The fishing gods giveth and the computer gods taketh away.

As I walked down the deserted tow path it seemed that the wind had finally dropped a bit and all the remaining wind caused was a repetitive ripple that coursed along the canal. I thought to myself maybe this was my break for the day and I wouldn't be fighting against the wind all afternoon. By the time I arrived at the spot where I would begin casting and work my way back from, the wind had totally died and with it the ripple I'd followed along the canal.

I unhooked the brand new pumpkin paddler grub that was mounted on a three gram size four jig from the keeper ring of my rod, before pulling at my braided line to check the clutch was set. Then with a single-handed cast I fired the lure down the canal aiming for somewhere centre of the trench. Not long after my finger released the line the wind once again gusted from behind me. This wasn't ever going to be problem for the little lure as the following wind would only ever add to its already high velocity, when it made water though, that's when the problem occurred. Having not checked the line the moment the lure stopped I caused the baby hair thin yellow braid to billow out into a massive bow in the wind instantly. It was then I knew it really wasn't going to go well chucking lures around on this occasion...

The problem with fishing super light lures in the wind is that as I have just described the light braid really gets tugged around. If wind knots in mono weren't annoying enough, try getting them in expensive braid where if you snap the line untangling it can cost pounds instead of pennies. Then there's the retrieve. The whole point of what I was trying to achieve was finesse and control. When I am trying to pull the little lure up off the bottom by six inches before it drops enticingly my presentation gets ruined by the wind bowing out the line adding god only what to the rise and possibly even slowing the fall. But most of all it takes away your confidence that your'e fishing effectively and it's not taken me long to figure that this lure game is all about repetitive confidence.

It didn't take me long trying to cast around in the wind to figure out that if I wanted any chance of presenting the lure well on this occasion I would have to keep it on a tight leash and just target the margins. With a little over mile of open windswept canal between me and the car I began working the lure slowly along the marginal shelf, and what do you know it worked.

I must have covered less than fifty feet and hung up twice on snags before I got a proper blasting hit. Something had shot out from a tiny patch of cover, hit my lure and just surged out into the canal. Judging by the power of the fish I was sure a good zander would soon surface shaking its open mouth in anger. When it did eventually surface I don't mind admitting I nearly crapped myself when I saw it was a massive perch. After a serious fight with my stubborn folding net I eventually bundled it into the now open net and took a moment to catch my breath as I knew this certainly a canal and lure PB perch. After few attempts I managed to get a satisfactory trophy shot of the fat old girl before I released her back a ways down the canal.

The fishing gods must have seen my sheer determination to carry on and had rewarded me, but! the computer gods would soon take some back. You see I was being a little less than patient with my work computer booting up and in my haste didn't give it the necessary fifteen minutes it seems to take for it to settle down after coming on. Thinking I could get my pictures uploaded from my memory card I immediately went for the money shot. Why I didn't just copy rather than move the picture I don't know, but somewhere after clicking OK there was long pause before a warning box flickered up and too became inanimate and then everything became unresponsive. A manual shut down, a reboot, a reconfiguring scan later and my money shot was nothing more than a corrupted useless file. So with gritted teeth this is the only trophy shot of my new canal PB perch. 

Not knowing what would later befall my trophy photo I was cloud nine on the bank. My confidence was high and after catching such a great fish so early on in the session all I could think about was how big they could grow if I'd just had such a monster first shot. With my net back on my back I quickly worked the area just in case and then moved off as before with the now not so new looking grub actively searching the shelf. The stupid grin hadn't worn from my face before my rod juddered over. This fish was hardly even a meal for the first but it was just as important. If the first one was possibly a spot of luck the second smaller fish proved I was doing something right and it wasn't all luck. Considering it was even a tenth the size of the first fish this hungry little predator certainly hit my paddler grub hard.

The method of just covering what canal I could well using the little paddler grub seemed to be working, so I had little reason to change what I was doing and it was just a case of covering ground before another fish would come along. Twenty feet later an I was into another significant perch, which just like the first came steaming after my lure. Not only was I fishing a short line but I was playing them on one as well, as the whole battle went down within quite small area before a second beast of a perch went in the net.

