Zander Hunt: Leviathan Zed.

 Now, I do class my self as bit of an all-rounder, with that said there are a couple of species that I haven't given much time up for, Zander certainly fall within that category as I know exactly how many times I've targeted the species. On a river I have embarked on two trips catching one little fish around 2lb, on canals I have made five trips whilst banking again, just the one. Lake Zander is where I have had the lion share of success, over 6 trips I managed approximately 25 fish to 7lbs exactly. My reasons for not continuing with the lake Zander fishing was for two reasons, its an expensive hobby when you are paying £18 for a one-rod predator ticket for 4-5 hours fishing and also the fact a double was a pipe dream amongst the hungry schooleys.

 Fast forward roughly 3 years since I last made a fist of it and I found myself questioning why don't I target the Thames Zander once again, this time in a boat I'd have a lot more water to search and the chance of a fish or two would be greatly improved. To the drawing board it was then. Having not taken on the challenge properly of catching a Zander by design since my visits to the Surrey Hills I had some work to do.

 Knowing that they hunt the very same fish that the Pike do I toyed with the idea of scaling down, but in the end I resisted the temptation and actually upscaled my treble to a 2/0 as in previous experience I found that you never hooked Zander but more like gripped them, so with a bigger gape single treble I relied on the initial strike to hold firm. So with the heavy detail out of the way I got the boat together and invited my brother Richard to come and join me for a foray on the Thames. I love being afloat, just a great feeling being on the water and giving ourselves every opportunity at success.

 Having set the boat up we got into the first area where I knew a decent drop-off existed and dropped a bait down which trotted around perfectly for ten minutes or so before to my surprise the 20g float bobbed and slipped under, after winding down and making contact the tension went and whatever had picked up my bait was gone. This did fill me with lots of promise and didn't hesitate in getting my bait straight back down. Probably fifteen minutes passed with nothing doing so a quick cast to the other side of boat resulted almost immediately in the float bombing out of sight.

 I waited roughly four or five seconds before hitting this one and straight away it felt like a better connection as a decent fish came up to the surface and rolled, thus showing her entire flank I knew I was connected to a Zander that was likely to be a new PB, with Zeds you can't dream until the net slips under the fish as they have an incredible knack at spitting the treble as they seem ready for the net. Thankfully for me the fight lasted only a couple of minutes and as soon as the fish lay in the net I knew I had struck it lucky.

 So having stopped shaking momentarily I weighed and got my brother to photograph my prize as I gleefully stared at the Zed. That didn't take long!

7lb 13oz! A new PB :)

 Not even half an hour afloat and a new personal best was in the bag! Well, that PB was always going to be threatened knowing what is living in the waters I am fishing, after releasing that fish and punching the air I got myself another bait and inched it out roughly where the last bite came from and before I could check the drag was set properly the float vanished from sight. I was in again and within seconds the fish rolled on the surface just like the first one did, at first glance I couldn't work out if she was larger or of similar size so I played the Zander carefully and after a couple of powerful runs she succumbed to me and inched over the rim of the net, as soon as she did and I released the tension the treble pinged into the air narrowly missing my face!

 My first real search for river Zander was beginning to pay big dividends, this was one even bigger. As I lifted her out the net and into the boat I got a true gauge on the fish and thought I may have my first double figure specimen for the species and another PB to boot. Knowing that Zander do have large frames and often not weighing what their sizes would have you believe she still achieved the dizzy height of 9lb 1oz! I was in dreamland!

The last PB lasted roughly 10 mins...9lb 1oz!

 I left home in the morning dreaming, by 1330 I was wide awake and experiencing that dream!

 By this point I was fishing immersed in euphoria, my float had barely stayed still for 15 minutes and the action didn't stop there as I had a further three takes in a manic half an hour which unfortunately all came off as I suspect the grip of the treble wasn't quite right and the Zander were able to slip away unmolested. Then as if a light had been switched off the feeding spell appeared to have stopped and we set off again in search of more activity. We certainly got that beginning hour of the trip spot on the money, right place, right time, strangely enough Richard didn't have a single bite....

 So as we both scooted around looking for more action we came across a grey seal in search of possibly the same prey but it, just like us wasn't particularly successful with finding the fish again. For around 2 hours we perused the weir pool and surrounding river to no avail, I tried moving the float up and down to hopefully come across feeding fish again. Dusk was rapidly setting in and I thought that if we were to catch another it would be the fifteen minutes either side of sunset and true to assumption Richards float went under which quickly came back up before he could strike, then mine went a minute later which I hooked into and I was locked into battle with what felt like a big fish and in the failing light I could see a large frame top in front of the boat and in an instant the float came hurtling across the surface and with a huge boil my fish was gone...

 I was gutted but I had no time to dwell on that as Richards float quickly vanished and he quickly took up the slack, as he put the pressure on the fish the rod hooped over and fooled us into believing he was actually playing a Pike and the initial lunge certainly suggested that but what surfaced perplexed us both! A mega Zander was thrashing around just 20 foot from the boat and I was shaking just watching Rich play the fish, this was without a doubt the biggest Zed I had ever seen! As dark began to settle in my brother smashed his personal best with this incredible specimen. The final seconds of the fight were a blur as we both remained absolutely calm (shitting it) before I shipped the edge of the net past the incoming animal. She was colossal and weighing in at 13lb 3oz it was just simply an incredible fish. Just to think he was complaining not an hour before that he hadn't had any takes and it was "doing his head in". Sometimes when your lucks in, it is IN!

Holy Sh*t! 

 I was possibly as happy as he was with that! But, that catch left me with a dilemma...that being he had caught a double figure Zed before me and out of my boat! I couldn't let sleeping dogs lye.

 Part Two coming......