Canal Zander - The Hallowed II Chronicles Pt.11

Ah, August... The finest flowering of the English Summer (when will it start this year I wonder ?). The warm, drowsy days. The noble trees in their fullest leaf. The hum of the industrious bees. The still waters, curling their mists in the early morning as the golden sun strikes the limpid surface. What could mar such idyllic scenes?

Kids!

That's what. Flaming kids. On the long holiday from school. Roaming the banks in droves, slinging in 4 oz leads from broomstick rods right next to your float. Getting bored after a while and skimming stones across the water. Or switching on their ghetto blasters at full belt, right in your ear. Or charging up and down having sword fights and stampeding every fish for miles.

Kids! Ought to be banned. Better still, transported.

But stay. That is not the attitude the mature and skilled angler ought to have towards the younger generation. We were all young once. And we can pass on to these youngsters the skills we ourselves learned through the patience of older anglers.

So sit beside me, little lad, and I will show you the way you ought to go; teach you the skills my own father taught me. Teach you all the art and mystery of the craft of angling that is in my humble power to transmit.

That's it. Sit down, stay low, don't move. Get your groundbait out, at the proper texture, into that likely looking eddy by the rock. Cast out carefully, looking behind you before you do, for safety's sake. Now keep your eye on the float. See, it's twitching! Don't be hasty. Strike just as it dips under - You've got it!

Why, you snotty-nosed little swine! That's the monster I've been after for weeks! And you've got the flaming nerve to come down here and snatch the thing from under my nose at first cast! I'll murder you, you little...

Calm yourself. Who wants the fresh water in hot weather, anyway? Nothing but gudgeon and bleak, and not a lot of those. And not only kids to contend with. Everybody's out: a million old ladies walking a million leg-cocking dogs, a million old fellers with nothing else to do but ask if you've had any luck.

A million pleasure boats, with a million weekend skippers looking right wallies in their yachting caps, a million more kids in kayaks doing the Duke of Edinburgh award bit and sploshing right through your line, all the ducks and all the swans in the world homing in for their holidaytime freebies.

You're best out of it. Out to the sea for some bracing air and bigger fish. Not from the pier, either: that's crowded with once-a-year cack- handers knocking off kiss-me-quick hats on the backswing; crowded again with kids who keep fiddling with your catch and unaccountably avoiding the conger which might deter them a little.

No, it's the open sea for you, lad. Out on the briny, as befits the scion of a seafaring nation. Book a boat guaranteed to have no kids on it. Get out there, beyond the 3-mile limit, to the famous wrecking mark in the wind-blown, choppy water.

Ah, this is the-

Bleargh!

Groo!

Perrr-UKE! Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! Wanna die ...

Hey, skipper ... How much longer are we supposed to be staying out here? What do you mean, until the moon comes up? It must have come up. Everything else has.

One thing about sea fishing. You soon know when you've had enough. And it makes you grateful for the idyllic scenes you left behind on terra firma.

Kids or no kids...

Anyway this session I was definitely on terra firma where I covered plenty of steps to try and catch a zander or two. I hotfooted it down to the lock where I had the big zander from and got fishing. It didn't take long to get a bite either with a small schoolie hovering up the still frozen roach deadbait literally a few minutes being out.

It was clear that there was only small fish in the swim though because I missed 6 or 7 clear bites without hooking up, the small vampire teeth marks barely 10mm part. Something bigger grabbed at the bait on the retrieve however after being on for a few seconds it dropped off, bugger !!!

Still plenty to go at here and after a good hour or so in 'Pirate Bay @BuffaloSi' I got bored and went to find the fish. The key to banking a few fish was to head up to an area of thick cover where eventually I had something that put a bend in the rod. 

Despite the non stop boats the cover produced 4 fish all of  a similar stamp. The biggest probably just shy of 3lb. The bigger fish were just not showing today and after trying a few more spots without any more bites I got on my way.

I couldn't put my finger on it but the colour of the water might have had something to do with it, but I knew I wouldn't do that well before I got a bait in the water. The wind was strong, the air cold, just one of those sessions I didn't particularly enjoy, still a few lovely zander banked, at least that was something.  

The Tiny River Alne - Omelettes and Omphalopsychites

Earthworms are good for you non-fattening and full of protein. They're plentiful, too, with fifty species in Britain alone, so it's surprising that they haven't caught on as a cheap and nourishing meal.

They have in the States. An American worm farm holds an annual earthworm cookery contest and gets entries of about 3,000 recipes. The winning recipe of a cooking competition sponsored by the North American Bait Company was Earthworm Applesauce Surprise Cake. Anyone who ate it without knowing the ingredients would certainly be in for a surprise.

British marines on a television survival course in the wilds in 1985 had to live off the land, eating whatever they could trap or find. One gallant lad finished up eating earthworm omelettes.

The largest earthworm in the world is a South African species with a record length of 22 ft 6 in. A few of those would solve any angler's bait problem. As would the largest sea worm, the Bootlace Worm. One washed up in Scotland was 180 ft long apparently. Difficult to get into the average bait tin, that...