This one was bristling angry which made for a very good picture.  It was a bit smaller than the first but exactly the same shape and never noticed until I got the picture up on the computer but it didn't have any stripes.

After this one though, I couldn't find any more further along the canal. It might sound greedy but I had it in my head that here had to be other big perch around so I doubled back and recovered all the ground I had already been over. Unfortunately I didn't land any, but I did at least make contact with what I am sure was one more big perch.

This little foray proves to me you never exactly what lurks beneath the surface of any canal, because as far as I know this stretch hasn't really had a reputation for throwing up big perch in the past. Now though I know they are here and given what I think are some critical factors I reckon they have a good chance of growing even bigger.

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.

A new mobile approach.

Prior to the weekend I spent an inordinately large amount of time trying my best to devise a suitably efficient way to fish using both lures and dead baits. The crux of which has come down to quantity of tackle I want to carry. The reason I want to refine everything is my need to keep as mobile as possible whilst still giving myself options. Having already scaled my general kit down to a backpack, fold up landing net which hooks onto the aforementioned backpack, rods remained the only decision. I was always going to take my super light finesse outfit as it's the method I most wanted to concentrate on. The dead bait rod though was something I needed to review. 

I have for the longest time favoured barbel rods of either one and a quarter or one and three quarter pound test curve for my zander fishing and to save having to swap between the two I have always leaned to the heavier end of that spectrum just in case. But lately having seen how well modern short lure rods perform I've been thinking the barbel rods needed reassessing and that after doing so that they wouldn't make the cut for my updated canal kit. Hence I came up with the idea to scale down my zander rigs so as I could fish them on a shorter and lighter general purpose lure rod. This way not only could I use the outfit to fish a small dead bait on a float, but should I want to remove that rig and tie on a trace to fish larger lures I would have that option at my disposal.

With a two week solid block of work in the pipe line I was eager to hit the tow path as soon as possible to try out this new system. Now I should make it clear that given the current weather conditions I knew it was going to be a bit hit and miss in regards to finding unfrozen water and therefore even before I left the house I had the feeling I would be concentrating my efforts on metres of tow path instead of miles of canal.

My first session was a bit of a gamble as I was having to travel with no knowledge of whether the stretch of canal where I was going would be frozen. Luckily for me there was at least some free water when I arrived but it was still thawing, probably reducing the temp of the surrounding water as it did. So undeterred, I picked a starting point and began. In these conditions I knew I was looking to try and find pockets of fish grouped in specific areas and therefore if no indications of interest were forthcoming within half an hour of working and area over I moved on.

The first few spots produced zip, but not long after finding a sheltered area out of the wind where I surmised the sun had been on the water recently, I got a run on my scaled down dead rig which was holding steady just at the bottom of the trench off to my right. The culprit which turned out to be a small zander was very welcome not only to break the blank but as an indicator that other fish might be present.

After returning the micro zed I turned the attentions of my finesse outfit onto the area only to receive a definite snatch as I bounced a small black and chartreuse kopyto shad slowly along the clean bottom. But even after casting the water into a foam I couldn't get anything to really grab the lure. I did go through a few other different soft lures but they to brought no response either. 

Knowing there was fish that might be persuaded to attack in the area I was reluctant to leave and so instead changed angles by moving a short distance to my left. I was watching the dead float catching the tow as I once again retrieving the little kopyto shad. As it came up the nearside shelf it went solid as if I'd found a old branch of something on the bottom, but then it moved off zigzagging the line across the water. This little outfit might seem a little frail a first glance but I've quickly realised that once the sensitive tip bends right round the back bone of the rod kicks in and absorbs all the fight. In this case it was a beautiful thick set perch that had grabbed the little green shad.

I was out the very next day on a totally different canal and the conditions were totally different. As on the previous venue there was still ice which was also thawing, but whereas yesterdays stretch had maybe a foot and a half visibility, this one had mere inches. The water was that ubiquitous winter canal tea cup brown and the lures disappeared almost instantly after entering the water. Last visit though I had quite a bit of success using a small black curly tail grub and I still had confidence it would work again.

