Canal Zander & Pike — Embrace the Void

If there's one thing about living right by a canal full of zander that I consider a great bonus then it isn't that I can go catch loads of them at a moments notice, but that I can go experiment with hooks and rigs and baits and what not without incurring overheads. If you have to travel far and then pay for the privilege of fishing for them, then understandably you'll just want to catch if you can and will choose the most reliable method known even if its success rate is actually horribly low. Experiments cannot be afforded. 

I don't have to worry about all that. My greatest cost is that of half a slice of bread with which to catch skimmers for my bait... 

The void between MX and PT is critical. A membrane of flesh covers it. 

The picture above is the skull of Perca fluviatilis, the European perch. It is well worth studying if you are a predator angler because this skull is the typical one of the Perciformes. All members of this huge order of fishes have similar skulls, or at least all members have the same bones in the same configuration with the same linkages between articulated jaw parts but with often very large differences in skull morphology. Marlins and sailfishes, for instance, are Perciforme but so are ruffe and sand eels. It's difficult to imagine that such vastly different fish are related at all, let alone that they all share a common ancestor. But they do.

There's just thirty or so Perciformes swimming in British waters but only a handful that attract the attention of anglers both as quarry and as bait (and often as bait for another Perciforme!). There's perch (of course), ruffe, bass, mackerel, the various sea breams, sand eels, wrasse, and the subject of this article, zander.

You'll notice the absence of pike. Pike are not Perciforme but Esociforme; a very small order of fishes that includes just two families — the pikes/pickerels, and mudminnows. By contrast, the Perciformes comprise of 160 families, 10.000 species, represent an astonishing 41% of all bony fish and are the largest order of all those animals with articulated spines like us — the vertebrates.  

On the one hand we have a narrowly specialised order that evolved many millions of years ago to exploit very particular niches and have remained almost unaltered since. On the other we have a burgeoning explosion of species each of whom evolved to exploit particular niches amongst a myriad of alternative situations and no doubt continue to do so to this very day. 

The Perciformes are, by any definition, one of the most successful orders of animals that ever populated this planet.

The skull of pike. Notice the lack of voids around the jaw

Pike aren't related to perch, nor are they related to zander (in fact zander are more closely related to wrasse than they are to pike, which seems preposterous but is true). So, the old 'pike-perch' name for zander is most misleading, though it still persists in usage. It's remarkable that bait fishing for zander is for the most part conducted as if anglers were fishing for 'pike-perch', that is to say they are fishing for zander with pike tackle as if zander were actually a perch/pike cross. 

You wouldn't fish for large perch with pike tackle and even if they grew to double figures you still wouldn't, and that's because perch fishing and pike fishing diverged centuries ago. 

The skull of zander. Notice the large void behind the jaw

Our approach to zander, though, has yet to split fully away and develop in its own right and so it remains tightly bound to pike fishing practises because the history of zander fishing is so very brief, sprouts from pike fishing in the first instance, and is yet to evolve into a separate and distinct branch of the sport.

Standard pike fishing dead-baiting approaches applied to zander are not appropriate. The only thing they share in common is that they both eat fish...

The Coventry posse established that many moons ago when just about every blogger about these parts was fishing for them but experiencing disastrous returns on (admittedly small) investment with treble hooks. So we were driven to explain why so many runs were missed without the least indication that a fish was there in the first place, when a thud was felt it might drop off a few seconds later, and when a fish seemed well hooked then one in every two (or three) might shed the hook mid-fight or at the net. 

We were losing up to 90% of chances on a very bad day. 60% on a good one. It was all wrong.

Because the canals are very easy for us all to reach and therefore we could experiment at will, within a year answers were forthcoming. It was found that the mouth of a zander was the entire problem. It just has so little flesh in it that standard treble hooks could not cope. Even in large sizes the three individual hooks were still small and worse, the hook was impaled in the back of a bait and could not turn. So they'd just skate off the bone and only find a hold by accident.

The answer was mostly a hook size and bait size thing. Small slices of fish lightly pricked through the flimsiest piece of skin by single hooks were found to be successful. And these hooks had to be large ones to work best. Sizes in the order of 2 - 2/0 were about right. This approach brought our zander fishing into the realms of normality where loss rates of 20- 30% were acceptable. And then acquired skills might improve it further. 

Missed runs were fewer and fewer between, bumped fish far less of a problem, and it soon became apparent when on occasion five, six or seven runs on the trot were fluffed then it was a pack of very, very small fish that were the culprits.

