20/11/2011 - Trent and Mersey Canal

Arranged to meet Tim for another go for the zander on the canal, although he was still on Sunday lunch duty when I arrived. Set up to one side of the "hotspot" so he could slot in the other. Was fishing hair-rigged deadbait sections again, but this time with the addition of a Fox bait flag to stop the wire pulling through the bait.

Modified hair rig

Had got one rod in and was tackling up the other when the buzzer sounded. That was quick!Turned out to be a small, but perfectly formed zander.

Zed in a hurry!

Was expecting a few runs after this, but didn't get any other indications until Tim arrived. He'd just dropped his gear next to me when one and then the other bobbin started doing a jerky little dance. Although neither developed into a full blown take, we joked that it must be the aura of his golden globes attracting the fish. Unfortunately this turned out to be bang on the money as my bobbins never moved again! Tim, on the other hand, did a canal predator treble starting with a pike of 11lb, followed by a nice perch of 2lb 6oz and finally a zed.

Predator #2



Fished on for a couple more hours into dark without any further action.

As an interesting footnote to these zander trips, Tim dug out a paper recently on a study of zander in the Oxford Canal, a graph from which is shown below.

Basically, in the zander populated section of canal, anything they can get in their mouths gets a right hammering and in some cases this can mean whole year (size) classes. Ultimately this will have a knock-on effect on the rest of the predator population, so it could be a case of making hay while the sun shines!