Closed Season Zander Quest PT47 – Up at West Nipple

The mornings indulgence of super thick sliced white bread, three Lincolnshire sausages, two slices of black pudding, tomatoes and brown sauce was sitting like a veritable brick in my stomach, it wasn't particularly pleasant if I'm honest but lucky I'd be able to walk it off come home time.

The bottleneck needed to be shifted....

So for this quick after work session after a decent walk the floats were positioned in the holding water of the West Nipple where my results up to now have been pretty mediocre if I’m honest but there ‘HAD’ to be some big fish lurking here.

It’s good to share information with a fellow Zed head and sometime back now my suspicions were confirmed giving me the incentive I needed to give it more of a go despite the poor results I’d had.

These Zander may well be transient but I’m sure just like the greasy spoons that stations themselves in the nations lay-bys’ from time to time out of the schoolie great unwashed that tuck in to the sausage sandwiches eventually an Ambulocetus would turn up and a second frying pan would have to lit.

Now these Roach deadbaits are ideal as a belly buster as you can cater for every large Zanders palette, think of it like this, as a boob man, the squidgy middle bit would tempt me, the head, someone how likes a pretty face and the tail, well my mate Steveo, he loves a nice posterior.

I’m sure they have a preference….

So these sized baits are easy peasy, chop in to three and you have ideal sized baits to service the requirements of a hungry lunker.

So far the squidgy middle bit seems to be most productive, you just needs to puncture the swim bladder otherwise the bait will float.

The best I’d manage from this area was a 5lber, but what was encouraging was not just the fact that I know for a face bigger fish have been here sometime in the past but also that I’d lost two reasonable fish before I discovered a hook and method that I’ve utter confidence in.

Ok from time to time you lose fish, but hey that’s Zander fishing for you, anyhow, like me and those that fish for them will agree they are the epitome of angling frustration.

You've just got to stick with it, tweaks the rigs and eventually you will hit a sweet spot.

So with blue sky and clear it was going to be a difficult session and indeed it was. It took an hour or so for the first bite but it was a classic schoolie bite and I struck in to thin air.

Re-positioned the float moved again after 10 minutes but this time I connected to a fish, a scrappy little schoolie. I moved North of the West Nipple and positioned the baits in an area of shade and thick cover.

Nothing, zilch before it was time to pick Ben up from school.

If you struggle hooking up with Zander usually it's a schoolie mouthing the bait, so be patient, you're not do anything wrong. Chop the bait in half usually works if you just want to bank a fish.

On to the next one....