We are sensible anglers, get us out of here!

Its rare that l have to use my return visit policy when guiding, yet a few weeks ago whilst zander fishing at Old Bury Hill myself and regular customer Mark came up against the odds and found ourselves on a night when the fishing was impossible. We knew what it was, the full moon and although Mark did catch a personal best carp, it wasn’t his target, so a return visit was planned.

With a weather front that had placed around thirty rivers on flood alert in the west country moving east the session was almost abandoned, yet l know that the worse the weather, the better the fishing. Arriving at 2pm we headed to my preferred area along the long bank and soon had four rods fishing sardine sections. The night before had seen loads of cold heavy rain enter the lake and l had reservations whether this would have killed the lake, yet a pike being weighed by another angler raised our hopes. It wasn’t until the light started to fade that Marks indicator rose slowly to the rod blank and a firm strike saw a powerful fish hooked, yet unbelievably it was yet another carp, this was getting a bit silly now. Luckily a couple of small zander soon followed and with his first zander netted we started to relax, yet with the wind gaining we knew our stay could at any point be cut short. To give Mark a good chance of catching a few fish we had agreed that although l would work my rods he would take runs on them, however once he had caught a seven pounder l would swap the right-hand reel handles back so l could have a fish. Fortunately most of the following runs came on his own rods and with a flurry of action that saw him net two good zander weighing 8lb 10oz and 8lb 7oz at the same time l decided to have a fish. Re-baiting with fresh baits l cast back out and straight away got a run which saw a very big zander grace my net. Weighing exactly 12lb l knew l was one very lucky angler and realised that the fishing god was once again looking down. We both took another zander before the wind started to strengthen and once the rain arrived around 9.30pm we looked at each other, knew we had booth had a brilliant session and screamed ‘we are serious anglers, get us out of here’.

Whilst this weather is still mild, the zander fishing is still good, yet once the winter sets in it gets harder so if you fancy a go you better get in touch soon.