Targeting Grafham's big winter Zander with lures

Over the course of a month, my Dad and I normally fish a number of different venues. However, this January, with the exception of a couple of afternoon trips along my local rivers, all of our fishing was based afloat on Grafham. January is the last month Anglian Water allow predator anglers the chance to fish their reservoirs before a closed season that, unless you're fishing for Trout (which you can fish for from mid March), lasts until mid May, when Grafham re-opens for flyfishing only for Pike, Perch and Zander. It's not until September that you can start to use lures again to target the monsters that lurk within the 1500 acre venue, so our trips to Grafham this January were spent targeting a big Zander.

We battled it out through a real mixture of weather conditions on there last month - from cold, crisp, calm mornings where the temperatures dropped as low as -9°C and the guides on our rods were freezing up, through gusty conditions with sleet and snow showers, to much warmer conditions with temperatures you'd expect to find in March or April! Despite the ever-changing weather, the anticipation of hooking in to something special is what kept us going back!

Our first trip of the year was more to get a feel for how Grafham was fishing, as it was the first time we'd fished the reservoir since October, but it only took an hour or so for Dad to hook in to his first fish of the year - a Zander of around 9lb, which took a Sébile A.T Minnow.

Shortly after, in the same area we found a shoal of Perch and backed up Dad's Zander with around 8 fish over the 2lb mark to just under 3lb, plus a nice Brownie, although Dad's first fish of the day was our only Zander that day.

Over the next couple of trips we found most of the fish in deeper water, rather than the shallower water we'd caught our fish from on our first outing of 2016. We caught lots of Perch up to just under 2lb and a few nice Zander on a variety of the new Berkley soft baits for 2016, including the 3.5" Pro Shads, Pro Grubs, Havoc Subwoofers and a favourite of mine, the Havoc Rocket Craw, rigged on jigheads as heavy as 40g (about 1.5oz).

The Pro Shads are a brand new shad that have only just been released in the US as well as the UK, and the Havoc range, designed by the likes of Skeet Reese, Mike Iaconelli, Scott Suggs and Brandon Palaniuk, have also been brought over to the UK from the US this year.

Getting back to the Zander, we found that the bigger fish were much more elusive and seemed to have short feeding spells, so if you did pick up a nice Zander, there was a good chance of catching another one or two shortly after. That was definitely the case when Dad caught his biggest zed of the year so far, weighing 11lb 3oz - after catching that fish he caught 3 more nice fish within the space of half an hour!

Something we have found is that, especially in the winter months, you have to be extremely careful when bringing Perch and Zander up from deep water. When you hook in to a fish, if you bring them up quickly the swim bladder can sometimes gas up, not being able to tolerate such a sudden, dramatic change in depth. I think the reason it's more likely to happen during the winter months is because the fish have become acclimatised to being near the bottom most of the time. It can be hard to judge how quickly to bring them up, as obviously you don't want the line to go slack, resulting in a lost fish that could be that catch of a lifetime (which happened to my Dad on one trip a few weeks ago), but it's best to bring the fish up as slowly as possible without letting the line go slack, and we've found it definitely reduces the chance of this problem occurring.

On our last trip of the season it was great to end on a high with a nice double weighing 10lb 12oz, along with two other nice zeds.

Since Grafham has closed it's doors to anglers, we've switched to targeting Perch on our local rivers. I remember writing in my blog post for January and February last year that the fishing was about as tough as we've ever experienced it to be, but somehow this year seems even harder! Although we've had quite a bit of action from small jack Pike, tracking down a 3lb+ Perch has been hard recently, but Dad did manage to tempt this 3lb 7oz, the only Perch of the day, in to taking his Ripple Shad a few days ago, on an afternoon trip.

A couple of days after he caught the 3lb 7oz, he had a better day numbers wise, catching a few 2lb'ers to 2lb 14oz.

With only a month to go until the river season ends, I'm really hoping the Perch will switch on a lot more than they have been, and fingers crossed we don't have too much in the way of rain that colours up our rivers, making them unfishable!

Lure Fishing Gravel Pits for Pike

Gravel pits, especially those that are very large and crystal clear, are exciting places to explore with a lure rod when targeting Pike. They can be challenging, casting and retrieving big baits for hours on end and walking many miles in the process, but the anticipation of a bite or a follow from a big Pike is well worth the effort! Frustratingly though, they can be very wary in such clear water and will often turn away at the last minute, but there are times when they just can't help themselves - and to watch their gills flare out, and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth engulf your lure is an awesome experience!

