. 

The large piece of bread flake was hoovered up no problem by this urban redfin and ok, it wasn't the intended target species which was a chub, but a decent chub or a roach ? yeah I'd be adding the tick in the same box as fellow crude tackle user and ex blogger Jeffery Hatt.

It certainly helps this part of the canal sees many a narrowboat negotiating the waters which have only been navigable since the 60's, the boat movement you see reduces the clarity of the water which I'm sure helps with bites and less wary fish. The depth still amazed me as it's even shallower than I was back in the care free noughties which is hard to believe. Older and wiser now, so beggars cannot be choosers. 

Prior to the 60's this stretch of canal had fallen in to disrepair you see, but now memorable for its split bridges, built with a gap to allow the tow ropes of the boat horses to pass through, open countryside and also its unique barrel-roofed lock cottages.

It quietly decayed since conception however when Warwickshire County Council announced it was closing the canal by lowering a bridge at Wilmcote, public outcry prompted a campaign for restoration. 

Proposals for closure were stymied at the eleventh hour by a canoeist who produced a toll ticket less than three years old, proving that boats still wanted to navigate the canal.

Having avoided closure, the South Stratford was taken over by the National Trust. By utilising a combination of volunteers, army personnel and prisoners, the canal was restored at reportedly less than half the estimated cost of filling it in. 

It was reopened by HM The Queen Mother in 1964. In 1988, the National Trust handed the South Stratford-upon-Avon Canal back to the Canal and Rivers Trust and together with the North Stratford it now forms part of the Avon Cruising Ring.

Anyway talking of beggars for this session I was a few hundred yards away from the pauperised who whilst Sam and I were there said hello to us and proceeded to walk up the towpath turning round every few paces. Nothing unnerving I may add, but you don't know his circumstances and potential unpredictability .

"So he sleeps on the canal then ?" 

"yes that's why they are called rough sleepers Sam, no 15 tog duvet's, memory foam mattresses and carrot teddies for him, I tell thee"

"Thee what's thee !!! ?"

"your float gone under yet ?"

A slight change of tactic's for this session as I'd fish the lift method rather than an overdepth trotting float mainly because my float rod is fitted with a centrepin which I prefer to use on canals. Still similar presentation with a size 12 hook straight through but this time a large engineered bread disk on the hook rather than a squished together unfathomable. 

Why complicate things with hook lengths and scaled down tactics ? keep it simple for canal fishing I say. In-fact the other day after setting up Sam's whip with a size 18 hook, an hour or so later I'd changed it for a 16, it just didn't look right.

Fishing this way is so simple and yet so effective no complicated rigs, no tiny shot you need a magnifying glass to add to the line, this is belt and braces. The Drennan antenna float is so suited for this job though, it's like the designer uses this tactic himself. Anyway I settled in to the swim and fed some sodden liquidized bread to form a cloud to attract the fish in. 

Anyway after 20 minutes I was biteless with only the rather attractive lady jogger giving some welcome relief from the lack of action out of the blue a classic lift bite with the float shooting up in Z by a few inches.

A fish was on !!! not a roach mind you but one of its cousins that give me a right run around. Another fish of almost the same stamp came quickly afterwards and basically that was that. The roach ? well they didn't show at all :(

The swim went dead, proper dead to a move to another swim nearer the car I had two unmissable bites that I both missed and that was a wrap, I had to get back to watch the final couple of episodes of Ozark otherwise the wife would kill me. The otter was there again, this almost dusk though, not a few hours before when we saw it last time.  A quiet session, but being 19 degrees a rather pleasant one.