When I tried an established bass (a perciforme) hook in size 2/0 under a float I found that I'd hook zander always through the void behind the jaw and experience 80% success or greater with them.

But I'm one of those who believe loss rates should not be incurred at greater than 5% for any kind of fishing, be it barbel, roach, or great white shark...

I assure you, the picture above is no advertising gimmick. That is a real hook — the 'Mustad 39937NP-DT Giant Demon Perfect Circle Hook' — and one that will set back the big game shark hunter wanting mako, hammerhead, bull, tiger and great white on his personal best list, circa £150. 

God Forbid they should ever lose one! 

It illustrates perfectly what a circle hook is and what a circle hook does. Imagine that a great white hits a bait and takes it down the throat along with this hook. The point is set at an angle of 90 degrees to the shank and there's a six inch gap between. Because the point is facing in this direction it cannot easily catch on anything unless it hits something to turn around. So the hook is drawn out of the smooth gullet and back into the cavernous mouth where steady tension brings it to the closed jaw. Because the line is pulled against a very large float, the shark's forward motion draws it into the very corner where both jaws meet when it turns and catches around one of them. Against a float that would be the top jaw most likely.

But it only pricks. The fight is what makes it penetrate because there is no striking necessary, in fact that would be a mistake because unless the line is pulled backwards it won't come to the scissors of the jaw as it should.

I draw your attention back to the six inch gap. That's critical. Should a shark with a jaw thickness much, much greater than six inches take the bait (imagine that!) then it's not going to work very well unless it finds thick flesh and Mustad are just going have to create an even more preposterous hook!

But sharks have rubbery mouths. Zander bony ones...

Imagine we take a more reasonable sized circle hook, say a size 2/0, and then try to hook it up to various gauges of metal piping. It can only be hooked fully around pipes with exactly the same gauge of the entire gap or less because the metal is not going to give at all. 

But when a circle hook meets up with a (less than impenetrable) jawbone and wraps round it then the point will be driven in gradually by force. Not very far, but enough. And when they lock up there's nothing a fish can do to shed them. The barb is quite unnecessary, in fact. Once coiled around the jaw they just don't fall out of their own accord, in fact you can slacken off if you like. Take a tea break and let a shark do what it will for a few minutes! 

When used for more reasonable predators such as pike and zander then the same principles apply. I've trialled them recently and can report 100% success thus far. Well, 100% percent success after remembering not to strike as I did with the first two runs under a float when I dragged the hook out in error. Since then I've banked five fish by them (3 zander, 2 pike) without any trouble at all. 

The last zander was taken by a further experimental approach. I'd gone perching down the cut but had a rod made up in the quiver that I'd used on the river a few days prior to the session. It was a simple running ledger rig with a two-ounce lead and a size 1 circle hook. I had an idea. 

What if I put out that rig, hung a stick off the line as a bobbin creating time enough for the bait to enter the mouth without resistance, and just let any fish that took the bait drag the rod in? My theory was that the circle would be taken to the scissors by the weight of the lead because the fish would always be swimming directly away from it whatever direction it went. Then the hook would prick as the line was pulled tight to the rod top. And all I had to do then was pick up the rod and wind the fish in.

I never saw the bobbin rise. I was fully focussed on the perch float and only noticed the bite when the rod began inching toward the water. 

It worked brilliantly!

But it was very lazy...

Rewind to the skull picture and see why it was hooked in bone with minimal penetration

Because it swam off above a lead, then of course the fish was hooked in the bottom jaw but did not actually penetrate flesh. It was coiled around it but locked fast anyhow because the point buried in the bone and tension did not allow the hold to fail. I wonder now if I should keep going with the lead approach but also try another variation on the theme on a second rod? 

What if I use a large float...

And I think it will have to be one so very bulbous in order to create two ounces of drag that it makes me look like a bleeding idiot for using it! 

Might that work better ensuring that the hook can always embrace the void?

I have no shame. I'll try anything once...

Or twice!

Zedvember the 54th — Southern Fairies v Northern Monkeys

Originally a one-off 50th birthday bash never intended to be repeated, the Zedvember thingy has proven itself a useful social gathering for committed and casual canal 'predheads' alike falling as it does at the juncture between the very end dregs of the summer season past and the first fresh blasts of the winter to come. My birthday is no longer the point.

It was always an excuse anyhow!