I'm quite lucky to have many gravel pits within a half hour drive from home, but the only thing is a lot of these are controlled by syndicates, and there are only a few day ticket venues. One of the day ticket fisheries is run by the Lea Valley Regional Park and consists of two small pits - the Banjo Lake and Stock Pit, and despite being within a 15 minute drive of our house, I only fished them for the first time three weeks ago, which was for a feature. The lakes are mainly fished for Carp, but it's a well known fact that predators thrive on neglect, so after months of meaning to have a trip over there, I finally decided to give them a go.

Starting before sunrise turned out to be a good move, as within the first hour of fishing I'd landed 3 Pike, all on Berkley 4.5" Rib Shads, although the biggest was only around 4lb and I was hoping for something bigger. I didn't have to wait too long though before I did hook something that really put a bend in the rod, but unfortunately, it came off! After that, the fishing went quiet for quite a few hours, and despite trying many different types of lures and areas, I didn't have a single take.

Thankfully, at around 2pm I hooked in to a slightly bigger Pike than those I'd caught in the morning, which was still not massive, but certainly the prettiest!

Most of our fishing has been on a syndicate gravel pit much larger than the two I've talked about, at around 130 acres. It's a tough nut to crack, but not only is it a fantastic looking pit, reminding me a little of the Everglades, but there are some big Pike in there too. When we fished it for the first time last year, I caught a good double and a fish that I reckon could have been 23-24lb follow me in, so with all our local rivers the colour of chocolate and wind speeds of over 40mph, we decided to have a day exploring it for the first time since the spring.

Within 20 minutes I had a fish I'm guessing was around 17-18lb, maybe bigger, follow my Stick Shadd in, but sadly it turned away. Then in the next swim down, Dad hooked a good fish at range, which we think was around 15lb, but somehow it came off - not the best of starts! Just a few minutes later we did finally get a Pike in the net, unfortunately much smaller than the fish that had followed me in and the one Dad lost.

Between that fish and the end of the day, Dad managed to land one more Pike of around 8lb, but we'd only managed to cover around half of the lake, so we decided to return a couple of days later and try and cover more of the venue.

We had a much slower start on our next trip, covering all of the areas we'd had action on the previous session without a follow or a bite. Then, after two hours of covering half a mile or so of bank, I had a follow from yet another good fish, certainly a mid double. This fish was very interested in my Stick Shadd and after swimming a full circle around the lure, it didn't take, and after trying two different lures in the same spot, which again took it's interest but still wasn't enough, I was becoming quite worried, as I was trying to work out what I thought I was doing wrong, but couldn't find an answer!

We decided to move on and in the next swim, on my very first cast, I had another fish of a similar size follow me in, this one even more fired up than the last. I let my suspending Stick Shadd fall to the bottom and the fish was nosing it, literally about to take when Dad, a few yards to the right of me, yelled "Sam, I've hooked a big'un!" I didn't want to leave this fish as it was so close to taking, but he then shouted "I think it could be a twenty", and it was then that I decided to wind in, drop the rod and give him a hand netting it through thick marginal vegetation. It was big alright - not quite 20lb but still a fantastic looking fish, and took a chatterbait rigged with a Berkley Havoc Pit Boss trailer.

Once we'd weighed and photographed the fish, I decided to change my Stick Shadd to a slightly lighter chatterbait with the same trailer, as the swim was very shallow - maybe 4ft max. I was hoping the Pike that had followed me in hadn't spooked, and on my second cast, the fish followed me in and slammed the lure right at my feet! It wasn't quite as big as Dad's fish but still a immaculate looking double.

As the light faded things seemed to pick up as Dad landed another smaller jack, and on one of my last casts, I hooked and landed my biggest fish of the day, a 15lb 7oz.

We've had a couple more trips on gravel pits since then, and caught quite a few nice Pike up to around 15lbs.

Some of the fish we managed to capture on film on my GoPro camera, and I've put together a short film of around four minutes of some of the fish we caught over the Christmas and New Year period:

We were even lucky enough to get out for a few hours on Christmas morning, and although I was hoping for a bigger fish, at least I didn't blank!

This Christmas, my Dad and I treated ourselves to a couple of new fishing books, which we knew would be right up our street, and if you like trying to catch lots of different species around the world on a number of different tactics, especially lure fishing and flyfishing, then I would certainly recommend these two books. Both are written by different 'Mikes' and both have caught a serious amount of spectacular fish. We sometimes bump in to Mike Green when he's out fishing on the midlands reservoirs, and he has a passion for catching big predators on the fly, especially Pike and Zander here in the UK, but abroad he's caught some amazing fish. Since I've become involved with Pure Fishing, throughout the year I help out at retail and trade shows, which I really enjoy, and every time I go, one of the highlights for me is bumping in to Mike Thrussell. He has an incredible knowledge of all things fishy and he's one of the very few anglers to have caught over 100 species of fish in the UK alone, which is some going!

