Happy fishmas one and all.

I've had some pretty dire June 16ths in my time I can tell you. I try my very best to not work on this sacred day, I get all wound up like a chocolate crazed kid and charge off to the river or some venue where I've been unable to fish, with sky high expectations and in most cases it all ends being a bit of a letdown. This year I decided to not get all excited and instead of charging off to the river or something, that I would just go and fish somewhere I knew I would have a good time. Bucking the trend, I went to Napton thinking as it's been open all year it might be a bit quiet on the first day and I was right; only one other angler was in residence when I arrived.

Though I knew when I arrived that I would more than likely catch a net load of tincas, I half had it in my mind that today might be as good as any to actually have a shot at catching a crucian carp. A few days before I had witnessed Andy realize a dream and catch a cracking old fish that will stick in my head for a long time to come. 

The swim I chose was shallower than the ones I normally fish and after plumbing up and fine tuning the float to register even the shyest of bites, I committed and baited heavily alongside a reed bed using Green Bait-tech super G ground bait and fresh casters. As intended to use corn as hook baits I carefully flicked out a few grains over the bed of bait to get the fish used to looking for them, but kept the amount down so as fish would hopefully not have too much choice and struggle to find the one with a hook in it. 

Thankfully I had collected the repaired section of my fourteen foot power waggler rod from the kind chaps at Lanes who had got it repaired in time for the 16th. I knew this rod would be perfect for fishing this venue as it's got loads of low down power to help fight the hard fighting tench, whilst still being sensitive enough in the tip section to fish lighter float rigs.

I watched as the ground bait broke down, sending tiny bubbles up all over the area. Really, I expected the tench to get on it like white on rice but nothing occurred for the first half an hour. Then the game changed in a big way when a crucian rolled off the back of my bait. If my heart wasn't in my mouth enough then, when a second one rolled to the left of the patch my heart was literally in my mouth. They were here and if I was ever going to catch one it was going to be now. Then the float rose less than half an inch and I struck! The culprit was blatantly a tench which powered off quickly out into the lake before getting off in the blink of an eye.

One cast later the whole session became a blur... The next slight rise in the float was hit and this fish felt different, very different. After an initial dull resistance it began circling round for a short while before rolling on the top and that's when I saw a dark gold shape the size of a dinner plate. When that fish went in the net I could barely believe it. Less than week ago I was writing about how hard people have worked to catch these rare Napton Crucian carp; here I was on the first day of the season and my first fish of that season was a ancient crucian. I had to actually calm myself down to prevent myself flapping around whilst dealing with it, I was that excited. So after securing it safely in the net I engaged the other angler to help me photograph my prize. 

The fish looked very much like the fish I'd seen the previous week, apart from not being as high in the back. What it lacked in height this one made up for in thickness across the shoulders. It weighed 2.10lb but some checking of my scales later confirmed them to be weighing 1oz heavy for some reason, making the fish's actual weight 2.9lb. But really, I didn't care what it weighed as I genuinely felt honoured to have such an amazing fish be my first of the season.

I considered going home after I watched my first Napton Crucian swim away in the clear water but I knew no matter how rare they were, today I stood a chance of another. The very next cast the float settled down leaving the red tip showing as the corn nestled on the bottom. Just as I was about to reposition my net next to me, the float almost swayed rising slightly as it did. I struck into a second fish that wasn't a tench either and lo and behold, moments later a very young looking second crucian of two pounds was mine.

Now, I was flabbergasted to say the least. In the very short time I'd been fishing I landed two of these Napton ghosts and from the looks of the bubbles rising in my swim there was more action on the cards. I cast again almost trembling and the float never settled fully before sliding off. The tench had moved onto the bait in a big way and were so keen to feed they were intercepting baits on the way down. I caught nine tench over the next two hours and everyone battered me senseless, tearing line off the reel and repeatedly diving in the deep water.  

