Below there's a simple chart showing the weight in pounds of each zander of the total of eighteen caught since I began my campaign back in early October (ignoring those caught on lobworm whilst roach fishing) in sequence. It's not particularly spectacular, is it? But, as anyone who has fished the canal for zander will testify, it's what you have to expect.
What is heartening is the marked upward shift in the average size of fish since fish number 13, who happens to be the first of the six fish now caught whilst exploring the wides, the basins and marinas and ignoring the straights. The average is now a solid 3.1 lbs rather than the rather thin 1.5 lbs that was my experience before, double the size in fact.
That I cannot get one bigger than five pounds is neither here nor there! The averages should take care of that in the fullness of time...
Zander, like bass, always seem to flare for me...
I had another yesterday evening of 3lb 8oz. That's now four consecutive fish between 3.5 and 4.1 lbs. Like double figure pike zander this size seem to be the commonplace in the areas I'm currently fishing, however the large zander that I do know of came from the very places where I have had such a low average, the snaggy straights, so it's all a bit of a bind frankly. Do I fish the average up by doing what I am doing now and get the double figure fish by design, or, go back out to the straights and get one by landing a bait fortuitously upon its bony skull?
Design, I think, for now...
The weather has also turned decidedly wintery. It rained a little as I sat and watched the floats in the blue gloom of dusk and the rain, though light, was cold. It was the kind of rain that wants to be snow, and according to the weather girl, by Thursday it just might be. I had no pike even though I'm starting to expect them, and after dark no more zeds either, until I moved back home and fished half an hour by the boats at Longford where I hooked a fish that got off after a bit of a tussle.
A zander, for sure. But not a big one...
What is heartening is the marked upward shift in the average size of fish since fish number 13, who happens to be the first of the six fish now caught whilst exploring the wides, the basins and marinas and ignoring the straights. The average is now a solid 3.1 lbs rather than the rather thin 1.5 lbs that was my experience before, double the size in fact.
That I cannot get one bigger than five pounds is neither here nor there! The averages should take care of that in the fullness of time...
Zander, like bass, always seem to flare for me...
I had another yesterday evening of 3lb 8oz. That's now four consecutive fish between 3.5 and 4.1 lbs. Like double figure pike zander this size seem to be the commonplace in the areas I'm currently fishing, however the large zander that I do know of came from the very places where I have had such a low average, the snaggy straights, so it's all a bit of a bind frankly. Do I fish the average up by doing what I am doing now and get the double figure fish by design, or, go back out to the straights and get one by landing a bait fortuitously upon its bony skull?
Design, I think, for now...
The weather has also turned decidedly wintery. It rained a little as I sat and watched the floats in the blue gloom of dusk and the rain, though light, was cold. It was the kind of rain that wants to be snow, and according to the weather girl, by Thursday it just might be. I had no pike even though I'm starting to expect them, and after dark no more zeds either, until I moved back home and fished half an hour by the boats at Longford where I hooked a fish that got off after a bit of a tussle.
A zander, for sure. But not a big one...
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