Since Christmas we've had a couple of trips on our local rivers targeting Perch, although now it's unlikely we'll be fishing a river for a while, thanks to the recent heavy rain. I've mentioned the Sébile A.T Minnow throughout many posts on my blog as it is one of my favourite shads, especially when the fishing hasn't been easy, and recently it's been working well, landing fish up to just under 3lbs.

Dad and I had a good afternoon on Boxing Day, landing 10 Pike and a few nice Perch to around the 2lb mark, mainly on A.T Minnows, and one of the Pike I caught certainly took a liking to them!

I'd cast to some tree roots on the other side of the river and about half way back had a good whack, which turned out to be a jack Pike of maybe 2lbs. I lifted the net out of the water, very quickly unhooked it and returned it, and it swam off fine. I checked my offset hook and re-rigged the A.T minnow back on, cast out, jigged the shad back to my feet and had another good whack, virtually exactly where I'd put the Pike back, and I hooked and landed what looked like exactly the same fish. I lifted the fish out of the water, and sure enough, it was the same fish - if you look carefully at the photo you can see where the Pike was hooked the first time I caught it on the right side of the jaw, and the second time I caught it, I hooked it on the left side of the jaw!

I'm not quite sure where 2015 went, but it was a fantastic year and a privilege to work with Get Hooked on Fishing and Pure Fishing, and to fish in the FIPSed Lure Fishing World Championships with the Team England Lure Squad,  and the Pitsford Pirates in the 6 man team loch style competitions. I'm really looking forward to this year, and I hope 2016 is a good one for you too!

Reaping havoc with the Rocket Craw!

November can be a funny month for fishing - sometimes it can be really good for freshwater predators, and then on other years it can be really tough. It was definitely the latter for me and my Dad last year and the year before, and the way our fishing was going at the beginning of the month, it looked like this November would be a repeat of the previous two.

However, this month has turned in to a really good one, especially for Perch, and I think it was helped by the sudden drop in temperature just over a week ago that I think triggered fish in to going on the feed, after an unseasonably warm month.

Most of our trips at the beginning of the month were on reservoirs such as Pitsford, Farmoor and Grafham, before the windy conditions moved in - I wish it would calm down soon! We targeted the Pike on Pitsford and had a very tough day - we actually caught more Perch than Pike, despite mainly using lures over 5" in length (and some nice ones too, up to 2lb 10oz), but our only Pike, which Dad caught and was probably around 7lb, was the only one caught on the reservoir all day, between 5 boats!

A few weeks ago, I took a volunteer helper at Get Hooked on Fishing, Harry Theobald, to Grafham. I've been meaning to fish with Harry for months, and this was his first time fishing from a boat on a reservoir. Harry, along with his mate Luca Castello, are both really starting to get in to their lure fishing, which is great to see. We really wanted to help Harry catch his first Zander, and we thought we were going to have no problems catching one as Dad hooked and lost a very good fish right at the start of the day, but unfortunately, it turned in to a very hard trip for the Zeds, but we caught plenty of Perch up to 2lb 4oz.

Right at the death, Dad caught our only Zander of the day, which was around 3-4lbs. We all had an enjoyable day, but Dad and I were a bit upset we couldn't help Harry catch his first Zed.

We had another trip back there, but despite catching nearly 50 fish, not one of them was a Zander! I've never known Grafham to produce so many Perch - even the stripeys we were catching were coughing up smaller Perch in the 3"-4" range. Many of the Perch I caught drop-shotting a 105mm Sébile Magic Swimmer Soft in Perch.

A couple of weeks later we met up with Harry again at the Uxbridge Rovers Lure Day on their section of the River Colne, Grand Union Canal and their lake at Batchworth. This is the second lure day Dad and I have kindly been invited to by organiser Kevin O'Shaughnessy, but unfortunately, on each occasion, we've had heavy rain either on the day or the day before, which has coloured up the river, as well as the canal and lake! We still had an enjoyable afternoon though, catching 2 Pike to around 6lbs and 3 Perch, mostly on the white Berkley Havoc Rocket Craw. A big thanks to Kevin and the rest of the Uxbridge Rovers for inviting us along!

The Uxbridge Rovers are also fantastic supporters of Get Hooked on Fishing, and keeping on the subject of the charity, at the end of last month we held 'have a go' sessions at the GHoF/Walthamstow Academy for two days. Crystal clear water and two cold nights before the sessions made the fishing difficult, but every family, bar one, caught at least one fish, including the Furne family, who caught the most species - and Mum Michelle caught the biggest fish of the two days! A massive thank you to Jonathan Fromant, Ben Bradley, Cliff Cardy and Dad for giving up their time and volunteering to help out!