What a session to start a new season with! I was in pure heaven catching all these wonderful tench one after another on the lift float. Soon though all went quiet and there was a perplexing lull in the action. But it soon became clear why when the float rose preposterously high out of the water and my strike provoked a very large fish to bow wave out of the swim rather quickly. No tench, no matter how big, had this power and it confirmed its identity to be a carp when I attempted to slow it down before all the line went of my reel. In doing so the fish rose up onto the surface and came back towards me so quickly I could barely keep tension on the line. The battle under the rod tip was just way too much for my light hook link and the entire rig was soon wrappped around the tip of my rod.

This loss of the carp turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Thinking the carp had more than likely cleaned me out, I baited up again heavily with the rest of my ground bait and lashings of casters. I took my time to tie a new hook link and retune the depth of my un-baited rig in the hope it would allow the fish to move back onto the spot. Lo and behold when I was done and cast out I only waited moments before getting another tiny bite and connecting with a third old bar of Napton gold.

"Three...honestly three," I remember saying that to myself as I released the fish back into the clear water. But that wasn't it! Not ten minutes later I got exactly the same quivering rise on the float and number four was dancing around under my rod tip about to really top off the 16th of a life time. 

I feel sure the shoal of crucians had been lurking round the reeds all morning just waiting for the tench that had pushed them off to do one. But it was probably the carp coming in and panicking out of the swim that moved the tench on and allowed those shy old crucians to slip back in. The tench though weren't gone for long and a trio of bigger examples up six pounds finished off the morning for me.

That was without any doubt the greatest 16th and crucian session I have ever had in my life. I kind of feel foolish for how hard I have described the crucian fishing to be on Napton now. BUT! I also know this really was a case of being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. Had I been fishing one of my favoured pegs then I would have never been on them and had I been fishing a float rig that relies on the float going under, then maybe I would have never even struck at one of those bites. It's quite likely that it might be a few years before I get a second chance to catch any of these wonderful wild old crucians again if form rings true. So with a smile on my face still, all I can say is...

Happy fishmas one and all.

In honour of others joy.

At Napton reservoir there are those who fish for carp, those who fish for tench and then there are those who pretend to fish for tench but are really hoping for something much rarer. I think the reason that those of us who pretend to fish for tench but are really after something else persist with this ruse is simple; we would be categorized as mental by others or even think ourselves mad if we admitted we were after crucian carp. 

Napton is rife with tench no matter what anyone says; literally at times you would think the bottom was paved green. Once a friend of mine, Pete, said he fished 24hrs for them and literally caught something stupid like over a hundred fish. Conversely the crucian numbers in Napton could probably be counted on a single human's fingers and toes, which in a water of its size makes them the proverbial needle in a haystack. They are the ghosts of the lake as far as I am concerned and quite often their presence seems more rumour than truth. Over the years I've heard whispers on the bank that there is little more than fifteen of them in residence and no one seems to know when or if they were stocked. I even spoke to a chap well in his sixties who said he used to catch them when he first fished the lake as a young man. Things like this seem to indicate that this small group of crucians could be very old and if what I have read is true they are quite capable of living this long. How old they are aside, catching one of these ghosts takes time. Keith off of Warks Avon is quoted as saying it took him over forty years to catch one and look what it did to him...

 ...Considering how lucky he is catching target fish then that means we normal lucked folk are in for a long wait!

It had started as any normal Napton session would; arriving very early, struggling to get a level seat position and the wind blowing in my face. This time Andy had joined me and was set up down the bank. I actually ended up back in the swim I'd fished the week before with the ripple coming onto my own bank and even though the conditions were due to deteriorate throughout the morning, the fish it seemed were on the feed. 

The tench were having it and my score with the hard fighting red eyed demons of this lake was soon settled. By fishing my usual fine tackle over a bed of Bait-Tech super G ground bait laced with casters and corn, the float soon lifted. I don't know whether I'd forgotten how hard tench in general fight or whether these particular fish are a just hard fighters, but every one hooked certainly tested the gear to its limits and more in a few cases. Disappointingly the first fish I landed had some very severe damage to its mouth from either being tethered to a rig or being mistreated by some heartless angler who consider them trash fish. Either way the matter of how the tench are being treated by certain types of anglers fishing the lake will be raised next time I see an official from the new controlling club.

