Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - Tough Luck Piking

I got out last night for a couple of hours but only managed to catch yet more tiny zeds - where all the larger zander have gone, I haven't a clue - and tonight I got out for a few hours more at the now legendary Marina Peg, but the fishing was not good, and so I ended up messing about with the camera, again...

Canal Zander & Pike - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - A Big Fat Mamma

This series has to end here - if ever there was a thing deserving of an alternative moniker, this is it - it's a misnomer!

I can no longer pretend to be fishing the canal for 'a big cut zed' because since I began 'my quest for' such a fish, the fish that I have been catching mostly, and in the size range I was looking for when I began, have been of the species, Esox lucius, and, I'll freely admit that for some time now I have really been hoping to get a big 'un of those and have neglected to think of zeds completely.

Canal Zander - My Quest for a Big Cut Zed - Cabin Fever

Seems like ages since I last fished. The freezing weather hasn't been to blame - I have yet to encounter conditions severe enough to stop me trying to get my net wet - no, I've been cooped up due to one damn thing after another damn thing and then just as the horizon cleared and it looked as if I might get to exploit a few scarce holes in the canal's ice cap created by the recent thaw (which now looks to be over before it was complete) I was struck down with a short sharp dose of flu that put me down for days.

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.