Anderoo

A few pics below. Double hook-up for Rob and Dave: A nice handful: Flat calm all day!

Could have been worse Rusty - you could have watched your favourite spro rod and shimano reel sink to the depths before your eyes the day before the fish-in like me!

I'm not sure I'm going to get time to do a full report so will do a quickie now and try to get a few pics up soon. As I mentioned before it was a very strange day weather wise for October, flat calm with hot, bright sunshine - very different to last year when we had spells of heavy rain and strong winds! (Although apparently rob has some pretty heavy wind on the drive down ). We had an idea from previous trips of where to go, so we started in that area. There's a nice big slope that the zander like which is near a big pipe on the bottom, so there's lots of depth variation and structure. Tigger and I had several fish straight away so we marked the pipe in a couple of spots with h blocks so other boats had something to aim for. We had quite a few around there and I think the other boats did too. As the day went on it got harder and the gaps between bites got longer, but that's to be expected with several boats in one area. With the wind either non existent or very light we were either casting and slowly bringing the lures back sink and draw along the bottom or fishing vertically under the boat. I had a few fish on fork tails just twitched occasionally but most came to jigged paddle tails. The zander were feeding reasonably well, quite a few hit the lure pretty hard and had the whole thing in their mouths, with a few just nipping at it and hooked on the stinger. The average size wasn't bad either, lots of small ones as usual but a decent number of what I think of as 'good handfuls' - the 3-5lb fish. We finished up in a different area and had a few fish there too to end the day. We didn't keep count but I reckon tigger and I had about 50 between us, a good result given the awkwardness of not being able to drift properly. Another really good fun day

Alex is very experienced at this and has been doing it a long time, 2 bites all day is a lot less than when he uses flouro. The average size thing is interesting, that may be because of the larger lure? Although tigger used a larger lure for a bit and caught the normal sized ones. But I think it's fair to say that wire means significantly fewer bites than you'd get with flouro, for whatever reason.

See the above post about Alex using wire - fairly conclusive I think! Whether it's because flouro is 'invisible' or not I don't know, but it certainly makes a difference.

I still have 5 boats booked for the back-up day of Friday 23 Oct - please leave a message here if you'd like to come. Ta Anderoo Kappa Tigger EDIT - 3 boats now cancelled due to lack of demand, 1 space available if anyone fancies it.

It would have been interesting to attach a light source to it! I'd love to see footage of the zander on the bottom.

The LAS had their fish-in the day after we were there: http://www.lureanglers.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=31177&start=45 Some useful perspective, some experienced lure anglers found it pretty tough.

Alex took the opportunity to fish a slightly larger lure on a wire trace to see if any pike turned up and also how it affected the zander fishing. The result - 2 zander all day but both larger than average. As it happened, tigger used a larger lure a bit on the day too and caught the same size zander as with the standard sized lures. Interesting info on the wire v flouro issue.

I'm not sure it is inconsistent. Some of the lures I have just don't get bites whereas others are very successful. The only difference between them is colour. So even though it makes no sense to me that colour should matter in 80ft of water, the results are hard to argue against, and repeatable. It must be possible - in fact probable - that a zander can see well enough to hunt at that depth even if all Steve's camera sees is blackness.

Yes but in that case the tag affects the action of the lure. These zander lures are identical except for colour.

As much as it makes no sense, the conclusion surely has to be that they can distinguish between colours at that depth, and that in certain conditions one colour is better than another. From a practical fishing point of view, you use the ones that catch and forget about the ones that don't! Still, very interesting - thanks for getting the footage Steve.

Likewise, good company, a good laugh and good fun Don't forget - I still have 5 boats booked for Friday 23rd, for anyone who fancies a return trip. Let me know.

I thought this had been discussed quite a lot! It was a good day yesterday, plenty of fish caught and several decent ones, despite the weird weather. It was hot, bright sunshine and pretty much flat calm all day. Full report to follow when I get time, I'm away this weekend so won't have s chance to post. But thanks everyone for coming and I hope you enjoyed it

Reminder that after this evening I'll only have limited access to the forum so any last minute emergencies please send me a text! See you all Friday morning

I've been using seaguar ace hard flouro in 13lb for years now, mainly because the spool lasts ages! But I really like it, tough and abrasion resistant and relatively thin and supple. Though to be honest if I had to use something else I wouldn't worry too much... http://www.fishingmegastore.com/seaguar-ace-fluorocarbon~1904.html When perch and zander fishing at the canals I've been using the cheap drennan fly tippet stuff in 6lb and that's been fine. I think that's what rich uses at Rutland but in 10lb.

JV's fishfinder is now working, so hopefully Rusty will still be OK to lend Errrm their back-up.

Amount of actual food in the baiting should depend on the size of the fish and (mainly) how many there are. Hard to say otherwise. But either way, I would still go for plenty of volume and get a decent bed of groundbait down. It's a good time of year and looking out of the window right now - mild, muggy, drizzly, overcast, low pressure - if I was bream fishing I'd be rubbing my hands together

Yes, you can borrow the markers, no problem.

It looks like it might be very calm on Friday, in which case casting and retrieving might be a better bet than fishing vertically (not much choice if you're not drifting!). This might help: http://www.thefriendlyfisherman.co.uk/articles/lure-fishing/jigging-part-1.asp

Or something a bit more proper: Lowrance X-4 Fishfinder Portable with Transducer https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0059FX8BO/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_DXSewbG25NY20 You'd just need batteries to go with it.

Quickest and easiest way of getting something cheap in time would be something like this from Amazon: Portable Wired Fish Finder Small round transducer with 7.5m cable,45-degree beam angle, Removable float https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KL3CUBS/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_5QSewbSG2F8JM I doubt there's time to get a 'proper' one plus battery and transducer bracket and box etc. in time...

Yes I think you'll have to unless anyone has a spare fishfinder but I don't think they do. There's a chance there may be a spare if it turns out the problem with jv's is the battery but we won't know that til the day.

Ok, summarising who's borrowing what - please shout if anythings wrong: Errrm - rod and reel from anderoo, drogue from anderoo Robs mate - rod and reel from kappa Kappa and Steve walker - drogue from anderoo, fishfinder from anderoo Jv44s fishfinder isn't working so won't have a spare to lend to Errrm.

Hi rob, nightmare, ok rich has a spare rod (thanks rich).