New PB Zander

So, last October I smashed my Zander PB with a 14lb 6oz beast from a local canal under the light of a full moon. At the time I couldn't believe it, I'd always thought there was a monster in there somewhere but never managed anything much over 8lb. It was a PB I figured I would never beat without heading to somewhere like the Severn that's known to produce bigger fish. Turns out I was wrong!

At the start of October, during a full moon, my friend Steve and I decided to do a spot of carp fishing (aka bream fishing) on the canal. We hadn't been out on the canal for a while so had no idea where the fish were, so figured we'd just wing it and try a trusty old spot. I still had a couple of sorry looking dead baits hidden in the depths of the freezer left over from last year, so took them with me, a roach and a small mackerel, with the intention of chopping them up and throwing them out at the end of the session as a bit of pre-baiting ready for the impending predator season

As it turns out, the carp were no-where to be seen (which is pretty standard) but we weren't really picking up any bream either, so I knocked up a wire trace and swapped a rod over to a predator rod with about an hour of daylight left. To cut a long story short, I lost a decent fish right off the bat on the roach, had a few "ghost runs" and pickups on the mackerel tail, and ended up being left with only the head of the mackerel as bait, as I don't generally use the heads of mackerel as I never catch anything on them and usually end up being harassed by boot lace eels chewing at the gills if I leave them on and fish the whole thing. Anyway, it's all I had and the carp (bream) fishing was pretty non-existent so I launched the head out. It rattled off soon after and as the hooks struck home the rod hooped over. The fish didn't want to come off the bottom, as is usually the way with the better fish, and I could feel it thrashing it's head around so was fully expecting to see a rather angry pike on the end when I finally got it in. I'd barely had chance to see what it was before Steve had ninja'd it into the net as it finally popped up off the bottom and hit the surface. Needless to say it wasn't a pike, it was another big zed, or more accurately, the same big zed (distinguishable by a dark spot on its left flank) that I had caught last year, only this time it was bigger! After weighing a couple of times, we both agreed it was 16lb on the nose! Now, you're probably all expecting me to put up a picture of this fish here, but I can't do that as all the photo's give the location away and as it's early into the predator season I'd understandably quite like to keep the spot to myself for as long as possible. I did try "photoshopping" in a different background which looked ok, but you could tell it wasn't quite right and I didn't want to put up with all the crap from the "non believers" so decided not to post it (hence no blog at the time)... But fear not, the story doesn't end there my friends!

Fast forward a month, to the full moon at the start of November (you can see where this is going...). Steve had a free pass from his pig (his rather affectionate name for his other half) to go fishing, so we went back to the spot, but this time I was only targeting the predators, specifically the zander. I even joked with him that as it was a full moon, I was going to catch the big zander again. Well, during a rather hectic evening, involving 2 pike, 4 or 5 zander and an eel (getting 2 sets of trebles out of an eel is interesting to say the least!) I only went and caught it again! Exactly the same weight as the month before, 16lb on the nose. But this time it was in the dark, which gave us the opportunity to get a photo that gives nothing away, so here it is for all to see...

...But, that's not the end of the story either! As I had a photo that I was happy to share, I figured I'd try my luck and send it off to the angling times, and I've only gone and won a weekly Drennan award! I'm off to go make up some traces ready for the next full moon... ;)