Canal Roach - Can't Fish? Must Fish...!

This surprise early winter weather has brought my zander campaign to a premature halt as the prime hotspots are now covered in two inch thick ice and according to the weatherman, likely to remain that way or worsen, for the next fortnight or so. Before it got really cold I did manage to fish through the only watery gap I'd found in the ice for a mile or more in any direction, for roach, with lobworms, for about an hour or so before the surface began to freeze over once again and forced me off.

Canal Zander & Pike - Fishing for Irish Pearls

The Wednesday evening excursion up the cut with Lee was utterly devoid of action apart from my losing both sets of end tackle and a hundred yards of mono to the propellors of a boat that ploughed straight through my lines while I was distracted and taking pictures of a fish decorated bridge...

Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - Neither Up Nor Down

It has befallen me that I should have to fish three consecutive evenings of the same week. How unlucky is that? Judy has an Ofsted inspection coming up and as she holds a managerial position at Henley College, she and every other person in a position of responsibility there (and in every other education establishment up and down the country) assume the behavioral tics of a pertrified spaniel on Guy Fawks Night.

Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - An Upturn of Fortune?

Below there's a simple chart showing the weight in pounds of each zander of the total of eighteen caught since I began my campaign back in early October (ignoring those caught on lobworm whilst roach fishing) in sequence. It's not particularly spectacular, is it? But, as anyone who has fished the canal for zander will testify, it's what you have to expect.

Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - A Thousand Words

Sometimes, words are superfluous and pictures say it all.

Three hours this afternoon, up the cut...

Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - The Towpath Grapevine

Last year I got it into my head that high pressure weather systems and good zander fishing did not sit comfortably together, but this year I have gone out a few times under the typically still, often foggy and icy cold weather conditions it produces around this time of the year and apart from a blank last week with Lee out Bedworth way, have had run after run. So much for that theory then...

Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - Right Size Wrong Fish

I thought that I'd be chasing the canal roach at this time of the year but I just can't seem to muster the energy to mount a campaign with the idea of a big zander uppermost in my mind. I want to catch a double figure zander from the canal. I know they're present, albeit in very small numbers compared to the seemingly endless supply of schoolies between one and two pounds weight, but don't exactly know of their whereabouts, though I'm starting to have some ideas about how to shorten the odds.

Pixel'O'mania

I've been fishing thrice since my camera died and I hated the experience, I can tell you. Not because the fished was so bad, actually no it was terrible - lovely locations - great company - ornery fish, but because I just could not bear the idea of fishing without having some means at hand of recording my catches if those catches turned out to be personally historic. I just could not chill...

Transition

The canal is in transition. Winter approaches, and the fish know it all too well. I have been out testing the waters for roach potential but have to report that the zander and perch season is far from over and so lobworms, the canal-in-winter specimen roach bait par excellence, are simply not going to stay on the deck long enough for the roach to home in before one or the other of our prickly friends gets to them.

Canal Zander & Pike - Lucius Lucius, Minimus, Maximus

If it weren't for Steve of Watery Reflections pushing my buttons, I wouldn't have mentioned this little fella so soon, as I've worn out my long serving 8 mega pixel (how retro is that?) full metal jacket, two year old workhorse of a compact digi and was intending to eek out my limited resources, of as yet unpublished fishy pics and stories, until a new one lands on the doormat...

Capricious River

I seem to have been able to fish the town waters at Stratford upon Avon rather a lot this year, due in large part to the convenient habits of my womenfolk who like to take a stroll around the town, buying a little in the way of baubles and bangles, eating a lot of expensive Italian nosh from Carluccios and generally having a girlie time out while I do the manly thing, and get right out of their way...