Saturday 25 October 2014

Canal Zander — We Don't Think So!

I enjoyed a long conversation about zander the other morning with Danny Everitt while we fished the Coventry Canal just round the corner from my home. Now, Danny and myself are pretty experienced at the canal zander fishing malarky and though we have never fished using the same rigs in all the time we've practised the sport, we've somehow converged over time and arrived at the point where what we both have dangling from our rod tops is superficially different but technically speaking pretty much identical in every respect. Small but buoyant cigar shaped floats — because there's no need for big ones when the bait is just yards distant — enough weight to cock them, and a wire trace armed with a large single hook.



The approach we use is similar too. No need for rod rests and all that. We sit out back with our rods lain on the strip of grass between towpath and water, often at a forty-five degree angle in tight swims, with their butts out of the way of Robocyclist, who we see from time to time as a silver/black/spandex/carbon-fibre blur, hurtling through the gap against his handlebar mounted iPhone stopwatch. Each to his own. He has his hobby, we have ours. It's for the best they're kept apart by a few inches. Also, the gear we carry about is pared down to the barest minimum. A seat, a bag, and a net, is all we have besides our rods. Canal zander fishing is not a static pursuit and moving along, and you might five or six times over in the one session, is far easier when you aren't entrenched in a mess of unnecessary tackle.

The only difference between Danny's current practise and my own is in bait choice. I use small slices of dead roach, he uses small live perch. But the emphasis is still on small bait size and for good reason.

Wrong hook — fifteen runs — two fish banked.  No wonder zander are thought a tricky customer...
Now, we've both experimented with hooks down the years, starting off with tandem trebles,  progressing through every conceivable combination of this and that before arriving at the same conclusion — that single hooks in sizes so agricultural they'd make the average coarse angler's eyes water, are the very best tool for the job. You have to understand that using the wrong hook for zander results in head-banging frustration with run after run missed and lightly pricked fish getting off far too easily. When you only net one fish from every three hooked and hook just six from fifteen runs in one hectic hour (as I did one December night back in 2010) then you become acutely aware that something is very wrong at the business end.

The Gamakatsu 'Finessse Wide Gape' in size 3/0
Last time I fished with Danny after zeds he was using O'Shaughnessy hooks size 1/0 and I was using the Mustad 'Ultimate Bass' in size 2/0. Today he was using a carp hook, and it was the biggest one he could find on the shelves, while I was using a hook under trial as an alternative to the Mustad — the Gamakatsu 'Finesse Wide Gap'. This is a hook only available in America and was kindly thrown across the pond by Steve Dedrick (Steve in Colorado) on recommendation as a great hook for walleye and therefore the closely related zander. 

Apart from the straight point of mine and the in-curved point of Danny's, they were, to all intents and purposes, identical. And just as large as each other even though his was a size 1 and mine a 3/0 according to the packets!



General hook size chart.  Perhaps my 3/0 is not nearly big enough for double figure fish?

We agreed. They weren't that large at all. Not in the jaw of a decent zander, but certainly not in the gob of any size of pike. What was 'large' about them was only that they were in use for coarse fish. We then agreed on a second point — that many coarse anglers lack sea fishing experience and have therefore developed something of a fetish for small hooks and are always looking at ways to reduce size. Which, as we also agreed, is a nonsense. Hooks should be the right size for the job, big or small, and these huge hooks of ours were spot on. 

For bass in this size range sea anglers routinely choose hook sizes in the order of  4/0 - 6/0

That's a great deal larger than a size 6! 

About ten times the size...

Use such a hook at Bury Hill, though, and you'd be frogmarched out the gates by the owner. Trebles are banned outright there and single hooks a must. But he enforces tench hooks on his predator hunters. Size 6 is the maximum allowed. Because Bury Hill is the country's zander Mecca, this ruling has forced intelligent anglers who fish the place to refine small hook/small bait rigs to get the best from it. However, using such small hooks results in false data. You are going to get very many 'dropped' runs and many lost fish before you bank one. The upshot of this is the reinforcement of an old myth originally perpetuated by pike anglers fishing for zander with pike gear. And that is...

That they are 'finicky'.

A size 6 circle and a strip of trout. Looks all wrong
but what is the essential difference between this
and a single maggot on a size 18?
We don't think so! 

