Wednesday 30 April 2014

Deflated, literally....

In my very limited experience of Zander fishing (4 or 5 sessions) I've landed plenty on the lure but none on deadbait. I've had decent fish on, some for a reasonable time too but they not always been hooked effectively or they have managed to shake the hook. I switched from a thick'ish gauge circle hook to an off the shelf thinner gauge LYNX wire trace jobbie because I thought the circle hook might have difficulty penetrating the Zanders bony mouth.Danny Hale recommended I lift in the fish rather than strike which makes sense but again that didn't seem to help my hook-ups. Maybe I'm doing it wrong. Not for the first time I might add.


Yesterday's short 2 hour evening session didn't go much better either, I caught a couple of schoolies on the lure and not a touch on the deadbait sleeper rod. I'm also doing my bit to clear the canal from rubbish because I hooked and landed a tyre.Maybe a job moonlighting for the canal & river trust is on the cards.:)

With my mate Simon in tow and with the light reducing we called it a day and decided to pop to the local hostelry for a pint of UBU. I lifted the deadbait rod to feel some resistance and said to Simon,'no wonder there wasn't a touch on the deadbait, it's snagged'. This wasn't a snag though, because the snag was pulling back and I could see a half decent fish. The Zander had obviously grabbed at the roach on the retrieve the greedy git. Again the fish was on for 5 secs or so then, nothing, gone. I want to persevere with the single hook rings and not switch to a treble set-up just yet.  The deadbait attracted the bigger fish, no doubt about that, all very frustrating as I'd have a reasonable PB by now. I'm learning though, that's what fishing is all about.



2 comments:

  1. MIck, every Coventry blogger had a crack once at the local canal zander and single hooks were the only way forward we eventually found. Danny uses a, O'Shaunessy pattern I believe and swears by it. I use Mustad ultimate bass in 2/0. The moment I started with them my hook up rate shot through the roof but better, my retention rate went from maybe 20% to 90%. About 80% of the zeds I ever banked came after that change. Before I'd lose almost every one!

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    1. I might give those Mustard hooks a go look more suited, the circle hooks I'd used first seemed to be far too heavy gauge for my liking. No issues with finding the Zander and as I've said in my blog the bigger ones certainly preferred the deadbaits.

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