For once I was right and in just about every area I fished I would locate a shoal of perch somewhere whilst fan casting around the swim. Even as small as they were its very rewarding casting around and regularly getting miniature thumps and hits from these veracious little hunters. 

Quite happily I moved along the canal all morning fishing half an hour or more in each area until I felt the bites dried up and moved on. Even catching only small perch I was content knowing that sooner or later with the number of fish I was catching that something bigger might turn up. But I could never have predicted what that bigger fish would be.

There was a group of ducks getting a bit frisky a ways up the canal and truthfully I felt their amorous behaviour had probably spoilt the area they were in. Nevertheless I gave it a go and when I arrived they had shoved off. I flicked a slightly larger Hart M minnow on a 2 gram jig head tight under the far bank cover, felt it down onto the bottom and watched the yellow braid fall slack as it hit the mud. Literally I tightened up and jerked the lure up once, twice then a third time before I felt one of the hardest bangs I've ever had on a lure.

Obviously I had hooked something of a much larger size and straight away it was powering around the swim as I stood on the opposite bank desperately trying to steer it away from the snaggy far margin. Having only caught perch so far my first thoughts were of a big perch, or maybe that was just hope. Sense though soon prevailed and my theory changed from perch to zander. The fight though went on far too long for a zander and then the obvious culprit became a pike of possibly some size.

The fish though seemed to not be satisfied with just powering around in the centre of the canal as I would of expected a pike to do. Then all too soon things got a bit dirty as the still unseen fish began charging towards any bit of cover on my own bank. Finally it came to the surface and I spotted a very un-pike like flank roll. Then a few more charges and turns later it surface properly and it's true identity was reviled by a pair big rubbery lips that framed a mouth big enough to throw a golf ball down. I had landed certainly my biggest canal chub and even better I had done it on a finesse lure outfit. 

Lying in the soft grass on my net which it was nearly as long as. Next to my tiny rod and reel, it almost seemed comical  that I landed it on this light gear. 

After a couple of pictures that were hastily taken by a very excited me I slipped it back a good way away from the swim. It was on the way back to the scene of the capture that I remembered years ago I caught a couple of albeit much smaller chub from this stretch fishing worms for perch. I did hazard a few more casts but really I knew that the epic fight had ruined the swim and that any other chub would have done one after the pair of us caused such a commotion. One thing I can say is that I will be going back to this stretch again and again as the year progresses and that I am already concocting some surface lure plans in my head to try and nab one off the top once it's warmed up.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that even thought the dead bait line produced only one fish amongst many I was actually satisfied enough with how it worked out to think that this will for now be how I will be fishing this second rod in conjunction with my new super mobile approach.

All part of the learning curve.

If you will excuse the pun, this light lure fishing has really got its hooks in me. Although I haven't written much over the last few weeks it goes without saying that I have been fishing and mostly what I have been doing is lure fishing. Since I began to concentrate my  efforts on this different aspect I have discovered just how addictive it really is. But I have found myself in the strange position of being what I can only describe as the most experienced beginner possible. You see unlike a total novice I do have a large working knowledge of the target species and an existing ability with a rod. What to do with the said information and skills is another thing though. I don't mind admitting like many I was always under the impression that lure fishing was something that you did in September for pike; all it involved was hoofing a massive lure half way across a lake before reeling it back and a big old toothy pike ate the bugger. Maybe this misconception was why I have had a large collection of very shiny and rather dusty lures in my shed for so many years. 

All this has changed though, the learning process is now in full swing and I can't cram new information into my head quick enough. For a while it was all about the drop shot or walking the worm, but the more I looked into it the more rigs and methods came to light, one of which seemed very attractive to me! Even in the bad old days when I'd have ten casts with a lure before giving up and going back to bait fishing I had some success with jigs here and there. Then when I read about finesse fishing with tiny jigs something clicked. Given my previous success and proclivity towards canal fishing for predators this seemed like a perfect method for me to try. It was also quite convenient that a rod which I had initially bought to use for dropshotting that turned out to not be great for that, was exactly the sort sensitive stick that was required to fish tiny lures. After matching the rod up with a thousand size reel and some hideously expensive braided line, I was off.

