Yearly Itch.

Me and the lower Itchen fishery are by now old friends. Frankly I know this bit of the Itchen better than I know many parts of my local river Avon and I now when I go find myself looking for really different targets. Initially when I first made this pilgrimage with Good old Keith 'jobbers' Jobling and old Jeff 'man' Hatt all those years ago my target fish was out and out grayling as prior to that I had only caught one. A few hundred down the line and unless they're big I ain't bothered and so I find myself more focused on trying to catch fish like dace or that giant gudgeon that haunts my dreams. Thus after an easy journey south with Mick Newey in the driving seat, I ventured off onto the feeder streams searching for dace whilst Mick went off to plunder the main river.

From the off it was obvious the grayling were for once not having it. As an example my personal best catch for the first hour on the Lower Itchen fishery was over thirty grayling, whereas on this trip I landed merely two grayling in the first hour. I fished just about every decent run over the first four hours of the day with little more to show for my efforts than a small grayling, a better fish and a chub that got away after it dived deep into a bed of rushes and I was unable to extract it.

With no luck on the feeder stream I slipped back on the main beat to check out a few holding spots where I'd spotted dace before. With dull skies overhead even my brilliant Fortis polaroids were struggling to help me pick out any fish in the clear shallow water so I concluded to trust fate and after feeding maggots for a while began trotting the runs quickly as the speed of the water seemed faster than ever. Two or three trots down the run something powerful sank my float as it raced amongst the flowing weeds beds and now I was stood atop a croy with my fifteen foot float rod hooped right over as fish used the flow, to its advantage. After the culprit ripped the swim apart and I faffed around trying to haul it up the flow Mick helpfully stepped in downstream to bundle a chunky brown trout into the net below me.

After that initial one, the trout flood gates seemed to open and in every swim I cast into the first thing the find my hook bait was another trout. The little buggers were ruining every swim I fished and on several occasions I saw grayling scattering from all the fuss. Not that it mattered because we practically had the beat to ourselves and through the morning we worked down following the twists and turns of the river fishing any likely looking swims.

One of my highlights of the trip had to be whilst playing a trout in a deep bend swim. The fish was making a bit of monkey of me in the pacey water. I repeatedly worked it upstream again and again in the gin clear water until a third party a entered the fray. Out of the depths rose a big old Itchen pike attracted by the battle and it had half a mind to have a pop at the trout on my line and I had half a mind to let it. I think on this occasion curiosity was what drew it near rather than viscous hunger as after thrashing straight past its nose the pike sank back to the depths. Luckily my net seemed a better option than the pikes teeth and the trout soon gave up and freely posed for its picture before being released in the gravelly shallows. 

All to soon the day got away from us and with barely a few hours light left before we had to away back north both myself and Mick opted to dig in with the feeders and see what the static baits could do. On the penultimate swims Mick caught a whopping bream from a deep bend swim. Fishing above him I managed three nibbles and a large snag which snapped me off.

My final swim produced a decent run of below average grayling for me but not the roach or chub I was hoping for. Mick however had disappeared and it took me a while to locate him fishing below the weir at the bottom of the fishery. I have to say what he angled after would have made any anglers eyes bulge clean out their heads. He had located a shoal of roach tight too his own bank which he pointed out to me in the half light. What I saw was wondrous...the smallest fish were pound plus fish and the biggest was easily over two and here they were just feet away holding off the flow no bother by a thing. I hung round as Mick tried his best to catch one of those amazing roach but sadly it was not to be as they were never going to feed. Once again even though I have become very blase about the Lower Itchen fishery it has pulled something amazing out of the bag and of course I will be back again.

Unexplored areas and canal trolling

My young son BB and his growing teeth have no respect for my fishing plans as yet. I was all keen to get out for a decent session after a few poorly executed trips prior to this. The day before I had diligently readied my kit for an early start and went to bed anticipating going to a far off spot that has form for better than average fish. Needless to say after spending most of the night taking it in turns getting up to settle our disturbed little one, both me and JB looked much as we did on the way back from Glastonbury festival in ninety seven, only without having any of the fun.