Winding down in preparation for the tough but promising months ahead and winding each other up in the process is what it's about.

A high minded thing in principal.

But in practice it becomes simpler and simpler minded over the course of the six hours between noon when it begins... and pub time around six when it draws to a close over the course of a beer or three and shared bags of pork scratchings.

A motley gang of grubby weather beaten anglers descend on my patch of the Coventry Canal, where firstly they'll chew the fat in earnest pursuit of fresh gossip, news of half-baked baiting theory and radical but dubious rig experiments, discussions about untenable claims made about predatory fish signed off and published by the unscrupulous editors of our national rags, personal stories of fishing woes, and of very near successes, the pros and cons of crayfish infestations. And the like.

Boasting is not an issue...

That is never a good idea ahead of zander fishing!

Those who have done well through summer are slapped on the back...

And then things'll progress from best through worst when they'll turn the air blue with tales of outlandish medical horrors involving the injection of nasty chemicals into, and outsize implements thrust down the knob hole, badly timed bawdy jokes, smutty humour and what not in the way of descending quality and ascending hilarity of banter.

Between times they'll think about thrashing the water to foam in pursuit of zander.

But never actually get round to it...

Well, that applies if you're local and have zeds at your disposal, 24/7. 

Not if you make the long journey up from the South where zander are rare, tricky or unavailable at worst, available on a pricey day ticket at best, and are the primary thing should you travel to where they're both wild and abundant, and also free. 

And that was never more apparent than it was this Sunday the 22nd November at the Mecca of the Schoolie Zed, Hawkesbury Junction.

Six anglers in fifty yards. Dan, James, Brian, Mick and Lee. And myself, of course

Mick Newey, Keith Jobling, Dan Everitt, Martin Roberts, George Burton and son Harvey, Lee Fletcher, Ivan Scallon, Sean Dowling and myself, are, according to James Denison, 'Northern Monkeys'.

Compared to 'The Smoke', all country North of Watford is clearly a big small place to a 'Southern Fairy' such as James and brother Richard, Brian Roberts, Russel Hilton and Ben Hennessy....

You've seen their faces often enough. Here's their backsides!
Lee, Keith, Dan, Martin and Mick

Good grief it was cold in the chill wind. And my early morning fears were well grounded because no one caught a thing for a very long time indeed. I worried that nothing would happen at all because it was rock hard.

Granite hard, not sandstone hard, mind.

This session was igneous!

Dan was my touchstone of hope.

Probably the most experienced canal zander angler in the country, he'd warned early that an hour before dusk was everyone's only chance.

And then best taken by way of a length of soft plastic...

Cheers for the pic, Mick!

Our 'Rubber Guru' was correct.

Right as the light began to fade, at last Russel had a zander on a small roach dead bait. And I believe it might have been his best ever? So he and Beth hadn't journeyed to this post industrial wilderness and endured the perishing cold and the tricky fishing for nought.

But would he retain 'best zed' and win the match outright with just an hour remaining?

There was all to play for if Danny was to be believed...

Brian then latched a pike to a shad and was in process of post-catch ritual just as I approached.  A great result and one that gives hope that the double-figure fish have returned after long absence from the local scene because it weighed ten-pounds on the nose. A great looking fish too!

Best pike was in the bag most likely (unless my crafty 'Lazy Rig' would do the business for me at the death...)

But would James break his canal zander duck?

It didn't look likely when so many experienced locals had failed to raise a sniff all day long.

Time was running down fast. But in stark contrast to the slacker Monkey contingent, each of whom have probably banked many times over what zander the industrious Fairy crew have combined, they were all hard at work flicking jigs, here, there and everywhere. While 'we' kicked back, and jawed.

In the last desperate moments of extra time...

Brian missed a savage take, but James knocked it past the keeper!

At last James nabs a Cov zed

This was what I'd hoped for — the visiting team taking home their hard won gongs with James finally catching a zed from this canal after his previous abject failures.

It was just a little un'.  But Mr Jimmy Denison just didn't care a jot what size it was.

And why should he?

This was a personal victory!

But that was that. The brief spell of activity was over in less than an hour and it was soon time to invade the pub, pull a few pints, and retire to our heated 'fishing' hut on the banks of the cold canal, where the social continued in noisy jollity till every last rod had retired home one by one.

Here, there, near and far.

