A couple of questions answered

Back in the summer I fished a couple of small wild clay pools in the Lincolnshire countryside. I had an overnight stay in the area at the weekend so took the opportunity to fish them again on the Sunday morning. On that last session I had a few half hearted flicks of the lure rod without success and the feeder rod soon won over when I caught a tench on breadflake. I wondered back then  if there were any pike in the water? but that question still lay unanswered.

 

This time I took only my lure rod and bag of jigs, plugs and spinners. With the consistent yellow and white kopyto I made the first few casts into the south east corner and the lure didn't let me down pulling in this little chap from under the near margin.

Question number one solved - they are indeed present, so if there are small jacks then there must be a bigger girl in there lurking somewhere? I cast across to a the edge of a dying lillypad bed and hit what felt a much bigger fish - unfortunately it was off quickly and all I had to show for it was a critically damaged tail paddle, which soon fell off on a subsequent cast.  Never mind I knew there were at least two fish in the pool and I will be back in the spring to try again.  The adjacent pool was very coloured in comparison for some reason so I didn't spend long trying in its murky brown water. 

Shallow  Lincolnshire drain

On the way back I stopped to try a small drain for a few casts, but only managed to spook a shoal of roach in the shallow depth with my lure knifing though the surface layers above the heavy filamentous weed still present from the summer growth. I later saw something charging into them making them scatter like a shoal of flying fish as they leaped out of the water to evade there pursuer, and despite my casts into that area I couldn't get a take from whatever it was !



Question two for this week

Is something that I've pondered over for a while but have struggled to find out much info about on the net. I've found a few brief mentions or accounts about it and some posts on forums that said yes you can, but then they admit they've never actually tried it themsleves ( I love that ...  I mean seriously come on ?)  However, despite all this supposition there was not much that you could call solid evidence or proper advice about techniques.

So what is this big question?

Well it's simple,  could I catch a Zander in the dark on a lure?

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The Answer.................

 



 

So I stopped off at the canal about 6:30pm  on the way home (it was fully dark by then if your reading this from outside the UK) just  to prove if for myself, and on the third cast hooked another of these handsome looking creatures. Only 3lb 12oz but that's not really  the point here, it was another challenge succeded and one to be ticked off the list certainly.  It will open up some more opportunities for me over the winter I'm sure. Trying to catch bigger fish is always on the adgenda for us specimen anglers so I may even try exploring some other stretches of canal on the way home.... I'm sure you'll read about it on here if I do.