Away from it all

Believe it or not I'm watching tele.

Not bad for someone who doesn't have tele on the boat or anywhere else for that matter. But this weekend is Birthday Weekend and myself and the First(Best) Mate are away from it all on a weekend away.

Having carefully selected a 4-star county hotel that the internet told me has fishing lakes, I arrived to the word from the receptionist "We have lakes but definitely NO fishing". Three golf courses but no-one can hold a rod and line near the water! I discussed this with the leisure manager this morning. The general opinion is that it is something to do with "health and safety". An angler is apparently a sitting target for golfers who have lost their sense of direction or have little or no basic club swinging competence.

So I went to the canal and fished there! At 4am this morning there were no boats moving. There again there were no golfers moving on the golf course either. But I was healthy and safe.

Success? One largish roach- a lively fish. One small zander (10-12") which wriggled off the hook as it came out of the water before I could kill it! The Lure Angling Society reports over 900 of these were electrofished in 2007 with weights up to 10lb. It is not too good news that these voracious predators have survived.