I fished on Monday and again today. The plan was to target zander before the season closes at the end of December. I'm a total novice to the species and so stuck to well used tactics of putting a small dead roach on the bottom in a deep channel running out of a small bay where I'd seen zander earlier in the year. Unfortunately the weather forecast was hopelessly wrong and the promised cloud cover never materialised;
This is the second swim I tried. This one is at the dam end of a section of a large lake; a sort of annex to the main basin. I had two deadbaits nailed to the bottom and a third suspended under a float just off the bottom. No bites or signs of fish all day.
Today, the forecast was for westerlies overnight making a change from the north-east winds we've had for over a fortnight. This morning there was plenty of cloud cover and a light drizzle so I thought that I'd be in with a chance. I fished about 100 metres from Monday's second swim, a sandbar running at around 45 degrees to the shoreline and a banker of a swim where I regularly catch roach to a pound, bream three times that weight and a few bonus carp into the low twenties.
I put two deadbaits out, one on the deck and one popped up. Both were fished using large wire cage feeders filled with mashed roach and carp mixed with breadcrumbs. I also fished for roach alongside using standard sliding float tactics with a single grain of sweetcorn over a bed of chopped maize, hemp, wheat and chicken pellets.
After a couple of hours of diddly-squat I put a large maize stack on one of the deadbait rods and then tried it popped up and even a zig-rig. never saw a sign of a fish or a bite. The only thing that came into the swim was this ragoudin
With the weather reverting to bright, clear and cold over the next ten days I reckon that I'll catch up an a few jobs around the house and wait for a bit of warm overcast stuff before venturing out again.