Dragging my gear inside the pub and propping it near the bar's roaring fire,  Judy and I hung about for an hour or two, warmed ourselves with a few more pints, and then walked the inky black mile through the wooded cut to home.

My thanks to all who attended. It was not easy fishing. About as tough as it ever gets, I reckon.

But it was, as it always has been, and always will be with you lot about.

A hoot!

I really think you must have enjoyed yourselves just as much as I enjoyed your excellent company.

See you all again next Zedvember, I do hope!

Canal Zander & Perch — A Turn for the Worse

The Avon was as clear as I have ever seen it be. Chalk stream clear is what it was, but that's not a good thing in a mud stream, let me tell you. What we Midlanders want, is 'a nice tinge of green'. It's what we'd engineer for every fishing day if only we could control the weather. But we can't. 

Meat to the left of me, dead bait to the right

Martin and yours truly were to fish a new stretch. Well, it was for me. I think he's fished it once before. Anyhow, he cleaned up and beat into the weeds not only myself but the ten or twelve anglers taking part in a Saturday morning match. He should have taken part. His chop fuelled perch catch would have paid for the journey there and back, and his costly bait too.

He'd fished a swim I'd occupied earlier for barbel and predators. Then trotted worm over chop introduced via  bait dropper. He had a nice catch totalling about seven or eight pounds, with the best fish going 1lb 14oz. Chopped worm, you see. He did advise a lady competitor to go about things the same way before the whistle. She ignored him. And struggled.

I struggled too. Had a small chub and a few gudgeon on bread when I finally tired of the motionless heavy rods. But really it was quite hopeless. 

C'mon you buggers!

We'd fished the previous night for zander elsewhere. I had two runs after dark, hooked and lost the first to the left-hander toting a conventional wide gape 'J' hook but banked the second to the right-hander which turned out to be a very hard fighting pike of about three-pounds weight. Very cleanly hooked by the circle pattern, and I was very impressed. 

So I thought I'd pursue my experiments with the very same rig, but in a canal...

My theory was that I should hang a bobbin on the line to give a zander enough slack to get the slice of skimmer in, allow it to take up line against a heavy lead, and then hook itself against its weight. The sign of which would be the fish pulling the rod in the water. I'd left my bobbins at home so a broken stick was pressed into service. A bobbin is a bobbin after all.

Waiting for the proof of the effectiveness of my cunning plan, meanwhile I fished for perch on a short pole. But I hadn't bargained with the weather... 

Just as soon as I'd fed the swim, the heavens opened and the rain fell in bucket loads. 

It fell hard for an hour or more in which time I didn't get a touch. My trusty old cagoule that's always stuffed into the side-pocket in case of emergencies failed me. When new it helped me enjoy a force six storm way out in the Bristol channel and has saved me from a drenching on many unforeseen downpours since. Clearly knackered. It was now taking on water.

The rain didn't look like abating any time soon I thought of going home while I was still warm. Just as I prepared to, the zander rod laying on the grass bucked as a fish tried to pull it in. I wound down gently, took up the fight, and then teased in what I'd set out for. 

The rig had worked just how I'd imagined it would and the hook was set perfectly.

A lady from a nearby boat passed by in a bright orange cagoule that wasn't taking on water. Though it was hammering down she stopped in her tracks. Had always believed the canal had nothing whatsoever living in it, thought it astonishing that it should, and was dumbstruck by the evidence that it did. She was simply amazed by this fish. Its pristine beauty impressed her. Easy for us anglers to forget such important things in the pursuit of size and number...

Though she did ask in parting if they grew any larger! 

Briefly the rain eased off when the perch float dragged under very slowly and I hooked what had to be another of those nice fat ones I've seen so much of recently. And sure enough, it was another two-pounder. Just as I thought it might be.

But then things really did take a turn for the worse. And so I scarpered...

Avon Zander — Our Accidental Jack

Martin finally improved and put his summer long 'double' dearth to bed the other night. Three in the one session he had, and all were ten-pounders. My theory that all the tens of eight and nine-pounders he'd caught beforehand had gorged on subaquatic lifeforms released from their weedy safe houses in the early autumn die-back seemed to be holding water. 

I don't know. All barbel look the same to me. Sleek brown sporty numbers rolling off the production line, one by one. A pound here or there isn't much of a difference and a 'double' probably the lowest bar to leap over and the most arbitrary of targets in coarse fishing.

They ain't two-pound roach, are they? A fourteen-pounder might just be the equivalent of that...

But they don't half pull back!