By the time I had grabbed enough unbroken sleep and done the decent thing and got the now radiant little munchkin up, dressed and fed there seemed little point travelling half way across the county to find the dog walkers had taken all the parking spots at the initial venue. So still half dazed I settled to instead go and check out a bit of the Grand union canal I haven't fished before above Hatton locks.

It's weird but I've done a fair bit of zander fishing on the locks themselves and below them, but have never once been above them. I must have crossed the bridge to go to Hatton country world a hundred times and it's always looked nice. A few friends have fished it and said it's not bad up there, but for some reason I've not yet been. So this seemed a perfect opportunity for a bit of an explore.

Even though I am not big on paying to park when fishing, the paltry £1.20 is a bargain and I happily left my car there whilst I tabbed off up the lock flight. It was on my way up that I came across something I've never seen before first hand. Someone had left  the upper gate of one of the locks open and with the ubiquitous leak the lower gates seem to have, most of the water had leaked from the pound, draining it down to the small pool at the bottom of the picture which was being kept topped up by the leaking gate above. Gravity and a night of flowing water passing over it had carved the soft silt quickly down to a nice gravel run into the open gate at the top of the picture.

I could have spent all day just peering into the drained pound at the various detritus collected and at the topography of the bottom. There must have been a few thousand snails on the marginal shelf alone, never mind on the huge silt bank at the back of the pound. I had my suspicions that the pool at my feet contained any other residents of the pound and tempting as it was to have a poke around in there, I left well alone knowing full and well how stressed any occupants of the little left water would be.

Once I actually got fishing I quickly caught a couple of small zander casting small salt and pepper zander shads around above the first lock in the brown tinted clear water.

Once a local barge enthusiast came reversing into the area I was fishing a little too enthusiastically, I decided it was time to get off and explore the new to me tow path.

Canal trolling

Features play an important part in all types of fishing and personally I have always tried to find something that might attract predators and me alike when I am fishing for them. The unseen underwater features are obviously problematic to locate, but the obvious ones like good far bank cover or big reed beds are always the first targets on new waters and a good starting place. 

These tempting target spots can sometimes be spaced out and the travelling between them has always felt a little of a waste of fishing time to me. So I recently concluded to do a bit of canal trolling as I was travelling down the tow path between spots. When I was a kid we used to do this to little avail using shiny silver spinners, now though having a few years and a lot more experience under my belt I realize that I was doing it all wrong. 

As a kid I naively thought a pike would chase any lure fished in the canal. Now I know that sometimes you have to drag it right across their noses in many cases to provoke a response. So after a bit of fine tuning and figuring how much line to pay out I have begun trolling baits along the marginal shelf as I walk between spots. This enables me to fish whilst travelling and why not, as a lot of fish lie up on the nearside shelf and I reckon I might find a few nice surprises by using this time a bit better.

It was as I passed under a bridge and past a row of barges on the far bank that my rod which was sticking out over the canal bent round. Either I'd found another branch lingering on the shelf or something had grabbed the white shad as it passed by. It turned out to be the latter as the line shot out into the centre trench. This wasn't a perch or even a zander, this was something much bigger and rarer than those spiky finned culprits.

My light lure rod was bent alarmingly over as the yellow braided line cut across the surface towards the boats. It had to be a pike which had snatched the trolled lure as it went by, as not much else bar a carp would pull my string this hard. Praying my fluro leader would hold, I followed the fish off up the canal hoping it wouldn't bite me off. I must have played it for five minutes before I caught a glimpse of a dull spotted tail in the boil in the centre of the canal. It wasn't a humongous pike but it certainly looked like it could be around ten pounds. I really thought I was getting the better of the fish and was fumbling to open up my folded net went the fish came up and turned back in a massive boil and sent my lure flying through the air.

That one experience with a decent canal pike has proved my theory valid enough to certainly continue this practice whenever I find myself travelling between fishing features on the canal, and given the stature of this validating fish I feel I might well have to give some shallow running plugs a run out along with a wire trace just in case.

