A success or not?

Really I am struggling on whether to label my most recent sessions a success or not. Time and weather conspired to limit my bank time, and with only a fleeting amount of hours fishing in what should have been ideal conditions I can't decide whether what I did was perfectly pure or just a total failure.

I had it in my mind that the river with a deluge of rain would be in good condition to try and target zander on the lure in the slacks around Warwick. In truth upon seeing the water lapping at the wooden platforms when I arrived I felt I might have got this a bit wrong. Still though I persisted and endeavoured to chuck a few dark heavily vibrating soft lures in the eddies behind several fallen trees.

Maybe I might have stood a chance if I hadn't underestimated how heavy a jig head I needed to pull a six inch shad down in a turbulent river. Even the slightest of flow would catch the under weighted rubber lure and send it five feet left or right for every foot it dropped. As an experiment I punched the lure over the flow and literally in twelve feet of water it made it back to my own bank before hitting the bottom.

Luckily the rain and wind saved me from persisting any longer than an hour and a half, because I know if it hadn't I would have stuck it out probably to no avail till God only knows when. Though I still reckon fishing lures for zander on coloured rivers on warm days has some mileage, I do now realise that waiting for the river to start dropping might be the course to take in the future.

Now that outing alone would have easily marked these sessions as a flop, but the night before I snatched an impromptu few hours back on the Oxford canal. This session too returned little by the way of fish, and after losing a small zander not long after hooking it, it too looked to be a pretty shitty out come. That was until dusk fell! Like all anglers I probably stay a bit too long and make far too many last casts when really I should have been driving home.

Somewhere in the falling light, around that point when you lose sight of the orange of a float I was retrieving my ever faithful clown cannibal shad slowly across the trench of the canal using a short lifts followed by long pauses. Not far from my own bank I lowered the lure on a tight line to the bottom and felt a hard thump. Next thing I know I've struck and the rod is bent double.

The fight on my light lure outfit was sporting, with the unseen culprit stripping line from the spool and me retrieving it. The fish made powerful runs, but declined to come thrashing open mouthed to the surface which confirmed this was no zander. Even with hardly any light I spotted a big spiky fin piercing a bit of reflection on the canals surface beyond my net, just before a big perch was engulfed in the nets folds.

This fish was immaculate from nose to tail, and it's with a hint of confidence that I say it is very unlikely that it has ever been caught before, as the stretch of canal I was fishing is really out there, overgrown and the one resident that lives there says he has never seen another angler bar myself fishing thereabouts for many years.

And this is what brings me to my quandary! For whatever effort you might apply, is one possibly never before caught, picture perfect perch around two pounds, enough to make your time a success. Because weirdly I feel right now that this was one of the purest captures I have made in a long time. Saying that, it may have felt different if I hadn't have walked away immediately after the capture due to the lack of light. I dare say I would have greedily thrashed the water to foam to probably catch one a quarter of its size if had had only another half an hour of light.

A perfect moment of good froggy fun.

My nose wrinkled up as I paused on the old bridge at the head of the lake and my inner monologue became an outer one even though no one was in the car to hear it. "Ah shit!"

It is literally amazing the carnage a flock of Canadian geese can cause. The flock of thirty or more which were currently ripping up the lawn beside the little forgotten lake had churned what should have been a clear shallow estate lake into something that resembled a run of the mill commercial pond, with their mindless munching. Still though I would persist as it was a warm late summer afternoon, I practically had the whole pool to myself and the thought of a hot blooded jack pike chasing down my lure was all I could think of.

I'd already walked from under the drooping ancient willow near the bridge all along the lawn and crossed the stagnant feeder stream at the head of the lake. For all my nosing and staring all I had seen was a shoal of ten small roach lipping tit bits that had collected along the dying lily pads at the mouth of the stream. Now I was walking slowly along in the darkness on the old path under the trees behind the island. Two months ago you couldn't even see the water for all lily pads that had sprouted in the shallow water. Now though autumn was only days away and the once tough round green leaves that hid the lake had lost their buoyancy and rotted, half sunk in the turbid water. 

Bar two perplexed looking ducks and a panicky Moorhen, the water behind the island seemed devoid of life until I passed behind a hawthorn tree which sprouted from the edge of the path. Stopping just in the realm of cover I peeped round into the weed. This was perfect two Jack pike floated still as stone, head to tail in a clearing in the half dead pads.

If one pike floating in the weeds was a prospect, I was sure this was a cert. Before I moved back behind the tree my mind ran an inventory of the lures in my back pack. Third box down...top row...in the forth section from the left. That was it, the only thing I had which I could pull through even dying weed without getting snarled up. Sure enough the amphibian equivalent of the eighty's sex doll, the weed free frog lure lay hidden under a small tangled mess of plugs in the exact section I predicted. Not wanting to lose this opportunity I dived straight in grabbing the whole section load of lures as gently as I could and feeling several sharp pricks of trebles as I did. Moments of violent shaking soon loosened the lures and the single frog fell onto the floor. As fake as it was I knew that this was all I had that stood a chance of attracting those torpid pike out of their trance.

Trying not to rush, I threaded the frog onto the clip and set the clever wire weed guard into place. Leaving my bag leaning against the tree, I pushed my net across the floor towards the edge of the lake, without  stepping out from behind the tree I leaned out with the rod. I knew casting such a light lure from high up the bank was a risk, but I also knew any movements could send the pike darting away in an instant.

With a determined flick the less than aerodynamic frog arched through the air, landing a good ten feet past the little pikes. Gently I tightened up on the line lifting it off the surface and began steering the frog on course towards the gap in the weed. Using some gentle lifts of the rod I, in my clumsy way, tried to imitate the movement of a frog as best I could. Three inches at I a time I dragged the frog closer and closer until eventually it rested on a pad at the edge of the clearing.