Although the rain came in soaking me to the bone, the tench sport just got better and better through the morning and fish of all sizes were continuously moving into the swim and rolling all around the area of the lake we were fishing. Some were old warriors and others, like this one, looked perfect as if they had never been caught before. Seeing these younger, cleaner examples seems to indicate new fish are coming through and the future of the Napton tench fishing looks good.

Somewhere in the rain the session changed in a big way when Andy breathlessly shrieked he had a crucian on. I shit you not, from down the bank I could see a grown man shaking as he repeatedly said "Please don't come off." When that net lifted around that bar of gold you'd have thought that Andy had just scored the winning try for England at the Rugby World Cup. I don't think I have ever seen him so happy with a capture and I have to say I was over the moon for him as it was the most stunning old creature I have ever laid eyes on.

It wasn't his biggest ever crucian but I think it was possibly the best he'd ever caught, and why shouldn't it be when he's been trying for ten years to catch one of these Napton Ghosts. All I can say it well done mate, you deserve it.

Really that should have been the perfect way to end this post, but I could not not include this string of shots I took of Andy releasing the fish back into the clear water, as it is simply the best group of photos I have ever taken, and what is shocking is that I used my camera phone to get them!

Off she goes.

Back on track.

Considering the hours of my life I've spent staring at a float I wouldn't of thought it possible to forget just how much I love float fishing. A year of chucking lures though seems to have gone some way to making me forget, but easing myself gently back into to fishing without any arduous walking sessions has steered me back to this forgotten loves arms.

First came a very brief session where, to just get out, I ventured down to the closest bit of canal with a single short float rod rigged with a simple pole float, to ply worms down the nearside track whilst just enjoying being out again.

With a handful of brutally chopped yet wonderfully oozing worms as a carpet to attract... well anything, I swung a single writhing worm delicately onto the spot and sat back and enjoyed fishing again. It felt at the time like I had missed an entire season of the year, as when I was in hospital weeks ago spring was still stuttering along and now the banks that lined the Oxford canal were thick with greenery and the blossom of the hawthorn peppered the hedgerows white. With cold nights becoming a distant memory the perch population at least had settled into voracious summer feeding habits as well.

Not a few minutes went by without the delicate float dipping here and there as the hordes of little striped predators tugged at the wriggling worm. Now and again greed got the better of them and the float would sink away as one tried to escape its brethren with worm. Quite quickly I was amassing a respectable tally of pint sized predators and any passing match angler might have appreciated the session, seeing me plunder the normally frugal cut.

If I know one thing about fishing this method for perch it's that they generally get bigger as time progresses and it was exactly so on this occasion. After every deposit of feed the size of fish landed increased. The slew of fingerlings made way to a few hand sized fish, you know the ones that aren't quite big enough to dip the net for but put a worrying bend in the tip of your rod. Then as the bites slowed the bigger crew showed up and at close to a pound the net has to get deployed. When those fish disappear and the float holds fast above the film of the water you know there's a good chance a rouge monster is on the cards. When that bite came the little rod bent right round and a proper perch smashed round the canal furious at the price of it's free meal.

A couple of hours, a mess of small perch, a handful of bonus pounders to ice the session and a monster mother as the cherry on the top and I was done. It was the perfect way to get out fishing again and once again light the fire of my float fishing love.

With my mind still focused on the float I mulled over my next session, but it was news of change that led me to my next venue. I love Napton reservoir and when I stood freezing in the winter wind casting lures into it I dreamt of summer tench fishing there. Recently though things have changed and Coventry Angling Associations strangle hold on it has yielded and the news that Leamington Angling had obtained the rights to fish it emerged. 

Now I will put it out there that I am yet to be convinced of whether this is a good or bad thing. On one hand Leamington really look after their venues and I have the utmost respect for this. BUT! They also have a habit of interfering with their waters in ways to make them a bit more... financially viable. I watched with trepidation as they turned Ryton pool from a wonderful wild tench water into a mini carp water with the random stocking of some questionable carp. Also they have a naughty habit of after a few years starting to ask for a small day ticket fee on top of the club membership under the guise of "restocking", which in reality seems to be a way to fill their already swollen coffers. All that aside, I want to fish Napton so a membership has been purchased to enable this to continue in the future.

