Wednesday 9th December – Fenland Drain

I had an evening spare after work, and wanted another go after the zeds.

I knew the drain I visited Sunday does have a good head of zeds in it, as have caught them from it in the past, but lower down.

I returned to the same spot I caught the pike from on Sunday, this time with cut down setups.

It was a perfect zander holding spot, plenty of features which they love, deep and nice colour in the water. I removed the pike rigs and used a 15ib mono setup with size ten traces, using course baits.

Within half an hour, I had my first run, which I missed. Didn’t know what it was as the bait had gone, but had a feeling it was a zed. Very finicky run.

After re baiting the rod and recasting, I had a second run fairly quickly. All it was a couple of finicky beeps and twitches on the tip. I struck into the fish and it felt quite a lump. at first I thought it was a pike, but the fight seemed different. It was just a few head shakes and lunges, then it surfaced. Under the head torch I could see those eyes reflecting under the headlamp and those fangs. It was a zed, and a good one!

I was over the moon. First one of the season, and my biggest from a drain, for a long time. But the action didn’t stop there…

As I was resting zander in the sling and getting the camera ready for a photo, the right hand rod started to go, at first I thought it was just the wind, but it just kept on going. I ran down the bank and struck into the fish.When the fish surfaced, I could see it was a pike and at least a double!  However I had a dilemma, the net had the trebles tangled in from the zander which I hadn’t had  a chance to remove, so nothing to land it in, it was pitch black so not easy to chin it due to the danger of flying hooks, no glove and of course the welfare of the fish in the landing net. Risk of accidentally hooking it in the eyes or even worse the gill rakers.

Thankfully the fish was lightly hooked, so the only realistic option I had was to shake it off.

Reluctantly, I shook the fish off, gutted I had to had to do it, but at the same excited, knowing I had a big zed in the sling waiting to be weighed. Times like this is when I wish I had two nets to hand!

After finishing setting the camera up, I weighed the zed. 11ib 1oz.

Had to weigh it twice to be sure, and the weight was correct.

Very happy and worth the long weight. That was all the action I had, but it was a memorable evening. Will be having a few more goes yet though, just to get that slightly bigger one!