ZZZ - Another PB

Lee from http://thisanglinglife.blogspot.co.uk/ was right Zander, Zander, Zander was all I could think about this week and especially as I was given some information about the possibility of some huge ones in a particular short stretch.

This time I planned to use two rods, a float set-up and my lure rod which was successful last week. With another two miles of the Grand Union Canal to cover I moved along the towpath, placed the small dead roach deadbait under the small pike float secured by a single circle hook into some likely looking fishing holding areas and then work the lure in and around the swim. Ten minutes without a fish I'd move on.

 

This stretch was dark moody and largely devoid of any features, there was the odd fish moving around but looked lifeless. I know the bigger Zander are likely to be more active at night but as it was an overcast morning I thought if there were some fish in this stretch I'd hopefully hook in to one of them. I alternated between lures, the smallest a fiiish minnow and the biggest a fire tiger shad 5.5" long.

After a biteless 2.5 hours and having walked the whole stretch for the final hour I decided to drive back to the spot where I caught my 1lb 15oz PB ( you have to start somewhere ) last week. The car-park is handily a stones throw away from the  swim I wanted to fish so after arriving at the spot within 5 minutes I was fishing. I'm certainly glad I made the move because within an hour I caught 6 Zander, upped my PB to 2lb 1oz and lost a much much bigger fish at the death that bumped the hook. Promising indeed. Strangely not a touch on the deadbait, all on the small minnow lure. As the evening are lighter I might give a couple of short sessions a go. Make hay and all that.