I wasn't there so couldn't say if weed was floating downstream or not. But this afternoon it was and in rafts. For this session I believe he'd shortened his hair rigs tight to the bait and for once was seeking to not deter chub. I think he might have been chub fishing, actually. But with the chance of a double, of course. 

My plan was to go after primarily, zander. But eels and perch, accidental pike, perhaps roach, the chance of tench, carp, dace and bream, chub too. God forbid, barbel also! My light rod would break clean in half. But that's the kind of menu you have when you ledger a worm on the right hander and float fish a slice of skimmer bream on the left, isn't it?  

Well, the float vanished half an hour after pitching it in. But the strike met with a familiar thud followed by slack line. The trusted hook pattern that has safely banked so many zander over the past few years had failed once again. It may have been a very small fish, or this, that, and the other. But all the while it's been failing so miserably that's what I've been telling myself.

The ledgered lobbie was ignored. For two hours. One of those baits that is always bound to raise interest from something — it was as if I'd cast a jelly worm and expected that to tempt without animation. But the sky was bright and cloudless, and the water gin clear, and this, that, and the other...

"When the sun goes down, they'll bite" was what every biteless angler about the place agreed upon. But when it finally reached the cloudless horizon the effect was unbearable. My swim had me facing directly toward twinned incandescant orbs of light and the closer they came together the more intense the torture became. So I pushed a bankstick into the mud, hung my hat upon it, and hid behind. 

Roach began porpoising. Textbook John Wilson stuff. Head and shoulders out of the water and all the rest.  When a large swirl was seen I cast the worm straight to. At last a worm bite came, a fish was hooked, and it felt a proper lump of a roach too. Shame it weren't! 

I've had far too many of these from the river this year. Can't seem to avoid them. My certainty about the utterly non-selective catchability of lobworms had kind of worked, though I'd expected such an accident to befall the fish bait. I retired the worm rod, re-rigged the float rod for ledgering, and set up a second ledgering rod for an all out zander assault into the approaching night. 

The earth turned and the terrible twins went away. Bats batted both high-set lines so I attempted a photo. It failed of course, but the flash scared them off and so the rod tips were motionless thereafter. When it was too dark to see them against the fading glow of the sun I thought I'd attach a couple of old red starlights, but they were so very old they failed to light up...

So I removed the long rests, pushed in short ones with buzzer bars attached, and hung bobbins of luncheon meat from the lines because I'd left the plastic ones on the kitchen table. They worked very well. They weren't moving very much, but they weren't moving just perfectly. But then the left hand meat bobbin twitched and very slowly rose upwards. Picking up the rod line was still paying out. So I struck and was briefly attached to a fish. Yet again the blasted hook had failed to catch!

The right hander was rigged with a circle hook. I had no idea if they would work any better because my trials with them are in their infancy. But they couldn't do worse, so hey ho. Nothing to lose. Then the right hand bobbin rose just as the left hander had. Slowly and deliberately. Winding down to take up the slack but not striking because this was a circle hook and you mustn't, there's the satisfying sensation of a well-hooked fish. And hopefully a big zander because it felt like it might well be...

But nearing netting reach but still in deep water the fish took off on long powerful runs so I knew I had another 'accident' coming my way. Nevertheless, it earned me a few challenge points because it was twice the size of any of the previous accidents I'd met with. And better still, the circle hook hold was perfect. 

All I had to do now was earn a few points for what I'd set out for. Again it was the circle set up that was to be tested and proven good, bad or indifferent.

Taking up slack and just winding in is all you have to do. It feels odd. None of that sweeping the rod over the shoulder to set the hook. It does the job all by itself finding a hold around the jaw bone and padlocking the fish to the rod and line.

In principal!

But it worked twice. The hold felt secure. None of that rectal clenching in anticipation of imminent failure that all zander anglers must suffer each and every time they hook up. If this was what I hoped for and not our accidental jack, then she was mine.

Deep down in ten feet of clear water there's a bright spot of light emerging. Caught in the beam of the headlamp — the eye of a zed. No powerful runs here. No problems at all but the one of a tricky full stretch netting job to perform across a shallow marginal shelf covered in rotting weed that looks way too risky to step out onto after dark.

Oh, and the hook-hold?

Was padlock tight.