If you've ever fished Napton you know it takes more time to get your seat level on those rocky banks than it does to set up all the rest of your gear set up and after settling down on the causeway facing out into the big half of the lake, I finally began the complex dotting down of my Drennan glow tip antenna float. I love to fish these floats with the last shot just off the bottom and it can be difficult to get it set just right so as when a fish bites the float works in both as a normal float would, going under, and as a lift float, which rises when a fish lifts that last shot. It's worth it though for the added sensitivity and on this occasion it proved a brilliant choice.

The tench and fish as a whole were being particularly shy and with eight other anglers up and down the bank from me literally I was the only one striking at fish. Most of the strikes came to very little but every now and again I connected with a nice perch in deep water, some of which were getting on for two pounds. Frankly where these perch were when I was lure chucking in the winter is a mystery, but show them a few casters and they were well up for it.

It wasn't the perch I was really after and in the end I struck into a solid fish which made me look a royal prat by charging straight into the only small reed bed nearby and getting away with a deft flick of its tail. I had to work very hard feeding small balls of ground bait and regular pouches of casters over the top to get my second swing at old red eye. After hitting a tiny rise on the float this one headed out into the lake like a flipping marlin, stripping line off the reel. A few changes in direction later and that one was off too. Sadly this can be the problem when fishing small hooks with tiny baits for powerful fish.

Looking back though I don't think the rod I was using helped me at all. Wanting a bit of back bone I'd dusted off my John Wilson Avon rod, but being as soft as it is and only eleven foot long it bounced around all over the shop in the brief tussles and didn't feel great at all. It was enough to send me grubbing around in some unused rods to find a fourteen foot power match I've got that needs a little repair, for future sessions when I will be back to settle the score with the green buggers in Napton Reservoir.

Words of warning.

What follows is written not for sympathy but as words of warnings to my fellow anglers and to anyone whom should read this.

It's been a while since I've written anything, or fished for that matter. The reason for this is that I have been consumed by pain and discomfort. Simply put I have found myself barely able to complete the simplest of daily tasks due to my predicament.

To even begin to explain how I came to this I must go back nearly a year. Followers of this blog may recall at a stretch an incident when one morning I was travelling out on a session and found myself feeling a little peaky. On that particular occasion after parking the car I was quickly out bent double wretching and gulping for air. At the time I concluded this was either something to do with my eyes or a case of travel sickness. Things though developed through the summer of last year that confirmed this was not the case and that I had an underlying health issue that was the cause.

Maybe a month or so later at work I had one of those unnerving moments that really knock you back. The same heady sickness was encountered, but this time it was accompanied by expelling some rather pink urine. Thinking or hoping it was something I had consumed, water was quickly swallowed and a second trip to the facilities confirmed some definite bloody urine. This began my initial whirlwind journey through the NHS services. First was a trip to the walk in centre, which was shortly followed by Accident and Emergency and then on to the urology department. At this point it was concluded that it was more than likely a bladder infection, which was treated by a course of antibiotics and it happily seemed to cleared up.

Less than a fortnight later the bloody urine was back and a little less concerned this time I headed to my GP. Several visits and samples later I was referred to the urology Department again this time for further investigation by way of a Cystoscopy . I have linked that, but be warned of the virtual discomfort that will greet you once you've clicked through. The purpose of this examination was to check for any abnormalities or signs of cancer. When I actually heard those words come out of my doctors mouth I don't mind admitting I suddenly started thinking back over whether I had wasted my life at any point.

Happily, if painfully, the initial examination confirmed I had normal healthy bladder and now they needed to scan me, X-ray me and generally prod me to try and find the underlying issue. A couple of weeks later the results were in and I was summoned to the hospital for judgement. It turned out that I had grown my own little 6mm kidney stone in my left kidney and more than likely this moving from my kidney to its resting position near the bottom of my left urethra, was the cause of both the blood and my episodes of illness. Now though all that remained was how to get the little begger out. A couple of attempts at taking a drug that dilates the urinary pipes failed, though the drugs in question had some interesting a different side effects I can tell you.

