Let the predators flow.

I am not a massive fan of catch up blogs, largely because I tend to forget the ins and out of sessions if I don't write them up quick enough, but this catch up blog I feel is a necessity to get me back into the swing of things and to fill in what I've been up whilst I've been busy over the last few weeks, even if it is a little abbreviated  in places.

A while back and I mean a good while back, I fancied a spot of lure fishing on the Avon to try a root out a few more of the relatively ignored zander on the deep wooded section of one of my club books.

After a visit to the local lure purveyor, Dave, at Specimen Fishing UK I was tooled up with some nice new rubber which I suspected might incline those much neglected predators to attack.

The zander on this occasion were not exactly crawling up the lines, but the jack pike were more than obliging to shoot out of the bank-side cover and attack the lures as they rose out of the depths and tear the living hell out of them.

I did however manage to scratch one small, if rather sorry looking zedlet in the morning, which took a liking to my Berkley Havoc beat shad which I was bouncing along the bottom. Judgment is out on what happened to that little fellows fin. Personally I reckon it had a lucky escape in its youth.

Apart from that little warrior the rest of that session was just lots of casting, lost lures and tiny stripling pike, which the entire stretch seems to be infested with.

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Next outing I had myself a little wasping practice for the CRT international lure challenge I was meant to be attending a few weeks later on the Gloucester and Sharpness ship canal. Sadly I ultimately couldn't make the event due to other commitments, but the wasp fishing was certainly an interesting distraction. I have never actually measured the fish I catch as is the norm in these competitions. Happily though I was pleased that in a little over four hours I put together over two meters of small perch, or wasps as they are called in light lure fishing circles, along with a few micro zeds all by working a super light drop shot rig along the nearside bank.

One interesting thing I did discover by doing this was that not all areas of the canal are equal. By that I mean that the fish populations seemed to be grouped tightly in areas. After working a good mile or so of tow path it was plainly obvious that there were definitely hot spots where multiple fish were caught and in between these hotspots were large swathes of canal seemingly devoid of these little fish. Certainly I reckon I might incorporate this method of locating fish into my zander fishing in the off season, with the theory that the bigger predators might well be near these hot spots.

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Earlier on in the year I put together a pair of rods and reels to target the roach on maggot feeders at Napton and after holding off as long as I could for the colder weather to arrive, I finally got out with my new roach outfits to have a go for a big old slab of silver.

Seemingly I didn't wait long enough though, as in this unseasonably warm weather we are experiencing I caught nothing but small tench which were hell bent on feeding up for their long dormant period over the winter. A few more weeks and a couple of frosts and I will give this endeavor another run out as I am sure some special silvers will be on offer once the temperatures drop

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Although not fishing related, somewhere during this very busy period in between work and fishing sessions I even managed to take the Doctor to comic con!

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My next opportunity to get out found me once again wandering the banks of Napton reservoir. This time I was out with the surface lures for a spot of excitement with the pike. Weirdly the area where I expected most of the attacks to come from was out of action due to the level of the water being two feet down on normal levels and there being no water above the dense weed to fish. But after working most of the weedy large half of the venue I did land three tiny pike and one better very dark fish, along with numerous pant wetting follows that came to nothing.

After putting the surface lures away I grabbed a dropshot rod from the car and embarked on a second session of the day. Throughout the afternoon I'd been wondering why I hadn't had any follows from any perch, in fact I hadn't seen hide nor hair of a stripy. I soon discovered on my first put in that the perch were shoaled very tightly next to any kind of cover. My first and only spot on the concrete pumping station on the small lake was rife with perch at all depths. Literally as the small chartreuse crappy thumper lure I chose to use dropped quickly to the bottom I could feel the fish grabbing at it. The two hours leading into dusk were some of the most insane fishing I have had fishing light lures full stop. Averaging around six ounces the perch came one after another constantly until I got to the point where I was looking at the time thinking I should have been away long ago.

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Finally I visited the quiet, much ignored section of the Warks Avon again in search of zander. Myself and Mick off of Piscatorial Quagswagging have both had some surprising results over the warmer months catching zander in even the clearest water in this super deep section. Literally I've had a zander every time I have lure fished it. The question I found myself asking though was; are those zeds that are taking the lures just laying up on the bottom in that deep water and being spurred into action by the lures passing by or are they actively moving around hunting? To answer this question I figured a session fishing ledgered deads would clear up the matter somewhat.

The zander captures for my part have all come in very specific section and it wasn't hard to figure this the best place to start. With a relatively mobile approach I began towards the bottom of the target area. Mick was also fishing the same bit of river with the lures and I intended to keep in contact with him in case he located a zander before me.

Early on I got a run in the first swim which to both me and Mick who was present at the time seemed like a zander run. But even after letting the fish run and holding off the strike for far longer than I liked I didn't connect with the fish. I held out for a while in that swim before itchy feet had me moving off to a swim in the centre of the target area.

This swim produced nothing for ages until just before I was about to leave when a pike picked up one of the dead roach baits and screamed off in a way distinctly different from the first run.

I actually moved immediately after this fish was released to my final swim at the top of the target area. I was a bit reluctant to fish this swim as it just seemed a bit lifeless to me whereas the other two swims were buzzing with bait fish. I sat it out though and about half an hour before I had to away the downstream rod bleeped into life with another tentative run. Again though giving the culprit time enough to engulf the bait proved fruitless as my strike came to nothing.

Really I don't want to pass judgment with this single dead bait session as evidence, but honestly I think I am right in saying that lure fishing for these zander seems to get them interested even if they're just dormant on the bottom and the dead baits are probably best saved until the river is coloured and the zander are actively hunting. The reason I say this is that even if those couple of slow twitchy runs were off zander they obviously weren't being aggressive enough to actually get the bait in their mouths. So it seems like barbel fishing on the Avon, fishing for these zander is just a case of doing it when the conditions are optimal and at least I have a good idea where they will be.