Canal Zander & Perch — What Freddy Did Next (pt 2)

Freddy five minutes beforehand. He was no different afterwards

The hook was down his throat. Not far, because my traces are six-inches in length, but out of sight. He hadn't pulled on the line and I hadn't pulled on the trace so I doubted he'd got hooked in the gullet. Pricked perhaps, but not driven in. 

Good grief! If only it had been the circle rig he'd eaten rather than the usual one. Then I could just have pulled the entire thing out easily and without any chance of hooking him in the throat in the process. 

I packed down hastily and we returned home so I could take a more studied and unhurried look down his gob but when I tried the trace had vanished. He'd swallowed the lot and the offending article was now in his stomach...

Dominic arrived and Judy was back from London just after so we took Freddy, who was completely unconcerned, to the PDSA. I was in there just a few minutes before I walked out in disgust. The quote for immediate treatment — because we were now 'out of hours' till Monday morning — was just eye-watering. 

A sum total of £1000 for consultation, an X ray and removal of the hook by minor endoscopic surgery. Half up front. And now, please. 

So much for charity! How does that stack up when a benefits claimant who can afford to buy and feed a brace of pitbull terriers has their squabble wounds stitched up by this organisation for free and gratis, out of hours, or not?

We paid the consultion fee of £130 for what was about two minute's work of gullet and belly squeezing by the vet's assistant, her going backstage for the quote, and Judy taking up valuable desk time signing shit and coughing up the dough. And dough was exactly what Freddy had when we got back home. Half a loaf of brown bread to bind the trace up in. He may have been bemused by the fuss, but that bread was wolfed down with gusto...

Dom was raring to go next morning. I waited for Martin and we all met up a little later in the basin just round the corner from home. Freddy slept well, wasn't showing any signs of distress, and so for now there was only the concern of what might happen later because nothing had yet. I really wasn't in the mood for fishing. But I fished anyhow having nothing better to do than await Freddy's fate. 

But all the while I was timing the progress of the trace through his gut. By now I thought would be through the small intestine, entering into the large intestine, to be shat out some time in the afternoon. It takes us two days or more but healthy dogs get it through fast. From meal to crap in just 8 -12 hours if they don't have to retain till walkies time comes around. 

And they can eat almost anything. Molly once ate a good part of an empty beer can she'd found in the grass. She shredded it (still does this if I don't catch her at it) and chomped on the tasty bits. Came to no harm. Didn't even cut a gum.

And it all came out the other end soon enough...

These trains of thought are why I could not fish. What if that hook was now dragging through the gut not bend down, but point down? Would it, could it, snag?

And what if it did? 

I prayed it wouldn't because then we'd have major surgery on our hands and a stark choice between coughing up multiple thousands of pounds or having young Freddy put down...

'Trust in nature' was my mantra. 'Let nature take her course'. 

The fishing was terrible anyhow so I wasn't missing much. Dom had a few perch on lures, Martin similar on worm. No zander were banked though I did have a few missed runs and lost one fish. I was glad of that. My current perplexing run of failure where there's always been assured success gave me something technical to mull over other than the soft mechanics of Freddy's gut. Who was just fine according to Judy's next phone call asking about our present location and about to walk the dogs down the canal.

Half an hour later I spotted them across the far bank, so I called her back. Freddy had just expressed his absolute disinterest in our worries and concerns in the form of a firm and distinctly 'bready' chunk of crap with a somewhat battered and acid etched trace in it... 

Thank Mother Frickin' Nature for that! 

Checking for dog turds as you must, I knelt down and kissed her lush green towpath grass. Half an hour later still, Molly and Freddy and Judy were seen bounding and striding down the same lush green towpath toward us and on their way back home.

All was well with the world. And I was off the hook.

Canal Zander — What Freddy Did (pt1)

What with Dominic Garnet up for the PAC conference in Kettering and staying over at my place Saturday night for a roving session on the Coventry Canal early Sunday morning with Martin Roberts joining us for the day, I thought I'd better spend a few hours there on Saturday afternoon to see how the zander were behaving beforehand. I also thought it'd be a good idea to take young Freddy along...

Why ever not? What on earth could go wrong?

He was fine. Just roamed about but never too far off. Without Molly around he was attentive to things, behaving well, and of course every now and then dogs and their keepers passed by so he was in his element. However, he was a little too fond of sliced skimmer bream for comfort, so I kept a tight lid on the bait box.