After six months of diagnosis and treatment it was concluded my only option was to have the stone physically removed by having a rigid Cystoscopy under general anesthetic to laser the offending stone into dust. The obligatory lengthy waiting list led me into this year and if it wasn't for the fact that I had caught a break and my stone seemed relatively painless, I suppose I might have been annoyed by the length of time it took to get a operation date. In the end though with only one last minute aborted attempt I finally found myself entering the hospital, and that's where the pain began.

I woke groggy a few hours after I'd been knocked down feeling like I'd had a train driven through my genitals. Once fully awake though the fun really started! The first draining of my bladder post surgery quite literally ended up with my passing around half a litre of blood and nearly blacking out due to the excruciating pain. Over the next three days of lingering in the hospital, my urine finally cleared though the pain got no better at all. After chatting to the doctor who had performed the operation he confirmed that he had no choice but to insert a stent into my urethra to aid in the healing and that this would be removed in a couple of weeks.

The word stent will forever be etched into my mind till the day I die. In short a Ureteric stent is a plastic pipe that lines the inside of the urethra. It is around 26cm long and goes from inside the kidney down to the bladder, kept in place by a loop at either end. This allows the free flow of urine from the kidney though the urethra to the bladder.

This simple pipe is the most evil yet useful piece of plastic known to mankind. From the moment mine was inserted till the moment it was removed I suffered from what is known as urinary reflux. The best way to explain this is to think of the bladder as a balloon. As it fills with urine it expands and when you go to the toilet it contracts forcing the urine out of your body through the natural and easiest exit. When you have a stent in place, as the bladder forces the last of the urine out the stent allows some of that urine to be forced back up into the kidney. The only example I can think of how that feels is the sensation you get after taking a savage blow to the testicles. So every time I went for a pee it would at first feel quite normal then right at the end it felt like I had been kicked in the nuts. I know everyone loves a few statistics so here goes; an average person urinates seven times a day, when you have a stent that increases to more like twelve times a day through irritation. My stent was in place for thirty days (thanks NHS waiting times!). So night and day for a month I felt like I got kicked in the balls three hundred and sixty times. Add to that the stent rubbing on the inside of my kidney during any activity, the bloody urine and the general discomfort of having 26cm of alien plumbing fitted and it adds up to me wishing an entire month of miserable life away until it was removed.

The conclusion of this unhappy period was me actually looking forward to another man probing my private parts with a device 5mm thick to fish the dammed stent out, and when he did the relief at its removal was instantly felt. Quite literally one day I felt like shit on a stick and the next I was back to normal and the ordeal was over.

Finally the words of warning. The reason for me having this kidney stone was attributed to dehydration. I will be the first to admit that I don't drink enough water. In fact on occasions when out fishing for example I would take 500ml or a litre of water and quite often not drink more than few sips over up to six hours. Really we need to drink between 1.5 -2 litres of water a day to maintain our kidneys health. So heed this write up as an example to make sure you drink plenty of water through the day and when your'e out on your next session, no matter how consumed you are by the fishing make sure you keep hydrated or you to might find yourself with a few painful probings or worst off, with a stent fitted.

Just one fish.

All the local canals seem to really be waking up a bit now after a sputtering spring thing. I think it was three weeks ago that I saw the first little fish dappling the surface on the Grand Union. The zander might have spawned and now seem firmly on the feed and the catch rates are reflecting this. Perch though are another matter! A couple of outings ago I caught one solitary perch which was ready to pop, it was that full of spawn. Since then though the temps have risen so much that I was sure as hell the perch population should have got their mating done with.

One canal that I have neglected a bit lately is the Coventry as the general lack of a hard winter season did not benefit it at all. Usually when we get a good consistent winter the Coventry responds well and fishes consistently. In previous years when the temps have been up and down I have found that the fishing can be very patchy, even on normally reliable areas. Hence I have purposely been reluctant to fish there.

The warmer weather got me thinking that maybe it might have settled down and that the perch might be feeling a little peckish should they have spawned. It was a bit of a sputtering start for me on the day after an early wakeup call from my boy resulted in me turning off the alarm to glim a little more kip. In the end though I did get there and did fish, although the fish seemed hard to find or should I say, hard to convince to eat.

