I
soon realised that I would
have to scale down my kit a
little bit for the canals due to
their diminutive and shallow
nature, yet I still wasn’t ‘in the
zone’ when I turned up. Bringing
three and four inch Shads with
me and 7g jigheads, I fished for
about four hours early one
morning before Andi tipped up
explaining how he wasn’t really
a ‘morning’ person! I hadn’t had
a single sniff of a fish and small
wonder, the 7–10g jigheads were
sinking into the canal silt too
quickly. Having had a look at
how Andi was cracking on, 2”
Shads on 5g Jigheads fished
with a very light but fast
actioned rod combined with a
tiny reel and light braid in the
region of about 10lbs or so – I
realised I was still fishing a tad
too heavy and after Andi
managed a couple of hits then
a fish, my mind was made up.
After fishing with my stuff for a
whole morning, I borrowed a 5g
jighead and 2” Fishhunter lure
and soon afterwards, I had my
one and only hit that morning –
only for Andi to bash it off at the
net! (Bad loser – Andi obviously
didn’t like the competition!)
After that little experience I
set myself up a little more like
it, I invested in a 3–15g rod, a size
30 reel, 10lb braid, a large
selection of 3–5g Jigheads and
an even larger selection of two
and 2.5” shads. My general
choice of shads being the
Fishhunters but I also selected
others with a bulbous and heavy
tail which resonate to the full in
the murky water, turning on the
predators in the process.
Controversially, I also invested in
some very decent fluorocarbon
line in 5.5kg and 11kg breaking
strain for use as leader material
on these canals. This is not to
everyone’s taste but bearing in
mind I’d be using a single hook
not dissimilar in size to that usedContinuing his quest to bag
more zander, Dave Marrs
teamed up with Andi Mytton
and conquers the canals...
TOOTHY
FROM THE T
in the winter by
many specialists
when chub fishing
using cheese-paste or
worms as bait on 6lb line, I’d
made my mind up that it was the
way I was going to go. I’d never
use it with a multi-hook set up,
only ever with small(ish) single
jigheads but I firmly believe it
offers me a better presentation
on these shallow canals.
It is probably worth
mentioning that I’ve never come
across a pike on one of these
shallow muddy canals, I change
my leader after every fish,
haven’t experienced a bite-off
and lastly, of course I use a
quality brand. All that said, if I
believed I was in with a realistic
chance of zander in the upper
singles or holy grail double
figure size I’d use wire every
time, but these smaller fish on
the canals don’t in my opinion
pose a threat to my leader.
Now back to the action of the
lure. On deeper water in the Fens
and elsewhere, I often used to
experience a take as the lure
fluttered through the water
layers. I’ve also since taken my
canal outfit out on the odd early
season evening on the Avon and
noticed that the same behaviour
was absolutely prevalent. With a
little watercraft, casting say to
some permanently moored boats
and letting a 2.5in shad on a 5g
jighead slowly
descend through the
water I’ve found that
fluttery really can get
you everywhere because if there
is a zander in the swim, I’ve
found a take will come almost
instantly. So much so that I often
ring or text my best mate Nick
who lives in Bourne, Lincs and
tell him I’m off for a half hour
zander session. It really does
make a mockery of the 4 day
sessions I did 15-20 years ago
bait-fishing deep in the winterfor any zander I could catch,
more often than not struggling.
All that said, the shallow
nature of the Midlands canals
means that they don’t really lend
themselves to allowing a lure to
flutter gracefully through the
water column, as even a 5g jig
goes through 3ft pretty quickly.
Additionally, the bottom of these
waterways in my experience are
almost always full of snagsranging from shopping trolleys
to extensive weed beds. To me
therefore, there is little in the
way of delicate approaches that
can be made on most of these
waterways but in fairness, I
concede that Simon Nicol did
find a little pocket of deeper
water and caught the biggest
LACC Zander yet, thanks to a
very delicate approach (drop-shotting). Hats off Simon, mate.
I met Simon (AKA Dr Dropshot)
about six months earlier on the
Severn / Avon with Andi Mytton
at an LAS Zanderfest and a very
fine chap he is too!
Back to the subject at hand
and with no ability to really
‘flutter’ on these cuts, I simply
cast to the far bank and bring
back the little lure as slowly as I
can. I cannot emphasise the need
to use as light a jighead and as
slow a return as is possible,
whilst I may not be able to
‘flutter’, I feel a tiny jighead
doesn’t get so hooked up in all
the junk on the bottom. The
thing is though, it is important to
be in these areas full of debris,
whether it be weed or otherwise
because this is where the fish
hang out.
Weather wise I really don’t
care how bright the sun shines,
crikey 15 years ago I would have
cried if my two day session was‘I REALLY DON’T CARE HOW
BRIGHT THE SUN SHINES’
A particularly
handsome Fen
zed from a few
years agoAndi managed a
couple of hits
then a fish