persistence pays off

baitmaster · #1 11-09-2006, 01:50 PM

firstly i apologise for not being online the last few day but i have had some serious personal stuff to sort out but this is not the place to discuss this .
also the fishing has been very quiet to but i have still been going and its been very tough going indeed.
so when i saw the cloud cover for yesterday i made a decision to get out for the late afternoon .
now as i,ve already said the fishing has been very tough and in fact the last four sessions i,ve blank on the zander front but have been picking up a couple small pike on the Great Ouse sessions .
now you all know how dedicated i am about fishing and how passionate i am in my search for a big zander.
so blanks some time happens when you are fishing in certain area,s and when you are on a run of blank you could easerly forgive me if i took an easy option and fished somewhere that would put a zander on the bank ,but this was not the case last night and i headed for an area on the drains that has not to date ever produce me a zed in all the sessions i,ve had there,"hhhmmmm strange decision i hear you ask " .not so as i believed i,de been blanking here as i had not been fishing it at the right time of year, so i took the gamble and headed there last night i also believed this area, might throw me up something special but first i needed to bank a zander here .
i arrived just before four and parked up and wandered a little way down the drain just to have a look and i felt really confident when i saw loads of fish dimpling on the surface in my given area, "game on" i thought and headed back to the car to get the gear.
soon i was heading back down the drain to my blanking hot spot with a confident feeling that i would catch tonight.
my tactics were to fish to the far side and one on the inside line at the bottom of the slope on the inside .
i firstly set the rods up and had a couple of practice cast over to the far side and counted them down to find the bottom of the far side slope then clipped up.
my inside rod was set up as a paternoster rig with a 18" trace with size 8 trebles .
the other two were fished on a ledger stem and my own version of the ledger stem these also were fished with the same traces as the inside rod .
here are the two stems you can clearly see my vervion on the left

soon the rod were all in place now and i sat backhand relaxed now normally i would recast frequently but tonight i would not
as i was confident that the zeds would move through here somy tactic was to every now and again pull the lines to agitate the baits into moving and given off them vibrations that hopefully the predators would pick up on .
the first hour past and i felt i needed to recast the rods and check the baits as they were very quiet and on bringing them in they were all ok and sent back to there spots .
the first action came from the far side when one of the bobbins started to twitch and then tried to be the first bobbin to get up to the rod.
i took my chance and struck into it but sadly i missed it AAAAARRRGGHHHH not that i had been waiting for a run like for days and then when i do i miss it .
the bait was repositioned and i was confident as this was actually my first run ever from this area.
a further hourand a half past and i twitched the baits thinking was that the only chance as well but i know from previous session on this drain that 8pm was a very good time on here and depending on conditions whether you get a short feeding spell or a long one .
and while i was taken in the peace of the evening my left hand far bank rod burst into life
Ina stuttery sort of bite i did not hessitate and struck and this time i connected to the fish once again the distinctive head shake could be felt and i knew it was a zed it soon was netted and weighed not the biggest but a welcomed fish any way and at 7lb 8oz i was not going to complain it was soon released and swamoff strongly splashing me with water as it went ,i looked at the time and it was now 8.o5pm .

i was happy as not only had this swim finally produced i also have stopped the blanking run as well.
i was soon sitting back down with a mug of coffee and hoping whether this was it or whether any more zeds would make an appearance .
at about 8.30 again my right hand far bank rod was off this was a similar twitchy bite and i hit into it the rod briefly bent over only for the hooks to pull free i brought in back into find it got the bait so ia fresh one was put on and it was sent back over to the bottom of the slope .
second missed fish but least i was getting action it went quiet for a good half an hour and the moon came out from behind the cloud and made every thing really bright and with the gin clear drain i thought this might make fishing difficult for the rest of the session .
but as there was another fairly big cloud it would at least go dull for a little while again .
once the moon had gone back behind the cloud i felt abit more confident but was thinking i had my action for the night when my in side rod gave a few encouraging bleeps then rose steaderly to the top i struck and i felt the fish on it stayed deep and i thought it was a very good fish and it fought very hard but i soon get it on the surface and it was soon netted
i picked up the net and carried their to the top of the bank it looks a good fish i quickly had it unhooked and weighed and it went exactly 9lb

again it was quickly released and the rod was back out in the hope another zed was hunting .
i jotted some notes down in my log and made a another sketch of the swim and certain details and marked on it where runs had come from and made the usually note on conditions of the weather and the water ect ect .
while doing this i got another half hearted run of the far bank that was aborted and on checking the bait i could clearly see the distinctive puncture marks zander leave sometimes
i fished on for another hour but it seemed that the feeding spell was over and the conditions had cleared right out and i felt this also was a contributing factor so i made the decision to call it a day but i was pleased with the result .

tightlines
Kevin