I was very diligent about working along the stretch, methodically using several different lures in various ways all whilst fishing a small dead bait as a sleeper rod at the bottom of the marginal shelf to hopefully appeal to a zander. But even working very hard it quickly became clear that the canal was still not on form.

My one sole bit of action was as pure as pure can be. From a short distance away I saw what I was sure was tiny roach flipping out in a flat calm section of canal hidden from the wind. As I approached, two more small silver fish jumped out of the water. After quickly flicking through the lures I had to hand, I settled on a small silver glittery paddle tail grub which I cast tight to the far bank cover beyond the jumping fish. I must have cast and recast twenty times before the lure got hit on the fall as it dropped into the trench. It turned out to be a big perch which had taken my grub and what a fatty it was as well.

You could put a saddle on that!

One perfect hit from a perfect perch. I would love to say that I walked away and went home satisfied with my perfect moment. But the truth is that I combed that area again and again, hoping in vain that it might have been a shoal of big perch in the area, but I never got another touch.

It did however confirm that the Coventry canal perch at least haven't spawned yet, as this one definitely had spawn in it and had a very swollen vent. I can't deny being confused as I was sure as predators, the perch would have spawned already to give those little munchy baby perch a good head start.

The view from above.

For some time now Google maps and Bing maps have played a very active role in my angling. Really, I don't think there's many dinner times go by when I don't at some point have a little looky-loo on one of the two online maps to scope out somewhere I might be planning on fishing. Google maps I find best for just general scrolling in satellite mode and for when I want to have a look over a bridge here or there to see what the cover looks like on a canal. Bing maps is my go to if I want a bit more detail, as it has that rotate option that is sometimes made up of four images taken at different times, which can occasionally offer a gem of an image that makes me go wow! One of the best examples of this was a few years ago when I was scoping out a lake I was about to fish for tench. The Google option was OK, but when I found it using Bing maps and rotated the image a couple of times a view of the small lake came up which had been taken on a calm sunny day when the water was gin clear. Every gravel bar, weed bed and gully was visible. Then a few days later I found myself on the lake opting to fish a gully between two bars where I was sure a week's worth of prevailing wind might have inclined the tench to patrol. The result was me smashing the place up and landing a load of tench all from that one spot at the bottom of the gully.

Back to the point. I was sitting filling my face with couscous, hummus and some rather tangy feta one day last week as I worked my way along the Grand Union canal tow path in Google maps, when I spotted a feature that looked irresistible. Even on the screen from a few hundred feet above it looked the perfect predator holding spot. The only fly in the ointment was that I was already planning a morning on Napton reservoir to see if I could winkle out any perch or pike. A small diversion on route though could give me an hour to check and see if this newly located area might have any mileage predator-wise.

On the day when I arrived the conditions were less than perfect, with wall to wall blue skies and the blazing sun chasing away the cold quickly. The canal was very coloured and the wind whipped down it, keeping the water constantly moving. The movement of the water though actually for once played into my hands, as the feature I was targeting was an opening to a marina on the tow path bank. By fishing it from up-wind side the waters tow drew my dead bait rig perfectly into what, on a river, would be a crease. I suspected that this area at the mouth of the marina might be a magnet to predators wanting to ambush prey fish moving in and out of the opening.

I'd only been casting round a lure for a few minutes before the float which I had set over depth popped up straight, did a couple of bobs and began sliding off into the main canal. After waiting as long I dared I struck into a decent fish which went mental, zooming around the canal before heading back towards me, where I bundled a nice looking zander into the waiting net.

Not a bad first fish from a new spot.