Danny doesn't have dropped runs and neither do I. They just don't let go of a bait once they pick it up, in my experience. When I caught a one at Bury Hill, it messed with the bait for a full minute before deciding to move off with it. The float dithered on the spot, but it didn't run. I knew it must be zander picking it up because the bite was typical of many I get down the cut and such bites must be struck when the float moves away in one direction (no matter how slowly) because the fish is solo, not in a competitive pack, and is mouthing the bait, not eating it beforehand. Sure enough, when it did move off, I struck against the direction of the run and hooked it. It was a near twelve-pounder, but I would have never had hooked it at all if I'd struck early.

I was very lucky to bank it though. Very lucky not to be thrown off too, because I used a size 6 circle hook that day. At least that's what it said on the packet...

The reason such large hooks as we both currently employ work so very well mechanically is because the gape is very wide. The reason the bait is hooked so that it dangles off the bend rather than being impaled upon on it, is that the gape must not be clogged with flesh otherwise it is rendered ineffectual because it is the bend of the hook that banks zander, not the point. That wide unimpeded gape is critical because there's the bony plate of the upper jaw to contend with and it must wrap around it. Use anything smaller and you are merely hoping to hook up by finding some little bit of flesh inside the mouth and there's precious little of that, hence the reputation zander have for falling off. 

The Gamakatsu and its typical hook hold.  Zander should always be hooked like this so far 
as I'm concerned because if not it's the wrong hook for the job in a very bony gob. 


The Gamakatsu is almost as wide as it is long — nearly a circle hook but for the lack of a sharply inturned point. Fish are almost always hooked cleanly in the scissors through the thin membrane between the bony plate of the upper jaw and the skull but for some reason are never hooked down the throat and that's a blessing because unhooking the fish is a formality, not a surgical operation. Big wide gape hooks avoid all that, in fact I'm so outrageously confident in them that I don't even check my bag for forceps before I go. Can't remember when I last had to use them, actually.

The Mustad 'Ultimate Bass' cleanly hooked through the scissors of a small zander. 

But even with the long-shanked Mustad, it is the large gape that makes it work so well. I refer you to Mick Newey, who was having a horrible time of it when he began trying for the zander in his local canal. He was experiencing exactly what Danny and I had encountered years ago. Lots of runs, few fish. I recommended the Mustad bass hook and what happened then was he hooked and banked almost every single one thereafter. He didn't catch any large ones though, so the hook looks enormous in their mouths, but hook a five-pounder or better and that size discrepancy vanishes, and five-pounds plus is what we fish for, after all, is it not?

The only downside we agreed upon was that such large hooks might once in a while impale small zander through the orbit of the eye.

Well, little zander make for a very tasty fillet, don't they?





29 comments:

  1. An enjoyable read that Jeff, I'm thinking about having a try for zander next year, keep the updates coming.

    Darren

    www.northeastpiker.blogspot.co.uk

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    1. Glad you liked it, Darren. I'll be doing quite a bit of zander fishing this Winter so you get to read all about that too! I've added your blog to my sidebar, hope that's OK?

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  2. Very enjoyable that Jeff.

    I equate Zandering with crucian fishing, damned frustrating but so enjoyable, and it keeps you thinking.

    Phil

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    1. Yes it does! The great thing about zander fishing in the UK is that so much remains to be discovered. It's a very young sport and only in the last few years has a split appeared between pike fishing for zander and actually going out to fish exclusively for zander with zander tackle. Luckily, I can do that because the canal stretches I fish hold few pike these days. I've only ever caught pike in the one swim but never elsewhere.

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  3. Like your bread article, Jeff, very compelling and well thought out. Love it!

    Ravey

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    1. Let me know how you get on with bread disks if you decide to try them out, Ravey. They do remove all the worry of bread fishing — "is it still on the hook" and all that faff of getting flake around the shank. I'll never use bread any other way.

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  4. Hi Jeff as you know I used the bass hooks for a while after you recommended them to me, but after experiencing the point protruding from the eye of a small sub 3lb fish for myself I immediately stopped using them. Since then I have been pretty happy using ESP raptor in size 2. Having a wide gape, slight inturned point and short shank they are in between a standard J hook and a circle hook I suppose. I have only recently had a issue with a couple of dropped takes on them so this post has got me thinking. I do like the look of the gamakatsu hooks in your pic, might give them a go as the gape is even wider than the raptors which I like as it will allow more exposed hook to find a purchase in the zanders mouth. I still can't bring myself to use the large bass hooks again, however I agree that they will be fine hooking into a plus 5lb fish, but if your on the canal they are still above average stamp in most stretches it down to what your happy with ultimately.
    The important point here though is that we all agree trebles especially two hook rigs are not ideal especially when targeting smaller zander. They are just not nessasary and you will end up with damaged or dead zander sooner or later especially if your new to targeting them.