Rehabilitation sessions.

It always amazes me how quickly the countryside colours change in the warmer months. Through winter it always looks similar and even in differing light the fields and such are really just different shades of the same faded yellows and brown for months on end. In the summer though you can turn your back and look again to see the same vista looking totally anew.

In two weeks the land that surrounded the vole city stretch of the Oxford canal was nothing more than the new fresh green summer green. Now though as I stumbled along the bank, the waterway was flanked by meadows raging with so many butter cups that the horses walking among them looked like characters from a Doctor Zeus cartoon.

If that wasn't enough, the field opposite had turned from Warwickshire mud red with a hint of green into the dream scene from Ridley Scott's Gladiator. I half expected to see Russell Crowe walking wistfully amongst it fingling the wheat sheaves as he went.

Really I wanted to have returned before now, but nine days ago whilst putting out the bin I twisted in a odd way and something in my back went pop. Ever since then I have been delicately trying to rehabilitate myself from feeling like my top and bottom half of my body were not attached correctly to being able to hobble more than thirty feet in one go.

With only minimal recovery time off work and one very sedate session where I fished within eye shot of the bridge where my car was parked in a stance not that dissimilar to someone who had had an accident in their underpants, I now felt ready to return again. 

We all take walking for granted if you ask me and walking on an uneven tow-path with any element of a bad back basically wheedles out any weakness in your body, trust me. The previously mentioned session I barely got anywhere, and even with four more days of recovery I had only walked a very short way before my altered gate began to tell on my right hip.

Trying to forget any discomfort, I went about casting methodically along the reed lined bank trying to locate any predators lurking along the camouflaging reeds. I have to admit that I was under the impression that with the summers arrival the predatory fish would become vicious weapons of mass consumption and that they would be crawling up my line. The truth I am finding is not quite what I thought it would be! In fact although I do believe the fish are more aggressive, they firstly have more actual prey to become preoccupied with and secondly seem to be quite spread out on the canals. All of which adds up to summer lure fishing on the canal possibly being harder than winter fishing as far see at the moment. Maybe it will get easier as the time passes or maybe it's a case of tuning in to summer feeding fishes habits. 

Whatever the reason for the current state of the fishing I was in no doubt after an hour of casting that I wasn't doing something right, so quickly tied up a drop shot rig and began dobbing the ever reliable Wave tikki monkey along the near side margin and finally got a result by way of a chunky hard fighting perch. 

With the dusk approaching I left vole city and headed down to the spot where I had hobbled to a few days earlier. Although on that occasion I had fallen foul of the blank I did see at least three attacks on what looked like small roach that were taking something of the surface. I knew there were predators present and I hoped that arriving just before the witching hour would let me get the best of the area.

It took some time to come good, but in the furious hour after the sun sank beyond the horizon the small zander of which all the canals seem rife with came out to play. There seemed to be a shoal marauding around the area as every one of the four micro zander I landed and the one I lost were all within an inch of each other in length. The only lure that seemed to interest them was a three inch AGM black curly tail grub, which I suspect was showing up quite well against the clear sky as I bounced it across the bottom. Another hard fighting perch took a fancy to the grub just as I was about lift the lure to cast again and really gave me some stick on the light gear.

It was great to get out on the bank again and somewhere in the melee of action at dusk I actually for the first time in a while forgot about my niggling back. Now I am somewhere near full fitness I need to get back on it, as I have few venues I want to visit before the season opens again and my quickly dwindling time becomes even more stretched.

Possibly a world first.

I have this feeling that I could settle down very well and be quite happy by the sea. I even suspect I could give in to the salt water and forget about freshwater fishing. Hence I was eager to get quickly back onto the canals rather than mooning around wishing I was still by the sea. Less than twenty four hours after being back as far away from the sea as you can get, I was walking the tow path of the Coventry wondering which of its many moods it might be in on this occasion.