After releasing that zander I got a bait straight back out on the spot and began casting around trying to find something on the lure. Last year I purchased some Diawa duck fin shads whilst in a Angling Direct store and for some reason I had overlooked them ever since. Normally I would have been using a lighter outfit, but as I was going somewhere else I had opted to bring my medium weight rod to try and fish some bigger lures, rather than the smaller ones I generally use on the canals. Having this heavier outfit seemed the perfect time to try out the Duck fin shads. They felt amazing, with the vibrating from the tail of the lure reverberating all the way up the line through the rod. With all the disturbance they cause I knew I would get hit sooner or later, and I did when a pike thumped the lure right under my feet. Somehow after playing it right to the net, the little bugger threw the hook by thrashing around, mouth open. It didn't matter though as three casts later I am sure the same fish struck again as I lifted the shad off the bottom. 

I was pretty chuffed with landing two canal beasties in under half and hour and was sorely tempted to bin off my Napton session and stick around, but I really want to try and unlock the code to the Napton predators as I think it has so much to offer. So I stuck with the plan and opted to return to this spot again soon for a dedicated session, hopped in the van a drove off to my original engagement

If you don't know or haven't fished at Napton reservoir it's a kind of heaven or hell type water. On its best day when the weather is fine and the fish are feeding it's wonderful. Good tench, big perch, savage pike and rare crucians that make your eyes bulge clean out your head. If it's cold and the wind is blowing it can be the worst place on earth and on those occasions even if the fish are feeding it can be near impossible to fish, or to keep warm for that matter.

There was a good wind blowing across both halves of the lake and although on any normal place this wouldn't of been an issue, here the breeze that caused the ripple felt ten times worse than normal. The water did have a slight tinge of colour to which is actually unusual for Napton.

Using a ten gram jig and various colourful lures I worked my way around targeting any features first, followed by covering open water. Even in the normally perch filled spots I couldn't land myself a nice Sargent. I reckon on this occasion the size of the lures I was using might have worked against me and using smaller lures may have incited at least some attention from smaller fish, but really it wasn't small perch I wanted.

Having worked all the more comfortable water with no interest of any kind I had no choice but to fight it out and stand toe to toe with the wind. With the breeze coming straight into my face, any direct casts were cut short by more than half and any angled casts streamed out my braided line in a massive loop. It was hard work in truth, but having caught nothing on more sheltered bits of the lake I hoped there could be something on the windward bank.

With all the rocks that have found their way out into the lake from the bank it can be confusing actually getting a bite. I'd bumped into several convincing rocks with the lure and struck at them before I got another distinct bump, this one however turned into a fish. My first little Napton pike of the year was freezing cold and covered in leeches.

Although it turned out to be the one and only fish of the Napton half of my session, it actually feels pretty good to finally get some predator action from this lake. Maybe now the weather is warming up the perch might once again turn up and you never know, I might even dust off the float fishing gear and have a crack for the tench and dare I say....crucians, later in the year.

Old schoolies.

There are a few old canal haunts of mine that I had been thinking about getting back to for a long while now, but the only thing is that these old haunts have in recent years been acquired by a new fishing club. Now truthfully I have never been big on joining clubs to fish on canals. I think it's a bit of a grey area regarding clubs laying claim to canals, as generally they make no effort whatsoever to bailiff or look after them and as anyone can just tootle on up and fish without being approached, then in my mind it's basically a free for all. 

That was until the Lure Anglers Canal Club came along. This relatively new club seems to be a new, different sort of club, unlike the stuffy old relics that cling on to their old canal stretches just in case the river is out of sorts or they've got a match on their one and only pool. Online membership, regular fish-ins and a well organized lure league. If all of that wasn't appealing enough to make me purchase the bargain £20 membership, the fact that they have under their control some twenty five miles of prime canal that will never get electro fished to remove zander, certainly is. So after joining up via the Internet and harassing the chairman with a few questions, my membership pack arrived and I added a Crimewatch classic photo to my membership card ready to hit some old haunts.

Wanted in connection to crimes against fishing lures.

My first short foray was to a section of the Grand Union that used to be a quality bit of water. Apart from the fact that it was late in the afternoon and the boats were thumping down the canal, it turned out to be an interesting return. Straight away I found a couple of small schoolie zander lying in the deeper water where the locks raging water had scoured away the silt. I moved away from the lock after it was opened and targeted a deep section of cover small a red spikey shad on a three gram jig tight into the cover, where I picked up a slightly bigger than average schoolie.