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    1. Lee, as you know, the great hunt for the perfect zander hook will never end! I think it's exciting that no two committed zander anglers can agree that it has yet been discovered so the search will continue, but I think we all recognise that a wide gape is at least part of the answer — at the moment!

      I'll give you a couple of the Gamakatsu if you want? They are working well for me right now, very well in fact. Hook ups are almost guaranteed with them. However, I have yet to hook anything over three pounds or so. If I can bank one five-pounds plus I'd be examining that hook hold in the jaw very closely. There's an awful lot of schoolies swimming about this year, though. Danny has encountered the same thing on the GU. Stacks of tiddlers, few large fish. Must have been a good recruitment year a while back I'd have thought.

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  5. Anybody over there try Khale hooks for Zander? A definite cross between a J and a circle.

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  6. Now they look like something new! I can't see why they wouldn't work well so in the spirit of experimentation I reckon I'll buy a pack and give them a go. Cheers!

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    1. Check out the Mustad 37140-BN
      It's a wide gap version and available in a size 6.

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  7. Hi Jeff, great read. When float fishing do you fish slightly overdepth or with the bait just off the bottom? I'm hoping to do quite a bit of canal zandering this winter. In my previous attempts I've always float ledgered for them but just wondered if i should be letting the bait drift around a little.
    Thanks, Andy.

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  8. Andy, I always fish the bait on the bottom and set the depth to stop drifting as much as possible. So, on still days the bait will be on the bottom, on windy days the lead will be on the bottom. If the float drifts, then because canals are always flowing one way or the other even in dead still conditions, you find it goes either left or right and ends up against the near bank in minutes. On a windy day with lots of tow it'll be there in seconds! I also sink the line otherwise rubbish accumulates on it and pulls the bait out of position too. There's no reason why drifting a bait wouldn't work well on a lake like Bury Hill, in fact when I fished there the bait was drifting slowly all day long because of the distance from rod to float, but on canals it means recasting all the time, so I nail it down!

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    1. Cheers Jeff, sounds like I haven't been going too far wrong then! As a dyed in the wool sea angler I often doubt my coarse fishing methods. I do find the float ledger gives excellent bite detection, and using an ounce of lead means that only the resistance of the float is felt by the fish as the weight stays nailed to the bottom.

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    2. Andy, I use a quarter-ounce drilled bullet or similar. It slides but when they pick up the bait they take the lead along with it. I'd be interested to hear about what happens when the lead stays down and the line runs through it. The bites would be very different I think?

      Your sea fishing experience will come in useful with zander. Before I came up to Coventry my fishing was all about bait fishing for Bass in the Crouch/Blackwater estuaries. In fact, the rig I use is pretty much the float rig I used to employ in the creeks with great success. The only real difference is that for bass I used a proper circle hook and it worked brilliantly. I've yet to put circles through their paces with zander, but I will at some point.

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  9. Very interesting - thanks. Having just started fishing for zander I've been frustrated with hook pulls and dropped runs. I've already been scaling down bait (as I can't scale up hooks) and was going to try hair rigging some baits.

    And my dropped runs, were they dropped runs? It didn't occur to me they had mouthed the bait and were still there - I was pulling the bait away from them - obvious now it's been pointed out!

    Anyway, thanks again. Hopefully out this week to try and put some of this into practice.

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    1. I've followed your recent exploits at Bury Hill with interest, Brian. Hook pulls, dropped runs... All very familiar to any Coventry zander angler ! That size 6 ruling pretty much rules out experimenting with big hooks, though the widest gape you can get in that size 6 might improve things somewhat. As for dropped runs, I think you are correct. You've been pulling the bait away from an interested fish too early. Only trouble is with small hooks and baits to suit — wait too long and you might gut hook it. How would you know? Float fishing is what I'd suggest. You'll see exactly what's going on where ledgering will tell you very little about movement unless line is peeling off the bait-runner continuously.