In truth, with it being a bank holiday weekend once again the water was pretty much the same colour of Willy Wonkers chocolate river from the 1971 Gene Wilder film. I got my hopes up that it would fish well after an early hit from a small zander, but three hours later I was fish free and desperate. I could attribute the poor show to anything from water clarity to copious boat traffic, but I had this niggling thought that it was just one of those off days when the Coventry is as moody as a common garden teenager.

As the Coventry has a habit of being a bit like this I'd had the forethought to bring along a tub of lob worms I had been nursing for a few weeks. Some days fake bait or the way I am fishing fake bait just fails to do the job. Wiggling the worm on a drop shot rig though seems to be able to conjure up the goods when all else fails. I suspect that even though it maybe an unnatural movement the worm is doing, the natural sight of it combined with any scents released seems most of the time to get one over on even the wariest predators.

So there I found myself, working a drop shot rigged worm along the margins of the Coventry canal in a figure of eight motion as I covered the entire distance right back to the car at a snail's pace. I'd only walked ten or so feet when I got a pluck, probably from a small perch. Then after covering the water again I got hit again and this time I stuck into the fish sending it firing off like a bullet. It wasn't big and after an initial surge it turned round and came right in close. A flash of silver and it was a zander, until it gave up and came in where it quickly turned into a skimmer. This wouldn't have been the first skimmer I'd had on the drop shot, but it was the first silver bream I 'd had on it! Over sized eye, peachy fins and bigger scales than a skimmer. It was definitely a silver bream and quite possibly a world first on the drop shot rig to boot.

Less than half a day later after calling it on a dismal return I was on the same canal only in a different county. Turned out a night of no boats had increased the visibility from a few inches to a mere half a foot, but that was enough to get the zander on the move and hunting. Quite quickly I located a shoal of fish holding just inside the far margin shelf against some new reed shoots and the highly visible cannibal shad went about doing what it does best and luring them into attacking mode.

They weren't big, but as always what they lacked in size they made up in number. There were loads of vicious little zander holding all along the cover ready to attack. Although the sport I had on this occasion and many others is both enjoyable and rewarding, the small matter of average size has crept into my head. In short, where the hell are all the bigger fish hiding? Earlier in the year I had a few nice sized fish, but of late they don't seem to be showing at all. Whether it's just a natural bloom in the little ones or that the bigger fish aren't interested in going after the lure I am not sure. What I do know is every canal I seem to go to lately is riddled with zander from six ounces to two pounds.

I know it bodes really well for the future as the recruitment in the last few year classes of zander has been phenomenal from what I have seen. Barring any disasters the Midlands canal network could well see a golden age in zander fishing in five years time. For now though I think I either need to increase the size of lure I am fishing to try and deter some of the smaller or fish or possibly try to fish off the edge of such concentrations to try and locate any big old girls hunting the little ones. For now though I think looking to some old haunts that have in the past thrown up some great fish might be a suitable solution for me. If some of those fish have survived they could be very serious zander by now.

Zander heaven and zander hell.

The Oxford canal has perplexed me for a very long time now. The reason being is its general lack of ability to live up to its potential by way of predator sport; when compared with the other local canals which I also fish it comes dead last behind the overrated Ashby, the moody Coventry and the overachieving Grand Union.

I have been unable to come up with a viable theory, never mind reason why it fishes so badly. As canals go it has all the right features in all the right places for it to have some good predator sport somewhere along the tow path. How somewhere that looks so good can fish so badly is beyond me and worst of all is it's actually the most convenient canal geographically for me.

I once again decided to give the Oxford another look. Even though that I suspected it would be as bad as ever I still committed to actually fish not just once, but three times in succession. Over the three visits I must have walked miles and miles of prime looking canal whilst diligently fishing all kinds of areas. Sadly, as per normal, it was normal service and after some twenty five hours of searching all I had to show for my efforts was an unconnected hit, a scrawny zander which got off at the net and three crayfish on the deads.