This was it I took a deep breath and pulled the lure into the kill zone. At first it was all real time slow motion as the smaller of the two fish just tipped forward and sank like a submarine out of sight. For a moment I thought it had all gone bad but then I tugged the frog again and the second jack turned slowly towards it. I pulled again, sure it would strike, but the fish paused as the frog stopped. So I pulled again and the water erupted as the pike attacked.

I'd hardly had chance to strike before my yellow line cut across the shallow water cutting through every lily pad as the pike ran away and I tightened down on it. The fight was never going to be a glorious one and even after we laid waste to a large ecosystem and the pike was in the net, I knew the most satisfying part of this capture was by far the strike.

In all conditions.

I knew the conditions were going to end up a little peaky this past weekend and in all honesty I was actually kind of up for a little challenge. You see I've been pondering the subject of fishing conditions, even more specifically I've been considering canal conditions.

For those normal and non Gongoozlers amongst us the common British canal has one condition, that being the colour of tea with not too much milk added. For those of us who spend more than what is considered a sensible amount of time looking at canal water we know that there is in fact a myriad of different colours and tones. On most weekends a new hue is revealed and I've discovered so many myself that they now just don't seem shocking any more, I just get on with fishing.

In the past and in most facets of fishing I have taken part in, I have always looked for optimum conditions in which to fish, so as I might increase my chance of capturing my target. For example, I would look towards the river to catch a barbel if it was falling and clearing after being in summer flood. But something I've been thinking of late is that to be truly good at one particular area of fishing you have to be able to make it work in the worst conditions. Using the barbel as an example again, I know an angler who shall remain nameless who has the skills to catch barbel in most conditions and this skill is what makes him arguably one of the most accomplished barbel anglers in the country. 

Now if I lay it on the table and say that I would like to become an accomplished lure angler, it would then be obvious for me to say to become an accomplished lure angler I would have to try and evolve my lure fishing to the point where I can catch in all conditions, no matter how bad they are. So after a little round about explanation I am back to where this all began and found myself actually wanting to go out lure fishing, knowing full and well that the water would be in a bad way and I would be freezing.

Saturday was my first foray and as predicted it was a bit changeable. The canal was carrying some heavy colour and the sky was made up of a bright azure background punctuated by various black clouds which quickly passed over occasionally depositing their contents. I even made the effort to dip my hand in the water and try to detect any difference in temperature. Simply put, it felt cold but it did feel of a similar temp to the air, which at around three to four degrees sounded about right and made me realize it was going to be a big ask to try and interest fish to attack lures.

In my first spot I went all in and began by chucking a three and a half inch wave Tiki grub into a known zander holding area. I'd only made a few casts before it began to rain which quickly turned to hail. Somewhere in the first twenty casts I was sure I felt something grab the lure, but continued casts brought nothing. I then changed to my finesse outfit and dropped down to a tiny one inch oil coloured kyopto. This bought no interest either so I began working along the canal margins where I eventually received a right old thump as a nice perch of a pound or more engulfed my lure. Stupidly thinking this was just the start and I was about to get into them I never bothered getting a picture.

True to form I never got another hit from a single perch. I did however find a school of tiny zander held up against the hull of a barge which I plundered four striplings from. The quickly setting sun urged me to go and check out a second zander holding spot further down the canal as the dusk came in. This time I ran the day out bouncing a fox spiky shad through the trench where I was sure they were holding. Reluctant to move on I kept covering the water and not long before my time ran out a got a hit right at the end of the retrieve. Unluckily the hook didn't quite hold and after a few head shakes, what I suspect was an alright zander got free.

That was it for that session, but considering the terrible water conditions and the dreadful weather above the surface I actually think that four zander, one OK perch and few other bits of various action was a general result when everything was against me.

If I thought that bit of canal was in a state the bit I dropped onto the following morning was horrendous. Barely a couple of inches visibility, full of twigs were the BW had trimmed a load of cover back and largely frozen. If I wanted a test, this was it! Where I would fish was largely dictated by where didn't have ice and luckily there was a few bits where it hadn't encroached.

Not long in on the first spot bouncing a little grub around I picked up a small yet rather angry perch and by repeating the cast god knows how many times, I got hit twice more, neither of which stayed on for long. After thrashing the water to foam in the first ice free spot I moved onto the next. I’ve never really fancied this area but today it was forced on me a by the lack of other water to fish, and I am kind of glad it was. After working it over for half an hour I moved into a savage snag filled area. Only a few casts in I was feeling my lure down to the bottom with a tight line when I felt a definite tug and a quick strike drove the hook home on a particularly pissed off zander.

Then in the last section of ice free canal I again struck into another zander as it nipped a hold of my tiny grub. I say nipped because I get the impression that zander seem to follow the lure and then just nip onto its tail. Whether I hook them seems purely down to how much of the lure is in their mouth. Weirdly after zig-zagging about a bit I am sure the fish just let go of the lure as there was no head shaking that proceeded the lure coming flying out of the water.

Only one area remained to try and that was one I knew would be ice free. The only problem was it was on the end of a bend where all the sticks had collected so the area was in fact reduced by two thirds. I did get on hit right in the margin, but a hit was all it was and no fish was forthcoming

Now, I am going to mark these sessions as a resounding success because of the considerable amount of interest I managed to generate on the light lures when the canals were basically a load of rubbish. Saying that I must say that I find it a little concerning how many fish hit/grabbed/nipped my lure and got off compared to how many I actually hooked and landed. I know I could attribute it to fussy feeding, but I do suspect it could be something else that I will have to watch out for over the coming sessions.