Zander. Your experiences?

[Dales]

My thoughts have always been that they would shoal in year/size classes and that you would not find the smaller Zander near the biggest and certainly not in the same shoal. But only my thoughts and not tied to any research.

[Phone]

Hawk,

 

These guys are great guides if you get a chance.

 

http://allenshillside.com/

 

Phone

[Dave H]

Hawk,

 

These guys are great guides if you get a chance.

 

http://allenshillside.com/

 

Phone

 

Yeah i can tell by their knowledge. nice one phone

 

@ Dales you are right but perhaps i worded it incorrectly. The smaller shoal is just followed by the bigger ones just picking up any dead or decapitated or injured fish which is why a big dead one lying on the bottom is an easy touch and a full meal worth going for.

 

My birds of prey work on the same principle although sole hunters some do work in packs with the younger ones ( usually males) kill or chase and the bigger females take the spoils first

[Dick Dastardly]

My first experience of zander was mainly the odd one or two schooliestaken whilst piking. scaled down gear with small baits was my main method when I tried for them intentionally........untill agroup of mates started catching some real big ones! I was lucky enough to be asked along and between us we took 9 fish over 17lb over the next two seasons from the same very small stretch.No delicate gear or small baits here but full blown pike gear with 12ozs live baits.Most of the top 20 list is still made up by the fish a few of our group publicised.Great days the likes of which none of us has ever seen again

[Anderoo]

My first experience of zander was mainly the odd one or two schooliestaken whilst piking. scaled down gear with small baits was my main method when I tried for them intentionally........untill agroup of mates started catching some real big ones! I was lucky enough to be asked along and between us we took 9 fish over 17lb over the next two seasons from the same very small stretch.No delicate gear or small baits here but full blown pike gear with 12ozs live baits.Most of the top 20 list is still made up by the fish a few of our group publicised.Great days the likes of which none of us has ever seen again

 

And at that time a young anderoo was living just a couple of miles away blissfully unaware zander history was being written!

 

How many different fish were the 17lb+ zeds Budgie? I'm assuming there were recaptures?

[Dave H]

My first experience of zander was mainly the odd one or two schooliestaken whilst piking. scaled down gear with small baits was my main method when I tried for them intentionally........untill agroup of mates started catching some real big ones! I was lucky enough to be asked along and between us we took 9 fish over 17lb over the next two seasons from the same very small stretch.No delicate gear or small baits here but full blown pike gear with 12ozs live baits.Most of the top 20 list is still made up by the fish a few of our group publicised.Great days the likes of which none of us has ever seen again

 

WOW!...That's some great fishing there mate. I did hear years a go of something like this there was also a similar stretch ware a huge amount of Pike were taken i believe by Des Taylor . It was an incredible amount of fish. i remember getting to see his hands after the session and for a guy who knows how to handle Pike i knew that was just pure volume of fish

 

Great stuff!

[Dick Dastardly]

And at that time a young anderoo was living just a couple of miles away blissfully unaware zander history was being written!

 

How many different fish were the 17lb+ zeds Budgie? I'm assuming there were recaptures?

 

We believe that only one of the fish our group (of four) caught was a recapture ( the biggest one that I took and indeed the one in the photo I showed you guys who attended the Pike Teach In/Zander Fish In) at St Peters Drove a few years back.) it came out to me the season after it came out at 18.02 to my mate in 93 (back then these were record nudging fish).

 

The really unique thing was over the few seasons we fished this hot spot we only caught true monsters and nothing else! Very slow fishing we quite often blanked on three night sessions despite breaking the rules with four rods each.If memorey serves me right the only fish we had under 16 was one at 13.12 that I also caught.

 

A pair of other anglers tracked down the spot and killed it shortly after we had moved on.They publicised all of their fish but never had anything bigger and certainly no where near as many but interestingly enough no small ones either.

 

Ive not fished the spot for many years now but I know Rob has a couple of times and its just another "normal" swim now with a mixture of sized Zeds in but very few Pike. Back in its hey day there were loads of pike of all sizes present and we would often catch them during the day if we bothered to fish.Often wondered if there was some association here.

 

And Ive only ever had one other double since those days!

[Anderoo]

That's amazing. Once in a lifetime fishing!

 

And you still won't write a book...bah!

[Dick Dastardly]

That's amazing. Once in a lifetime fishing!

 

And you still won't write a book...bah!

 

Yes "once in a life time" is right! We never sussed out why so many big fish were in that area. AND I can assure you that since then we have given it an awfull lot of thought in the hope of sussing it and being able to repeat it! Like I said no small Zedsbut plenty of pike of all sizes there at the time.Never fished for bait there either as had a great supply of crucians at the time so no idea what else was there.As far as I know though it was never a known bream holding area either so that link didnt come into it. I will show you the stretch next time we are both up the Fens again mate as Im sure the others would no longer object. Mainly so you can see how relatively small,narrow and seemingly so "normal" it apears!

 

As for a book it's only been in quite recent years Ive even spoke about it and shown the odd photo! The only fish in the list were the ones we put in the papers and that wasnt all and only the other three did as it just isnt my thing! Dave tried to get me to write one about the Trout Reservoirs as well.At the time I wasstill fishing some of them exclusively and didnt want to risk that but now the last has gone I may well do as Ive no longer got anything to lose and there is no one that it would cause trouble for anymore I think.I will have to see.

[Dave H]

Yes "once in a life time" is right! We never sussed out why so many big fish were in that area. AND I can assure you that since then we have given it an awfull lot of thought in the hope of sussing it and being able to repeat it! Like I said no small Zedsbut plenty of pike of all sizes there at the time.Never fished for bait there either as had a great supply of crucians at the time so no idea what else was there.As far as I know though it was never a known bream holding area either so that link didnt come into it. I will show you the stretch next time we are both up the Fens again mate as Im sure the others would no longer object. Mainly so you can see how relatively small,narrow and seemingly so "normal" it apears!

 

As for a book it's only been in quite recent years Ive even spoke about it and shown the odd photo! The only fish in the list were the ones we put in the papers and that wasnt all and only the other three did as it just isnt my thing! Dave tried to get me to write one about the Trout Reservoirs as well.At the time I wasstill fishing some of them exclusively and didnt want to risk that but now the last has gone I may well do as Ive no longer got anything to lose and there is no one that it would cause trouble for anymore I think.I will have to see.

 

I hope you go ahead with the book. It sounds like it will make interesting reading...Come on DO IT!