Zander stock in decline.?.

[zeeman]

I heard from a leading source that Zander are in decline in the fens due to the chinese crabs and certain members of the EU that have settled here taking them home and eating them.

Seems a bit strange as the nortfolk/cambs area fens / rivers were run alive with Zees from when I started to fish for them in 1986/87.

I want to start getting back into zandering , we used to fish roswell pits , great ouse , hilgay are these places still producing good zander.?. , we never managed huge zander just a few doubles here and there with plenty of 4-7lbs ers plus the odd 15-20lb pike , nothing special by the rejoins standards but still good sport.

Any info will be a bonus..tight lines.

[headless]

Hi

I have only been concerntrating on catching Zander over the last two seasons on the Ouse so I can't make any comparison to the eighties but my catches from the last two seasons show that the Zeds are there. There are plenty of small Zander about as well as some lumps. The Roach, Rudd and Bream are about in huge numbers as well.

I am no expert and I dont know where you got your info from but I would have thought that if the Zander numbers have deteriorated because of the crabs then the Roach, Rudd and Bream shoals would have also suffered from the crabs.

I believe that with the large amount of small fish about catching Zander will be more difficult

SOME of our so called EU friends have and still are taking Zander and other fish for the pot which in time will have an effect on fish stocks, if they are not not now. Luckily there are some good bailiffs and anglers out there keeping an eye out. Hopefully the EA can get on top of the problem


Darrell

[zeeman]

Thanks for the info D , Bye the way how big is the Z in your avatar.?./

Tight Lines.

[suffolkzander]

rosswell is very patchy nowdays and not as good as yeasr ago....imo, zander in the fens are in an area for a while then move on, certain areas are holding spots but in the main the just move around the fens taking advantage of whats available to eat, the middle level used to be popular, but now is tough, the lazy otter also, guess you just have to get out there and have a go. good luck

tony

[zeeman]

Thanks Tony...quick question , did you ever bump into a bloke called Dave from London would be around 42 now , used to z fish roswell all the time .?.

I think Roswell hold them but its all about finding the right area , I know it was patchy when we fished there but we had a few recon visits over there to suss out where to fish by looking around , walking around and asking a lot of questions , I think a non fishing or two to a potential venue can save you many blank hours in trying to locate fish.

I have heard that its not as good as it used to be due to a few factors , crabs and people taking z's home , big shame .... but the z's did a little bit of damage to the silver fish popluation in the area , so its like a natural cycle.

Tight Lines m8

[suffolkzander]

nah mate, sorry, dont know a "Dave" ....

the roswell fish swim in and out so if they aint there, they are in the river somewhere as you know its connected and sorry, you probably wont avoid blanks with zander fishing, juist the way it is

good luck

[ZED MAN DAN]

Hi All,

I am more than 100% sure that the zander stocks are in decline. Like it has been said a venue like the Middle Level has changed so much over the last 5 years. I started fishing the fens in 1996.
There has been many problems including mitten crabs and our EU members. Also we have had a lot of change in the weather in the last few years with seasons changing and extreme cold/snow. All these factors will have an effect on the populations of our zander.
There are fish in roswell, including some big pike, well there was a couple of months ago.
In summary, There are less zander about now than there was a few years ago, but there is still fish to be caught.
If you suspect someone of fishing illegally then report it!

[zeeman]

Originally Posted by ZED MAN DAN

Hi All,

I am more than 100% sure that the zander stocks are in decline. Like it has been said a venue like the Middle Level has changed so much over the last 5 years. I started fishing the fens in 1996.
There has been many problems including mitten crabs and our EU members. Also we have had a lot of change in the weather in the last few years with seasons changing and extreme cold/snow. All these factors will have an effect on the populations of our zander.
There are fish in roswell, including some big pike, well there was a couple of months ago.
In summary, There are less zander about now than there was a few years ago, but there is still fish to be caught.
If you suspect someone of fishing illegally then report it!

Thanks for the reply , mate , I see your in Portsmouth , not too far from me I close to petersfield...Thats a long treck to the fens for you.?. I used to live North of London and it was not too much of a hike for me then.

Its a shame that the Z population appears to be in decline , BUT I remember the days when the Z's were being blamed for the drop in the silver fish population so nature has its way of evening things out , However I am disgraced at the our EU friends taking fish away , I know in London they were killing swans and other foul on the rivers / lakes to eat.

Since I first started fishing the Fens circa 87 I guess things have changed , but I will say that it was great Z fishing back then and we never really knew what we were doing as very little was known about Zandering back then and those that did know kept it to themselves , we very quickly worked out that we would have to scale down from pike tactics and that it appeared that at first we were having aborted runs due to too much resistance from monkey climbers , reels etc. Once we sorted out the end tackle with scaled down tackle and made our setups with less resistance combined with only natural fresh water fish and no sea baits we began to catch consistently.

The great thing about Zander and Pike angling is that you can virtually be guaranteed seclusion and no hoards of anglers like with match/carp , it means you have to be more of an inventive and intelligent angler but you learn more that way.

[ZED MAN DAN]

Hello Mate,
I actually live on The Isle Of Wight, but i do know Petersfield, i sued to commute to winchester for work.
Species Fishing is about dedication, I used to drive upto norfolk for overnighters before getting back to winchester for work the next morning. I rarely fished weekends because of a few problems i had with other anglers spotting my van and setting up next to me. Got so bad that i had to park at one bridge and get my mate to take us to another location. lol

Dedication at -6 on the Fens
I have tried most tactics for Zander and managed to achieve very few aborted runs. Anglers must remember (especially in the summer) that eels also love a fresh bait. And these little buggers will often drop baits because when they feed on fish baits they take bites, opposed to zander, pike and perch who will take the whole fish because there mouths are not large enough. Sharp hooks and timing always did it for me.

[zeeman]

Hello mate suprised to hear that you have people following you , Infact we never really used to run into any other Z anglers unless we fished at roswell and only then on occasions as they tended to fish on the island , I fished the cutoff at hilgay on many occasions and never even saw another angler.!. Infact most of the area's we fished I am pretty certain had never been z fished.!. My first Z came from the G Ouse and Brandon Creek from an area that had never been fished , I know this to be true as we had to cut out out swims in the reeds for hours.

I will say that our Pike tackle was tweeked to increase our catch rate , both at bait end and reel end , we never caught on sea baits even small sprats , this perhaps answers the questions as to why we never caught any zander in thousands of hours of pike fishing with sea baits. We used lighter indicators , less lead , small hooks and smaller natural baits , this we worked out ourselves as z angler were few and far between and nothing much was really known or written in stone. We did note that 90% of our runs came in darkness hours , however I did have one very bizarre day on roswell when I had run after run during daylight hours , biggest fist a 12lb Z.

Are you still fishing up there on a regular basis.?.