Anyway with a few lobworms leftover and a couple of hours to kill I decided on a trip to the Alne to try and winkle out a chub, dace or trout, hopefully in that order.

The water was still showing a tinge of colour however nothing like as coloured up as last time and as expected it was much tougher than I thought !!! I somehow missed quite a few bites as well, maybe it was small fish sucking on the worm and giving it a good going over but not actually taking it.

The trout on the other hand were up for a feed, and I managed 3 trout in the end and one dropped off. The chub were nowhere to be seen however and I also fished some big chunks of bread as well.

Not a brilliant session but you can rely on the trout down here as least and they are getting bigger so I'm hoping to stumble upon one of the bigger ones that reside here, twice this size at least. 

Warwickshire Avon - Detectives and Detritivores

I'd not seen Sinister (2012) for a while, it's one of those movies if you've not seen it before can give you a few spine tingles even after a second watch. 

True-crime writer Ellison Oswald (Ethan Hawke) is in a slump, he hasn't had a best seller in more than 10 years and is becoming increasingly desperate for a hit.

So, when he discovers the existence of a snuff film showing the deaths of a family, he vows to solve the mystery. 

He moves his own family into the victims' home and gets to work. However, when old film footage and other clues hint at the presence of a supernatural force, Ellison learns that living in the house may be fatal.

It hits an absurdly high number of horror clichés, but manages to do it in a pretty successful manner. I suppose it features many more laugh out moments than you might expect from a horror of this type. Not sure if that's a pro or a con, the Wife wouldn't enjoy it I know that.

Now the pros and cons of fishing the Avon for Barbel is, well there ain't many of them for a start, but if you do get one often it's a big'un. Also they often bite at the witching hour (one of Buffalo Si's videos here) so fishing during the day isn't often that productive. Si has put me on to his spots which is kind of him and I plan to fish those in due course.. 

It suits my fishing style though because I'm not one to sit behind motionless rods. 

The thought of fishing two rods on the Trent for example for hours on end is almost like water torture for my restless legs and I just wouldn't  it, it's just not for me.

That's why the short sessions are ideal for me, rock up before dusk and leave shortly afterwards. 

I had planned to get out earlier in the week but the predictive rain was nothing like what we got as a couple of times I had wanted to head out the heavens opened and I just couldn't be bothered.

Anyway I had one swim in mind for this session where a recent fallen tree provides some nice cover but I'd not only caught barbel here before (best 12lb 6oz) but I'd also seen some recently milling around when I've been fishing for the chub.  

Best laid plans and all that, because a fella and his son were already there when I'd parked the car and he was heading to the exact swim I wanted to fish. I've spoken to him a few times in-fact he was fishing with his Dad a few days ago where his Dad out fished him, a proper doing over 😀 so didn't mind to be honest. 

The river was properly gin clear and taking a nose at the first swim a group of chub spooked off also immediately and headed straight to some thick cover for shelter. When it's like this I've found it can be a complete waste of time so there is a no rush to get fishing.

In the end I headed down to a deeper area where the calamity ensued, you see after nattering to ex postie John who just happened to be having a nose at the stretch it turns out he had been fishing a certain section of the Warwickshire Avon where he's be catching Barbel up to 16lb or so, 48 doubles in one season in its heyday. Some of those fish appeared in the Angling Times, which was probably a mistake !!

You see after having it almost to himself the stretch was eventually a syndicate with the farmer offered a pot of gold by a well known angler who had it for a good while, in-fact I was a member for the last season before the farmer changed his mind where I never managed one barbel, just some clonking chub. 

John fished it for a while but then decided to concentrate on a private friends and family stretch on the next section upstream. The very area and others saw a fill kill sadly where now there isn't any fry in the margins or fish topping, he decided to stop counting at 20 dead barbel as it was so depressing. I've found exactly the same downstream sadly seemingly devoid of fish, even though I am going to try again in winter to see if fish have migrated from other stretches. 

Anyway back to the fishing, after putting out 3 bait droppers of hemp and pellet I somehow managed to slip where my whole right foot right foot slipped in to the river, with me falling on my backside breaking my reading glasses in the process.

My walking boots sodden like a sponge and my trousers soaked right up to my calf it wasn't exactly a pleasant sitting there, luckily dusk was only an hour away. Still before I settled down to wait for that pull round somehow I managed to flick off 2 PVA bags on the cast, not going well this, at least the fish were having a nice feed 😠

The bites and plucks started almost straight away but it was only on the stroke of dusk were things hotted up a bit. A few decent chub had broke the surface and after a foot pull, and a one proper bite I missed the hair rig was doing its job to avoid hooking the chub.

But chub can be determined and eventually one hooked itself and a fish was on. Only a small fish though and at least I hadn't blanked. Then all went quiet, like dead where I was expecting another bite or two. At this point with the amount of insects around and a wet foot, I decided to cut my losses where I left 45 minutes after official dusk. One of those session !!