Vampires of the Lake.

 Before I started this season my predator personal bests were not what I'd call impressive but I have wanted to achieve some targets that I set at the beginning of 2015, this season has been made by some impressive captures on the predator front, three-pound Perch for some angler's are average but a fish of 3lb 6oz is massive to me, I also made abundantly clear in my last post the achievement of another angling goal by catching a 20lb+ Pike, from a river it was all the more impressive, this was all on top of my PB Zander caught earlier in the month which nudged 7lb on the scales where I was tackling the much maligned Bury Hill complex to put myself in with a chance of a double figure fish.

 I had finally learnt how to catch them along with Brian Roberts, we set our sights of the ultimate prize in the Zander world.

 So for one last hoorah we made our way back down into the Surrey Hills for one last blast, I stuck to my usual tactic of one float rod slightly off the bottom (Roach section) and the other an ounce lead (Roach section) cast out to a feature that we had previously located, we get there usually with enough time to faff around before casting out around ten minutes before dusk, speaking to all of the departing angler's we learnt that one Zander had came out all day between maybe fifteen angler's targeting them, thing's we thought would be tough then, ten minutes later the ledgered Roach section went for a wander out into the open water, "fish on" and out the corner of my eye the float vanished, slipping the first rod between my legs with the fish attached I bent into the second rod, which by the way felt heavier so I enlisted Brian's help to bring the smaller one in where I concentrated on not losing the larger of the two. Not bad for a lake that struggled for everyone, a double hook up in less than 10 minutes, I was feeling rather smug, but I knew as the wind speed crept up as Storm Frank was starting to get a grip thing's would get tougher.

My opening brace of 6.0 & 3.15.

Six on the nose.

 Not a bad start by any standard's, the fish were definitely feeding but getting them to commit was proving difficult, the wind was just getting stronger and stronger as every minute went by, around 7pm it was probably notching up to 25mph if not stronger, between the brace and 7pm I did manage another fish of 5.08 which fought quite well but it wasn't the start of a feeding frenzy as we have found in the recent past, had the stiff wind put them off slightly or are they simply not feeding as hard as they'd been doing on other trips, the sport was so slow that I spent most of the evening being sociable, nagging with Brian we were trying to work out why the sport was not what it has been, so many things to bear in mind we ended up just sticking to what we know.

A chunky mid-five. A month or so ago that was a PB, mad how perspectives change.

 The lead was totally ignored for the rest of the night and my only action was coming on the float, I managed to conjure up one more toothy critter of 5.09 and that was my lot, one lost fish was added to the evening's action along with 3 dropped runs, Brian did avoid a thumping when I slipped the net under a cracking winter Zed of 7.14, not too bad for someone who had two bites in five hours, tough going it was.

Second biggest of the evening at 5.09.

 Total Runs: 8

 Total Hooked: 5

 Total Landed: 4

 Total Bumped: 3

 Weights: 6.0, 5.9, 5.8, 3.15.

 A total of 26 Zander in four trips is not a bad return but that double will have to wait a little while longer and with the skills starting to look a little sharper it's time to locate a River Thames monster and a canal Zed, both are not going to be easy I'll tell you.