Serial Blankers

The last time Martin and I fished together was on a predator seeking trip down the Wark's Avon back in November of last year. It was very interesting. We set up in adjacent swims and cast two baits each floatfishing the deep water of a pool on a bend. Roach topped along the far bank and a carp patrolled under my rod tops. The river was full of visible life and it was clearly going to be a good day. Within no time at all we had indications of fishy interest and soon enough Martin had a pike on the bank followed by a second a little while after. 

My float was behaving very strangely and I was missing strikes to what I believed might be eels and not zander or pike. Sure enough, the snotty culprit who wrecked my trace was banked when I cut down the bait size to half.

A very promising first hour, we thought. But after the eel had slivered back to the water it was as if he'd gone and told all the other fish to sulk because the roach stopped frolicking, the carp vanished, and the floats were unmoved except by the swirling eddy currents. Our spirits began to wane and four hours later when we'd trudged the bank from swim to swim, in search of anything that was interested but found nothing was, we were glum and somewhat bemused so we cut the session short and went home early.

Yesterday we went fishing together again. A new stretch of the River Anker awaited us and a mission for chub that simply could not fail was in the offing.  It looked great. The water colour was spot on. Flow just so. Temperature fine. Everything seemed to be right and so our expectations were sky high. 

Martin chose to fish a smelly cheesepaste bait into a classic chub holt — a large raft of rubbish collected by a far bank willow. I chose bread and fished into the tail of a riffle where fast water lost energy as it filled a large pool. Chub always are in such places wherever you fish on whatever river you care to mention. Like I said, we could not fail...

However, optimism means nothing to fish. Between the two sessions it was as if nothing had changed in the meantime. My God! It was terrible, terrible fishing. I can understand that one might wait a while with cheese paste before a fish has a sniff, but with bread? No. You never have to wait around with bread on the hook, in fact five minutes is far, far too long to wait before recasting. Of all baits it is the one that will always gain the angler bites on all but the very worst days and the fact that my rod top remained ominously static for the first twenty minutes proved beyond doubt that what we had encountered was just that. The very worst of days.

Of course we had to check out other swims, other holts. Perhaps it was that we'd cast into dead spots? Maybe for once, they were not in their expected places? But I couldn't shake the certain knowledge that in the absence of large chub bread will find chublets, roach, dace and gudgeon too. No matter if they're small, they'll be there alright and they'll make enquiries. But it seemed they weren't there at all and the river devoid of all fish because I didn't see that quiver tip quiver once, in fact I didn't even get a line bite and that's just plain wrong. In boredom I put out a dead bait under a float thinking pike might be interested in a slice of roach... 

It was unmoved except by the swirling eddy currents. Our spirits began to wane and four hours later when we'd trudged the bank from swim to swim, in search of anything that was interested but found nothing was, we were glum and somewhat bemused so we cut the session short and went home early.

Oscar ~ August 17th 2012 — December 10th 2014

The very young Oscar

In his super enthusiasm for Longford Park and his love for other dogs he strayed unusually far last night losing sight of myself and his constant companion and mother, Molly. 

In trying to find us he ran across a road dividing two areas of grassland and was hit by a car. When I found him he was still alive but unconscious and in a critical state. I knew he wouldn't survive long but bundling him up I carried him to home where he fought for life in the place of his birth before succumbing to his fatal injuries. He died in my arms.

A young adult, fully grown, he was superbly fit and immensely strong. Energetic, loyal, biddable, dependable and loving, Oscar was almost everything a great dog should be, but he never inherited an ounce of his mother's common sense. On the eve of commencing gun dog training when he would finally have gained good sense of his own, cruelly, he was cut down before achieving the full potential of the prime of his life. A tragic, tragic thing to have to witness and now endure.

Perhaps he'll go to heaven but fear they'll not have the young devil in the house. I'd have him back here right now and for ever more. But, he is gone forever and won't be coming home again.

Good God, I'll miss you, boy.

