Fun in the sun.

I couldn't get out of the car quick enough and into the fresh air. My whole body was tingling and I could feel my internal temperature maxing out. The moment the hand brake was on I pushed the door open and the cool outside washed over me. Like a child trying to throw off a coat, my hands were stuck into the cuffs of my winter coat which only added to my panic. The coat finally gone I instantly bent over retching as my stomach turned. The convulsions only last seconds and soon I was upright sucking cold air through my nose. My eyes were watering as was my mouth, but the worst of it was over and I could feel myself cooling and my mind cleared enough for me to now think, what the hell was that all about.

That was not a good way to start a session, but it's not the first to begin like this lately. A little while ago back I had the very same sensation after driving a large proportion of the A46 in fog. On that occasion I was sure I was travel sick due to my eyes and my brain not marrying up over the strange focal range. This occasion too I think could be attributed to travel sickness as the entire twenty minutes driving prior to me parking I was travelling at speed with nothing but the back of a huge truck to focus on. For a while in my late teens I suffered from travel sickness, but that stopped once I learnt to drive. I think maybe a trip to the opticians might be in order just to check that my glasses prescription doesn't need updating.

All that palaver aside I did actually stick around to actually do some fishing. Years ago I fished a bit of canal literally in the middle of nowhere and it was its remoteness that in my opinion made it so good. I was hoping it was still as good as it was and that it was still stuffed with prime naive zander for me to angle after and cast a few lures at.

I began at a spot where an ancient crumbling brick wall lined the canal. After I let rip on the first cast I watched from under the woolly hat which I still wore to cover my sensitive ear as the line arched off down the canal in the bright sun. A few more searching casts in and I got hit by something determined as the lure came over the shelf. I got a brief view of a good perch before it threw the hook. It's always a relief to get an early hit as it gives you a focal point to cast at. Several repeated casts later I hooked into either the same fish or it's shoal mate in exactly the same spot, which turned out to be a an equally heavy set perch.

Its strange that the first fish I encountered was a perch as even though they must be resident, this canal had no real reputation for them. Zander though used to be unbelievably prolific in this murky water, and they still are as I found out in my next spot situated in some heavy cover. I'd barely had to search them out as I just saw a very zander looking haunt cast to it and got instantly hit my a little zedlet. Next cast too produced a few grabs and then I finally found a slightly better fish half way across the trench.

The sun though was getting brighter as it began to peep over the trees over the far bank and I was thinking this could make all the difference as the day wore on, but luckily it didn't and even begin blinded by the sun the fish still responded to my lures hitting the water. It was the ever faithful silver and black Koypto that sorted a bigger fish out. I'd just lifted and let the lure drop when the line suddenly tightened and changed angle by forty-five degrees. After a really good scrap a very angry zander was in hand, bristling in the sun.

I had to work for it but the action kept up through the rest of the session and although I didn't catch anything much bigger I did find quite few other fish willing to have a go at the lures in the sun. All in all it was a very satisfying return to an old haunt, and I don't think it will take me that long to come back again as I know there are some proper big girls lurking in this water way, as well as the large numbers of smaller fish which gave me action right up until the last cast.

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.

Is this just maddness.

It's said that necessity is the mother of invention. Well if that is so the father of what I am about to tell you about may well be madness. You see like everyone does now and again, I've recently found myself in that position where other things in life become dominate forces in what consumes my time and thus I was struggling to get out fishing as much as I would like to. Add to this the recent, and let me say archaic, practice of day light saving taking place the weekend just passed and I am feeling rather hampered. Anyway back to the subject I've recently been partaking of more than my normal amount of lure fishing. I find it very convenient in a way that I can just have a light lure fishing set ready to go at all times and with the lack of need of perishable bait required it fits in quite well with my current predicament.

So the other day I was perusing the soft lure selection in the local tackle emporium when I spied a box of lovely new Fox zander shads. The moment I set eyes on them the rusty old cogs in my head ground squeaking into action, my eyes went blank and a cockamamie idea began to fruit. The shads and some 10 gram jig heads were purchased ready to experiment one night in the week.

The night before going out I sat down with a few choice tools to modify what I am sure Fox consider was an already perfect design. Put crudely I cut the lure a new ass hole and digestive tract! In civilized terms, after carefully making a small incision where on most fish there would be a vent I gently forced a narrow and rounded shaft of wood into the body of the shad trying not to pierce it. The result I must say came out perfectly leaving a visible cavity that would tightly hold onto the glow stick I intended to shove in there.

With only a small amount of lubrication to help it along, the glow stick went in with minimal fuss and once fully inserted only the slight bulge in the belly of the shad indicated it was even present in the light!

A crack and a few vigorous shakes and it became a whole new beast in the dark!

So the next night I found myself getting into the car and driving round to the lake where the only light at that time of night was the glow of the distant city. I knew it wasn't the perfect venue to test out my folly but it was convenient and I knew there was supposedly a large amount of prey fish in an area of weed free water that I knew relatively well.

It's one thing going and setting up camp by a sheet of water with a couple of rods on indicators, but it's totally different and strange feeling to be wandering round along the bank in the pitch black in autumn with little unseen creatures rustling round in the leaf litter. The owls were already at it hooting to one another across the lake and every time I made a noise in a new swim, hidden water birds would bolt from their roosts in the reeds beside it. Other than that it was an enjoyable experience all in all. From the first cast I was smitten with the sight of this green projectile arching out from the bank over the lake like tracer fire. Just watching the light show was amusing enough to me, but add to that the excitement that I really thought I stood a small chance of a predator taking a swipe at it and I was practically twitching with excitement.

How many casts I made in the next three hours I couldn't say. What I could say was that it was a miracle that somehow I never once got that lure snagged on anything, stuck it in a tree or even tangled it on the cast. Sadly though I didn't raise any attention with my gaudy offering. Though I am sure I did get at least one follow from something. It happened just around that point when food and beer were beginning to appeal more than lure fishing in the dark. I'd punted the lure out into the void and been slowly bouncing back just off the bottom. Most of the lake was hidden in the black of the shadow of the woods opposite me, apart from the last quarter of the lakes surface which was lighter shade of black reflecting only the night sky. It was in that lighter water that I spotted a bow wave cutting across the surface. I did think maybe I'd dragged in some weed on the main line until it did a forty-five degree turn off as the lure came closer to the edge. I repeated that cast so many more times in the vain hope that the fish might have still been in the area but no it came to nothing. Now after my initial little experiment I find myself thinking has this glow in the dark lure fishing got any mileage or is it madness to think anything would attack something so obvious in the pitch black and am I just wasting my time?