Casting to usual haunts proved a little slow. Tight against boats, and by 'tight' I mean there's a splash of water up the hull at the waterline, was not productive at all. In winter it can be deadly, but it seemed not so effective in early autumn because the float stayed untroubled all the whiles it sat there 

The gap between moored boats always seems to hold zander. Well, some do and some don't. You just have to drop a bait into each to see which does. When such a gap holds fish it might give a run within five minutes and three or four in twenty minutes if there's a pack in residence. This particular gap provided one zander to the first cast but just a small one. It failed to provide any more.

With plenty of gaps left to explore but the hull line inactive the second bait was placed in the track. Where nothing happened either. The last gaps to try were those between three boats moored right across the widest section of the basin. The casts there were not nearly so easy as those short underarm lobs I'd made down the narrow straight. These requiring full-blooded overarm casts of 60 feet to get the decidedly non-aerodynamic rig and bait out. And when I did get one right on the spot I found it tricky sinking the line and keeping the floats in place. So the small 10mm diameter float I had been giving its first trial was placed slap in the boat track and left to fend for itself while I attempted keeping my usual and well proven 18mm float still.

Within a few minutes the small float bobbed and vanished (a problem that) and but the bite was missed. I struck when I shouldn't have, because I'd clean forgotten that that experimental float also suspended an experimental circle hook rig and you don't strike with 'circles', you just wind down and pull up slowly so it can find a hold in the scissors. Strike and you'll pull the hook straight out the mouth most times.

I decided to bring the large float into the track too. It was off on a run within no time at all and I knew that I'd found today's hotspot, This time a strike was made because this float carried my usual rig and usual hook. A trusted wide gape pattern that has fared well in the past and not failed so often that I'd cause to abandon it, though it had not performed quite so well as the remarkably effective Mustad 'Ultimate Bass' Hook, I have to say.

The fish was hooked and it was a good one too. Heavy, and not a splasher. Nearing the net the hook hold failed and I was left watching a large boil of water dissipate.

Oh well. back to the track.

The circle rig vanished again. Without being able to watch the float run across the surface as the large float always does, I could not see which direction to strike. That's important to know because if a run comes toward you then striking means pulling the hook straight out the front of the mouth where's there's nothing but bone and teeth to catch on. Of course I didn't strike anyhow, this was a circle hook rig after all!

I did hook the fish, and again it felt worth banking, but again it got free.

This was not going at all well...

Experimental zander rig. Light float and circle hook

Whenever a boat passed through I cast straight into the wake of silty water thrown up by the prop. By now a theory was forming. I thought perhaps that the zeds were there because of the chance of a chopped skimmer lunch. I tried further off and nearer by but I could not get a bite elsewhere but in the boat track. And then the small float bobbed, vanished, but for a brief moment reappeared when I could see the direction of movement. Which was along the track and to my right making things straightforward. I lifted slowly and pulled tight gradually. This fish was hooked and stayed hooked, the bait mangled but the hold perfect. And was exactly two-pounds heavier than the first of the day at 3lb 7oz.

What followed was a half-hour lull and then a pack of small fish passed through. When every strike meets nothing in the way of a thud, what you have is a stack of 12 inch juveniles in the swim who cannot hope to get even a two-inch chunk of fish in their mouths let along a whole one but are simply running off with the prize to rip it apart and devour it piecemeal. 

4lb 7oz of impending disaster

They departed and then there was another lull of an hour or so, when the larger fish returned. I failed to hook the first, lost a couple more and was beginning to believe that all my rigs both experimental and trusted were rubbish. They certainly required looking at back home and in detail because I had not experienced this level of failure in many years. But then the large float was off to the left, the strike was successfully made, and I managed to guide a good fish to the net and bank it. 

The process of unhooking, weighing, and photographing takes a little while, doesn't it? And it takes a lot of busy attention to detail, don't you think?

It was all done and dusted and the fish returned when I noticed Freddy — who'd taken a great deal of interest in this zander — gagging on something. Opening his mouth to remove whatever it was he'd eaten that'd got stuck, I was horrified to find him trying to eject the wire trace trapped beneath his tongue.

Biting it from the line I probed deeper...

But the skimmer section bait and 2/0 hook were nowhere to be seen.

Zedvember the 53rd

Three years ago today I organised an event on the canals round my way using the excuse of my 50th birthday to pry anglers out the door on a freezing night to try their best to catch zander. To my surprise a dozen local zed heads turned out for what turned out be a dire evening's fishing but a memorable social and so this year on Danny Everitt's recommendation that I should, I decided to hold it again.