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

Canal Zander — Nuff Said

You learn something about zander every time you fish for them. Most of the time what you'll learn, and it's a lesson you'll repeat over and over again, is how little you really know! Take the other night, for instance. Danny and myself went out night fishing at a new spot on the Coventry Canal some way out in the sticks. We set up a zander rod each and a quiver tip rod for the chub we'd heard could be caught around those parts. On arrival there was a flotilla of boats moored along the towpath and so we were forced to fish the gap between two sterns. Almost as soon as we cast out both started their engines to charge batteries for the evening's telly sessions. It was noisy, and soon we were enveloped in diesel fumes and so it was doubly unpleasant.

However, Danny's chub rod brought in a really good looking roach x bream hybrid within minutes and then his zander float was off too and the first zed of the night was banked. He was off to a flyer but only when I brought my zander bait from its distant position right into the vibration zone did I get a run.  And then I had another, and another, and another. Then Danny had another as well. So we'd banked five zander so far, I'd lost a very small one, an hour had passed by, but it really looked as if we'd be at it all night long. And then both boaters decided to watch the goggle box, switched off their engines, and it fell silent.

We didn't get another bite between us the rest of the session but at least we could breath and hear each other talk...

When I got home I found I had itchy feet, wasn't sleepy at all, and wanted to get back out just to see if the cessation of feeding was a matter of us catching all members of a pack, imminent changes in weather and barometric pressure, or lack of vibration! I went back out at two in the morning to fish the junction just around the corner from home with a cup of coffee in hand, where I enjoyed washing down a couple of pork pies whilst watching two static floats do nothing at all till the clock struck four when the predicted heavy rain began to fall.

Next day I went out again just to see if daylight would have improved matters...

Nothing doing in my 'barometer swim' where there's always fish present doing away with the doubt that I'm not on fish in the first place. Second swim used to be a banker but it seems it isn't these days. I did enjoy the very rare instance of a pike though. Thinking my line was too near a submerged snag, I moved it, and he snatched up the bait.

But rare? Pike?

I've lost count of pike the local zed anglers have not caught. They are about, but about as uncommon as the proverbial. You'll get one in every hundred zander. Oddly enough, Danny had had one just the other day. Now I'd had another. And, I'm just hearing first reports of a 25 pounder caught within peddling distance — a sixteen-pounder viewed through the distorting lens provided by lager and lack of a spring balance, most likely...

But you never know!

Because this very long canal pound certainly does contain well documented and accurately weighed pike above thirty pounds and probably a few exceeding forty I tend to err on the side of caution about the veracity of stated weights but there's no smoke without fire and locations are always accurate enough so I will follow such rumours up because when large pike are ever found, they're likely to be found lurking around the perimeter bounds of large shoals of large bream and there'll be more than one present.

Juggling a 'five pounder'.  A lively and slippery bugger this! 

On the subject of subjective weight estimates. I moved out into the countryside to the bream shoal in question (about forty strong. I saw them in January 2011 swimming just an inch below thawing ice) where I had my only zander of the day. It wasn't weighed but was a mid two-pounder, maybe scraping three-quarters. Catching so many in this size bracket I can weight them by eye and be only ounces out. A couple of local boaters who live on the cut the whole year round passed by as I netted the fish and proclaimed it a 'good un' and 'easily a five!'

Nuff said.

A couple of lads fishing four rods between them had two zander that day between 9am and 5pm. That's not so good for such a long session but given my own results, I suppose OK on the day. They reported losing way too many over the last few sessions, though. I enquired about their hooks and sure enough they had been using trebles. I recommended them Danny's hook choice because they wouldn't be able to get hold of mine and it works every bit as well.

Thankfully, the Gamakatsu 'wide gap' pattern seems to be back on course with every run hooked cleanly, and only one fish lost out of seven since that weird session by the bush a fortnight ago. I'm going to trial circle hooks next. I don't actually expect them to work well for zander and for specific reasons to do with gapes and jaw bone peculiarities, but we'll see.