The Quest for an Urban Zed - Part 2

Sunday, back on the Coventry canal, this time I was within a stones throw of the M6 motorway. After another look at the satellite views on Google I felt this stretch had to be investigated. It was the usual set-up with deadbait's fished either side of a couple of features that looked good, I was doing the same as Friday and giving a spot around ten minutes before moving a few yards to the next. After a couple of hours I found a feature very similar to the one I fished to on Saturday, a Blackberry bush, I gave it a go and had a fish tighten my line within minutes, after a quick scrap I had my first Coventry Zander in the net, a reasonable fish of around 3-4lb, in my haste to return the Zed the photo was rather poor.

Bad photo alert!

I continued to fish this same spot hoping for a second fish but the shoal must have moved on so I continued to move down the canal to the next feature. At around 6pm, I decided to move back to where I'd caught the only Zed of the day and leave a couple of baits out to see if anything would return. I was surprised at how many boats were still moving this late in the evening but with Hawksbury nearby a lot of these were probably returning to their moorings after a day out, it did give me a good chance to check that the bait was clear of any debris before recasting. Just before seven, nearly dark but with a glow from the full moon and a hint of blue still in the sky I could not believe one boat navigating it's way up the canal by spotlight, this was ridiculous. I wasn't ready to call it a night so reeled in the baits and cast them straight back as the boat passed, after the second bait was lobbed out and the line tension checked I noticed the tip of the first rod just give a slight nod, a quick check of the bobbin and it to was moving ever so slightly, I looked into the water and could see some leaves and twigs swirling around after the boat and put it down to this. The bobbin now started to move as the line tightened, I picked up the rod and could feel something moving around on the end of the line and struck, everything went solid and I could feel something thump back up the line, this felt good. The fish came straight into my bank before hitting the top, what a fish, at first I thought it was a Pike but it wasn't.
I'm new to Zander fishing and didn't think I'd see one this big for some time. I left the fish in the margins and had a flap around in the dark organising everything. The Zed unhooked itself by spitting out the deadbait and hook which was lucky as I'd forgotten to bring my head torch, photographing was a bit 'hit and miss' in the dim light but I was happy with the results even though I didn't smile in the pictures. The fish went back with a very health kick from it's tail and after a couple of phone calls I decided to call it a night.

The Zander!

9lb 11oz's