Really I don't want to leave it at this, but right now the only thing I can possibly think to do is maybe return in the summer or the autumn to see if possibly it's a seasonal canal. Aside from that I needed to recharge my confidence so headed back to the Coventry for my latest session, to a section I discovered a while ago that seems to be very reliable early in the morning when the sediment has had a night to settle and the water is a bit clearer.

In this clearer water the lure that always seems to work for me is the savage gear clown cannibal shad. It shows up really well in visibility of around two feet and it has so much movement in the tail that I can feel the lure vibrating all the way up the braid and through the rod. Once again it worked a treat and three casts in a small zander could not resist grabbing it.

I was over the moon to get into the fish so quickly, as not only was I out to build my confidence back up, but also to put my new rod to the test. Since beginning to do a lot of lure fishing I have quickly figured out what I want from a rod. Finding that rod has been a real test of patience though. I must have actually held in my hands some thirty different rods from just about every manufacturer making them. What I was actually looking for was a lightweight rod that would yield under pressure but still have a relatively fast action. The reason I was after this holy grail of a rod was mainly to do with zander. Perch and pike I have concluded just smash lures as it's generally a case that they either want them or not. Zander though are buggers for chasing, nipping and hitting in various different ways. It was because I felt that I wasn't converting enough hits from zander into fish landed that I felt I needed a rod that would not only transfer any information of the hit back to me, but could also drive home the hook on these renowned hard-to-hook fish.

Eventually after travelling quite a lot and waggling a lot of rods and disregarding some very highly commended rods, Dave from http://www.specimenfishing-uk.com/ contacted me to inform me he had something I might be interested in. The next day I went over and after only a moment holding the Sonik Light tec 1-8gram spinning rod I was sold. Teamed up with a 1000 size reel it felt perfect and it was just unfortunate that my first few outings with it were on an underperforming venue. Now though I was on the right canal, the zeds were on the hunt and it was the perfect place to see what this rod could do. 

As I said before the fish were on the hunt in a big way, and straight from the off the cannibal shad was working. Every five casts I seemed to get some interest and after an hour I had eight fish, although there seemed only to be small schoolies of between a few ounces to two and half pounds around. Even though they were small, most were in great condition and very aggressive. 

With me catching so many fish it was only a matter of time before something odd turned up. After the bites dried up in one spot I had just moved up the canal to fish the next. My lure hadn't even hit bottom before something grabbed it and sent a sharp tug back up the line. I struck and the fish shot off. It was a normal spirited zander-like fight until the fish rolled and it almost looked black for a moment. At first I wondered if it was something different but then it surfaced again and I saw it was definitely a zander, though it was a bit weird looking. On the bank it soon became apparent that the reason it looked strange was because it had a blue hue all along its underside. Around the mouth it was just a hint of blue but along the body it darkened until right at the tail it was almost navy blue. Honestly I have never seen a zander like it before! I have seen them from that pale white colour they get in muddy water right through dark green, but never blue. 

It's not like it was to do with the area as not long after I caught this one which was green and pale white, and that came on literally the same spot.

You can see it looked to have almost normal colouring on the top, but that underside and fins were definitely blue. Although it's not easy to see, the fins were really accentuated by the blue tint and white edges.

Maybe the strange colouration of this fish was something to do with its environment, but surely I would have seen the same thing in other fish. I am thinking that it's more likely either just a genetic anomaly or maybe an infection. I have seen tench with a red speckling that's caused by a bacterial infection. Either way it wasn't making any difference to the fish as it was in good condition, very aggressive a fought like stink.

The sport continued right through the morning and by the time I seemed to have exhausted the area I was fishing I had landed eighteen small zander and lost three at the net, add to that the numerous hits and the two small perch that got in on the action and all in all I had a great morning. I don't really think there is any need to babble on about the new rod. Literally it felt comfortable using it, I wasn't tired after casting it for six hours none stop and the number of zander I caught alone is testament to how good it is. In fact I can't wait to take out after big perch and small pike in the future as I know it will be just as good playing them as it was with the zander.