Along with the boats one other thing was proving to be a bit problematic; large swathes of the canal surface was littered with hundreds of thousands of spent catkins that had been blown from the trees lining the banks. Although pretty innocuous, these little buggers made casting the lures a nightmare. They got hung up on line and leader knots, they were so thick in some cases that the line could even get through them and the lure didn't sink. Even moving spots didn't help that much as when the locks opened up the collections of them moved on mass along the canal.

I finished up having to really pick where I was casting carefully, but even doing that I still managed to root out a few more small zeds fishing tight to the concrete structures above and below the many locks dotted along this section of canal, using curly tailed grubs.

A couple of days later I was back on the same canal but few miles downstream to meet up with Mick for a session. It had been a dreadful night weather-wise, with storms battering the south of the country. Although we seemed to have been spared much of the wind, the rain had really come down and was predicted for a large part of the morning.

Given that my faithful waterproof smock has grown a little tighter of late I had to make do with a stinky old poncho that has been lingering in my car boot where I'd dumped it since last year and looking like a proper old bank tramp I wandered off into the rain to find Mick.

Not long after hooking up with my accomplice for the morning I got the first tentative signs of action. Having brought a dead bait rod for this session which I had flicked out onto the edge of the trench as I was searching around for a tug on the lure. The small float sprang to life first when a tiny zander thought his luck was in and found my roach head. That one came off, but in the next spot I hooked and landed a slightly better one which objected to being photographed and made a slippery escape back into the canal as I fumbled with my camera. 

As we moved down the canal we came across a slightly sticky situation. A pair of swans had decided to nest literally right next to the tow path. With what looked like Mum on the nest and Dad lurking on the canal, slipping between them was done quickly with a definite squeak of the arse as you went. I've seen how aggressive nesting swans can be and this set up has got 'attacked dog walker' written all over it.

Worst of all was the fact that after doing the swan slip once, the pounding wind and rain turned us back for a second pass as we backtracked into the cover. Once cast out between some boats, Mick had a couple of small zeds and lost a better one on his dead bait rod, before I snagged a very spawn filled perch on the jig from the centre of the canal. Obviously still to spawn, the perch have me a bit confused as I would of thought with them being predators they would have spawned already.

The highlight of the session was still to come though. After fishing a few fruitless areas we came to a heavy bit of cover which looked right to both of us. Mick cast his dead bait out on the right hand side of what is now called 'Mick's bush' and I cast mine to the left. As we searched around with small jigs, Mick's dead rod showed signs of life. His strike was met with a good bend in the rod and straight away we both knew it was a good fish. I barely got hold of the net before he was doing the F*~# F*~# F*~# zander lament into the sky knowing he'd lost a big one. Then within ten minutes my float sank off like a U boat submerging. I struck and my rod bent round as another big fish shook its head. It was on long enough for me to see a long light shape under the water then it too came off leaving me cursing the sky like a mad man.

Really I thought that was it until after a little while Mick's recast float did a few different movements. He held that rod for ages waiting for some kind of definite movement. After watching the float move like a crayfish was doing one with the bait for ages, he finally struck and once again a big fish was on. This time it never got away and elated by the sight of a new PB zander, Mick was all smiles. We both thought it was bigger than it turned out to be, but even a pound and a half lighter than originally predicted it was still a brilliant fish of  7.6lb which I was really happy to see become Micks new PB.

I don't think either of us will ever be sure if we stumbled onto the land of the giants in the 'Mick's bush' swim or if it was the same fish that struck thrice. I've personally seen the same zander caught and landed twice in the same session, as well as the same fish pick up, come off and come back again a few times, so part of me says it was the same fish on all three runs. But then there is part of me that loves the idea of a rogue pack of big zander mooching around like they own the cut.

That was it for the action for the day and considering the weather conditions weren't exactly enjoyable, we did have a good session in the end. The old haunts seem to be as good as they ever where and hopefully any skills and knowledge I've learnt since I last fished these stretches will help me stick some nice fish in the net. I can't wait to get out again and have already made plans to get on another tasty looking bit of new canal on the LACC waters as soon as I can to try and find myself a big old Grand Union monster zed.