On the same week as the Uxbridge Rovers Lure Day, Dad and I fished Rib Valley targeting Pike for a feature for LURE magazine, with editor Steve Phillips. It was one of those days when you're grateful for having good waterproofs, as it was raining quite heavily when we started at 7am, and didn't stop until 2pm! There was one short spell where I caught a Pike and a Perch in the morning, then we went around 3-4 hours without a bite. However, when the rain did stop, the whole lake switched on - Carp started boshing and bubbling up, silverfish started topping and the Pike woke up too. We were hoping for a few more fish, but we caught on a variety of different types of lures and Dad ended the day with a 13lb 6oz. The next issue, LURE 5, is out tomorrow, and contains the feature - you can find it by clicking here.

Since then, the fishing seems to have picked up wherever we've been, and one of the lures that worked that day was the Berkley Havoc Rocket Craw, and it has probably been my most successful soft bait this past month. It worked well on a trip to the River Thames on our boat, helping us catch over 70 fish - a mixture of mostly Perch, but a few Pike too. Dad unfortunately lost two big fish that day, one of which he hooked around an hour in to dark in one of the big weir pools on a chatterbait - it was quite a sizeable fish and we think it was either a big Zander, or possibly even a Catfish!

As the month has progressed, we've caught some nice Perch from our local rivers, although the last fortnight has been especially good. It started after a tough day fishing one weekend, but right at the end of the day I managed to land a 3lb 4oz stripey on the Rocket Craw.

It was almost pitch black by the time I'd caught this fish and we didn't get time to really fish the area I caught it properly, so a couple of days later, we returned to the same area for the last two hours of light. The fishing was quite tough - it was very windy and it was hard to feel what was going on, but as the light faded Dad picked up a nice Perch of 2lb 5oz. About 15 minutes later Dad struck in to something, which at first he thought was a snag, as it was so windy, but then it started head shaking and gave him a good fight! It turned out to be an immaculate looking Perch, which was very lightly hooked, and the lure he caught it on - a chatterbait, rigged with a Havoc Pit Boss trailer, fell out in the net just after we landed it. It weighed 3lb 15oz (46cm), which is the fourth different Perch weighing 1oz under 4lb we've caught this year, and Dad's 100th Perch weighing over 3lb!

Three days later we returned to a different area of the river, again for the last couple of hours. My first fish of the day was a 2lb 10oz stripey, and using the Rocket Craw rigged on a Shaky Head, I managed to catch another 4 Perch, with the biggest weighing 3lb 12oz (48cm).

We kept a close eye on the weather that week, and with temperatures forecast to drop 10°C in the coming days (with snow even predicted!) we decided to have one last trip to another stretch of river, this time for a few hours in the morning, before the cold weather kicked in. Almost as soon as we started, Dad, who was about 30m upstream of me, had a huge Trout follow his crankbait in. When I went over to see how he was getting on, he told me he reckoned it was 8lb. To be honest, I found this hard to believe, but as I stood talking to him, the fish followed him in again, and I could see what he meant - it was certainly big!

After a few more casts in this swim with no luck, Dad moved upstream whilst I moved in to his swim to try the Rocket Craw. Moments later I heard commotion and splashing, as Dad had hooked the Trout - the fish had followed him in again and took the crankbait right at his feet!

It turned out we'd both underestimated the size of the fish - it was 65cm long and very deep, and when put on the scales it weighed a whopping 8lb 10oz!

About an hour later, he then caught another, this time weighing 4lb 15oz! It's amazing how different each Brownie looked - the first was silvery, almost like a Sea Trout, whereas the colours on this one were very vivid.

I persisted with the Rocket Craw hoping it would produce some Perch, and thankfully I didn't have to wait too long before I found some fish, landing Perch of 2lb, 2lb 1oz and 3lb 1oz - not a bad way to end the morning and be home by 10.30am!

Whenever I go fishing on my birthday, I have a horrible knack of blanking! In fact, the only fish I'd ever caught on my birthday was a Sturgeon when I was 8! Last Monday was my 21st birthday and although I couldn't fish all day due to work (and opening cards and presents!), I did manage to get out for the last couple of hours to try and put my run of birthday blanks to bed!

The cold weather forecast had kicked in though and the fishing was very different to our last trip, and we hadn't had a bite after two hours of fishing - maybe it was because the fish knew it was my birthday! Anyway, I thought I would be doomed for another year, but on my very last cast of the day, the Rocket Craw came to the rescue and I hooked in to a fish, which turned out to be a good Perch. I thought it may break the 3lb mark, but coincidentally, it weighed 2lb 11oz - containing both numbers of my birthday, so I was more than chuffed!

That fish rounded off a fantastic and special three days, celebrating with friends and family. I still haven't cut the cake though yet, and I'm not sure if I want to!