Late Autumn Zander Campaign begins

Sun 29 Nov 2009

I fished the Coventry Canal, starting my Autumn/Winter Zander campaign after this facinating fish. I arrived at the canal in darkness just before 7:00am, the weather was cold and damp after rain and soon after arriving I was treated to a heavy downpour for half and hour during dawn, the sun came out for the rest of the session.

I found a swim with a tree opposite and cast out both rods near to its branches on free running rigs to 3oz leads.

 The reasoning behind the heavy leads is that the will allow the line to pull through the run ring easier than with a light lead which will just move with the line and may be detected by the fish. I not sure yet which tactic is better but I will experiment with both theories over the campaign and make my own mind up.

I won't bore you with all the details of the session but suffice to say I ended with another blank and had only one incident where the bait appeared to be attacked as I wound in to recast. I felt the fish powerfully grab the bait and move off with it to my right, but the hooks never managed to take hold and the fish came off. I'm not sure but it may have been a Pike lying in the boat channel, roused by a  bait passing over it's head ? either that or it was lying up ready to strike near my bait on the far shelf, as there were no indications on the tip prior to this.

That was my only chance of a fish all session. I think the sudden drop in temperature down to 6.5C over the previous day or so may have put the fish off the feed generally ?  I leapfrogged the rods along a 1/2 mile  stretch of canal  passing some known fish holding spots but to no avail.

I will be back again for an evening session this coming week to try again. My shorterm target is to get a fish of 5lb or more. There are bigger fish in this canal but I think it's down to a numbers game. At the moment I just need to achive a consistant catch rate before I worry about the bigger fish too much.

Source: www.english-country-garden.com/.../muntjac-1.jpg

Late morning I spotted a Muntjac Deer walking across a horse paddock on the opposite bank, It steadily strided across from my right field of vision to left and into a copse of trees promtly dissapearing from view like a ghost. It alway makes you feel privaliged to see something like that and makes getting up early and being out in the countryside all the more worthwhile I think.