intresting day at Lucy's mill warwickshire!

[bluerinse]

A few points

 

Firstly I was fishing for Zander,

I caught a pike about 6lb, as I was returning it an angler who was barbel fishing further up the bank came over and told me it is Illegal to fish for pike before september1, I told him that this was not the case and that some club water have this as a bylaw but it is not illegal, I also pointed out I was fishing for Zander. H e was very arsey and rude; I felt there was no need for his aggressive manner.

The session was quite good a couple of good size perch around the 1.5lb mark were caught during the hotter part of the day and a few small jacks biggest being the 6lb pike. As darkness fell I kept getting runs but could not hook up the fish, I was using a size 6 circle hook, I was sure It was small Zander, after about 6 or so runs I decided to let the fish run a bit longer before winding on to the fish.

This time I made contact and boy was I into a fish, the fight was hard and dogged, it was dark by now so I could not really see what I was playing.

Anyway I was in for a surprise, to the net came a 4lb4oz eel, hooked perfectly in the top lip, now the interesting thing here is I was fishing at about 3 foot deep in about 8 foot of water, this means the eel must have come up in the water to take my live bait.

The unhooking of the eel was the easiest eel I have ever unhooked.

 

I returned the fish and then packed up as it was about 11pm.

 

On a side note a chap came over at about 3pm for a chat, he was a retired HGV driver, he was not a fisherman but sat with me right through to 9pm, he was enthralled, and was talking about taking up fishing, I hope he got the bug.

At around 9.30pm a polish chap and his girl friend approached me for some information, they had recently moved to the UK and he wanted to fish, he asked about how to get a licence and what the rules were for fishing in the UK, I told him that he should return the fish he catches as many Pols and other migrant workers were taking a lot of fish out of the rivers and lakes. he said he was aware that this was a problem as it had been widely reported in the polish press, he said it was the same in Poland, and that it was bad for there fishing, he said he could understand taking one decent size fish for the kitchen but many Pols took all fish they caught regardless of size. He was I felt a very responsible angler and a nice chap as well. (His misses was also very very nice)

 

The other strange thing is that I have only caught 1 Zander in 4 trips so far this season.

I wonder if the area has been elector fished by the EA and the Zander removed, this area for the last 3 seasons has produced good catches of Zander. It could be other factors such as the fish are spawning late or that they have simply moved.

 

Anyway I will give the area a couple more goes before moving onto a few other areas of the Avon that I know well and are good Zander hot spots.

 

Overall a very eventful day, I much prefer to be left alone when fishing but yesterday it was not to be, but overall my visitors were pleasant to be with.

[Dan Dan]

Nice write up of an interesting day's fishing! I generally don't mind catching eels, I usually carry some newspaper that I can wet and grip them with easily in my bag just in case. i've not caught a zander yet, and was wondering if there have been many reports of them turning up in the Thames?