      Go figure it out. You might come up with an alternative no one has thought of before. Even bank one of the big doubles, with any luck. But don't be deterred. There is an answer to the Bury Hill blues, I'm sure. Actually, you've done exceptionally well with the zeds there in sheer numbers. I've visited twice. The first time mine was the only zander banked in the day between thirty or more anglers. The second I think two came out. I did lose a very big pike that day. It was so heavy I just could not shift it up to the net. It would have smashed my PB. The hook pulled after fifteen minutes. Not bad for a size 6, but it would have held fast till the net in the size I prefer, I'm sure,

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    2. Oh, and I thought of something else. On the cut, we always cast straight back to a missed fish. They invariably take the bait again. You might want to employ a marker float on Bury Hill so that can be achieved? It's easy for us what with baits just a few yards out, but in open water getting back to the same spot at distance is pot luck without a reference point. You could be ten yards away but think it close by...

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    3. Thanks Jeff, this has really got the cogs whirring. I didn't have any luck on the float, and my plan before reading this was fishing a quiver tip with baits hooked through a pinch of skin.

      The other plan was circle hooks. Of the 6 fish I've landed on bait (all instant strikes) 2 hooked in the scissors, 3 hooks out in the net and one had swallowed the bait (unhooked no problem but an inch further down and I'd have been in trouble).

      Fascinating knowing a solution but not being able to try it, but experimenting with bait and rigs is one of the best bit of fishing.

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  10. Jeff,

    You been on a sunbed ? ;-0 Nice write up.

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  11. Not recently, Monty! That pic was taken in Winter of 2010. Reckon it to be ice burn, too much liquor, or both...

    Sporting a dark beard back then. Silver fox now what with all the worry of 2013/14!

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  12. Hi Jeff,

    Sorry i've not been in touch for a while, things have been a bit hectic here as i explained last time you came over.
    I've never fished for Zander in my whole 42 year fishing career, so i'd certainly be up for a session if you don't mind me tagging along sometime ?
    What sort of tackle do i need ? I've got a 1.5lb Barbel/Avon rod, that has a 4000 sized reel loaded with 8lb mono, would that be suitable ? With regards to terminal tackle i'd need to visit the tackle shop, i don't do much predator fishing so don't have anything.

    We need to have a go at them Cov Canal Roach again, now that the boat and towpath traffic is subsiding with the colder weather.

    Norm

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    1. Yeah, we'll have to catch up, Norm. You fishing for zander? Any fairly strong rod will do. They don't fight that hard. Actually they could be match winners you know, but we'll talk about that down the Sowe, which should be coming into its Winter garb about now, don't you think? Oh, and I'd like to have another go at the pole on the Cov some time.

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  13. Hi jeff, timely advice, and good to sense the regularity of your posts creeping back up again. I say timely because I shall hopefully be giving the Ashby canal a couple hours whilst on a trip to Nuneaton later in the week. Know it at all?

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    1. Well, you did catch your first canal zed, so well done there, Russel. I had a a weird session today, Just as I was composing my mail to you on the phone, the float started moving. Had my best fish of the year thus far, but not one that will that hard to beat, I hope

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  14. Jeff, the bass hooks have been a revelation for my Zander hook-ups, I use the 2/0 exclusively now which is slight smaller than what I used at first. I tried G point circle hooks but probably banked 1 out of 6 or 7 runs. The thin guage on the bass hook certainly help penetrate the Zanders boney mouth. I just use a simple running rig for my Zander fishing as I like to throw a lure around too. I have the odd Zander that swallows it down but as the barb is crushed it's not that hard to removed to be honest. I've only had to put one out of his misery if I recall and I've not manged to hook any in the eye yet.

    Give me shout if you want a change from the Cov canal, there are loads in the areas I fish and I've heard of some big ones being banked. I've not fished for Zander that often but they are getting bigger everytime I go, there must be some big ones lurking around. My biggest being 5lb 4oz on a lure. Incidently I've not caught a Pike either, all Zander.

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    1. Those Gamakatsu ones I've been using performed under par last night and this morning, Mick. Not so sure about them now, so I will have to get a new pack of Mustads just in case!

      No, pike don't seem to exist in these canals any more. I reckon the zeds dominate the food chain these days

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  15. Jeff,

    A daft thought but..... How about a Jig Head? Let's say for arguments sake a size 2/0 with a weight of 5,7 or 10 grams. A sharp finesse hook from AGM(no plug here),

    Would Mr or Mrs Zander know the difference from picking up a dead bait, with a small hook. Or a bait that weighs more owing to a "Jig Head". And would the "Jig Head" give you a potential hook up, like the old "Bolt Rig"?

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    1. I reckon they might work perfectly well, Monty. No need for an attached weight and the fish feels no extra resistance when it picks up the bait. I don't know about bolt rigging for zeds. It might help in some way. Who knows unless they try? I might well...

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