I love being excited by a new method and truly I was excited to get out and use this set up, but knowing what I do about fishing in the depths of winter, I was apprehensive of what success I could garner plying lures when the water was on the verge of freezing. Thus it has been a mixed up and haphazard time for my fishing. Reluctant to commit fully I have found myself packing round all kinds of rods and swapping from one to another every five minutes, with mixed success. So a few weeks ago I fished in a normally productive section canal using float, dropshot and finesse set ups. On that day I scratched a few small perch on the float, nobbled two good perch on the dropshot worm and blanked on the finesse. The next week I went to a new stretch of canal which is reported to throw up some mental sized perch and zander. There I again scratched a few on the float fished worm and got nothing on any type of lure related rig. It's the third and most recent trip that has thrown everything I think I know in the air.

The other day I went to a bit of canal where I knew it would not be frozen. I turned out to be mostly right as the area I wanted to fish was free of ice but the entire canal to my right for as far as I could see was frozen over. Now I thought that as the water in this specific spot obviously had a higher in temp than the surrounding water, that the fish would number one, be there and two, be willing to feed. Well as JB has repeatedly said to me "You know what thought did...Laid in bed and shit himself" and this time it seemed well founded as the session was not going well. I did through sheer persistence force out a trio of small stripys using the float before a travelling narrow boat steamed past full tilt and smashed the ice flow to my right into bits. After that the tow picked up and sent the smashed up ice field steadily through my swim making it unfishable.

With no other choice I packed up and headed home, but on the way I remembered another little cheeky area that might be worth a cast on a day like this. By the time I arrived my hands were so cold I could barely remember what feeling felt like in my fingers and that's what inclined me to keep active and fish a lure whilst fishing a dormant dead bait on the far bank. That dead bait did remain dormant the whole time I was fishing but the lure though, that was another thing...

Really and truthfully I believed that it was far too cold for anything to make the effort to eat a free juicy worm, never mind chase and hit a lure. Well I don't mind admitting that was the second time I was wrong that session. The obvious choice was the super light finesse set up, but after half an hour chucking a few different and proven lures around I'd had nothing. Then after changing to a small black grub and flicking down the margin I bounced it back a few times and something hit it and surged out into the centre of the canal. Even small fish put a bend in this rod which makes playing even a four or five ounce fish like this so much fun 

Turns out I had located a pocket of perch prepared to have a go at the little grub, as I received a few more plucks before snagging a second smaller shoal mate. That action didn't last long though and I suspect the shoal spooked off into the trench after a while. What those perch did though was not only save the day but they give me the confidence to keep searching out all over the canal knowing fish were prepared to hit the lures even in this sub zero temperatures.

It was a lot of hassle to keep picking up my gear and keep changing spots as I wasn't really set up for roving, but it turned out to be worth the effort when I hooked a micro zander hardly big enough to fill my hand. Repeating the same cast  again a few more times picked up a second fish closer to a pound which really smashed into the jig just as I lifted it off the bottom.

It was time that ran out on me rather than luck in the end and even though I could have carried on all day I had to leave. I have always found that the walk back to the car and the journey home is the time when I am the most reflective of the days session and on this occasion it was no different. In no uncertain terms I would have never expected lure fishing to out perform bait fishing so much. I was and still am, shocked by this little revelation and this is exactly what I mean when I say I still have a lot to learn about lure fishing. It could just be a one off anomaly but I suspect in truth that's not the case and it was just more a case of tracking down fish. Maybe all those days I've spent freezing my extremities off blanking, sitting on my arse were wasted fishing barren swims when I should have been on the move throwing a few lures around. For now I know I am going to have to start committing to keeping mobile even though I suspect there's a few knock backs in the pipe line. But hey, it's all part of the learning curve and if I want to endeavour to get better at lure fishing,  the blanks are something I will have to take along with hopefully a few successes as I stick with it and keep on casting.