'Zedvember the 53rd' was a long way off when I first attempted to get in touch with all the anglers I've met in the last eight years. But I was crapping myself the whole of the prior week with weather predictions forecasting Sunday 23rd — the day I'd thought best — as the worst possible day I could have chosen in the entire month!

It's a long way to go for the uncertain prospect of wild zander averaging only a couple of pounds from a drab wintertime canal I wouldn't venture round the corner to fish during this sort of weather, but, sarf Londoners, Brian Roberts, brothers James and Richard Denison, braved it. I don't think they ever did worry, but I needn't have. Rain before seven and all that. By ten it was easing and by half past when I met with Brian at Coventry Station, it had stopped altogether.

Walking the 5.5733 miles to the venue at Hawkesbury Junction, Norm, who was to cut his first zander tooth today, phoned as we hoofed along the gin clear canal at Electric Wharf in the City. Exiting from the first road bridge and taking the short cut up the Foleshill Road passing through the bustling main thoroughfare of Coventry's Asian quarter, we were amazed to find him accosting us from behind... He'd got his missus to drive him back down to town and had run all the way up the road through the crowds and vegetable stalls to catch up, rod in hand!

After a swift pint at the Greyhound moorings where we met up with the rest of the crew, we were off. Danny and Keith Jobling joined by Joe Chatterton went on a northern excursion into the semi-rural stretches of the Bedworth bound Coventry Canal, while Mick Newey ventured eastwards and alone to the Oxford Canal and one of my regular swims, Grassy Bend. All the rest of us pitched up in and around the mouth of Exhall Marina.

For all, but especially those up from the The Smoke, I really hoped that the fishing would be the kind that happens often enough here — you know, run after run after run.  But it seemed clear it wasn't going to happen that way. For an agonising half-hour — nothing. Then (thank the Lord!) Brian's float was off, he struck, and was attached to the thrash and flurry of a respectable zander. Phew! 

Next cast back to the very same spot of water he had a fingerling too. But no one else got a bite either side so after an hour or so we all moved along. Passing the four others along on the way, Danny had had three small ones by way of his live worm drop shot method, Mick had lost a fish on the Oxford Canal before moving back to the Coventry, Joe had yet to get a bite, ditto Keith. Biteless likewise, I was bound for one of my recent discoveries, just to see if on such a tough day it would throw me another bone...

Anglers to the left of me. Richard and Brian

I've written once before about this particular bush. In the meantime I've fished it again and with result. One bait cast into just a square yard of water beneath it, the second cast here, there, and everywhere nearby, the first has scored over and over again while the second has gone utterly ignored except for a few odd dibs and dobs that never developed into proper runs. Also, the stamp caught has been encouragingly high with every fish between three and four pounds set against a general canal average of two to two and a half pounds. But today I fished just the one rod. There were plenty enough others fishing nearby to ascertain if this entire area was indeed a hotspot or just one remarkable yard of it. 

Anglers to the right.  Norm beside me, James chatting with Mick in the background

The bait was put out and within two minutes the float was vanishing under cover. Fish on! Not a bad one either. Everyone including myself thought it a five pounder but it weren't. Dead on four pounds. Zander — deceptive creatures with more air in them than you'd think. 

The bait is already back in the magic square and I'm watching the float hoping for a brace shot!

Norm just to my right hand side was casting his bait no further than a few yards from mine but was getting strange bites. I have never had such bites myself — and yet he was using one of my rigs so our set ups were identical. The float was burying slowly but not running as it should. Then Brian had a bite under the near bank that was a most curious one too. Neither hooked up. We suspected crayfish and when Brian slowly lifted his rig on the next bite, sure enough there was a Reggie hanging on.

One  caught last year...

Apart from these unwelcome guests, no one either side had even a touch from zander, which was disappointing because I really wanted Norm to catch his first ever and James to break his Coventry Canal duck too. When night fell we returned to the vicinity of the pub where Richard had a zed from beneath the footbridge and we met with Martin Roberts (who is in no conceivable way brother to Brian!) out for a social.

The fishing didn't last long after that and so it was off to the pub where the beer flowed mostly into my thirty gob being birthday boy, n'all.

My heartfelt thanks to those who attended and I do hope you really enjoyed yourself. I certainly did, and that's because of you and your willingness to leave Sunday lunch behind, come fish alongside me, and lay no blame for the lack of bites or the bloody signals...

Cheers,

Jeff