It's not that I've never caught a zander - I've caught two, the fish pictured above being the bigger of them at ounces under 6 pound, but I'd love to have caught more, and while I know that the canal I lure fish reasonably regularly contains them, I only ever seem to catch perch and pike. Not that I'm complaining, but the odd zed would be fun. Perhaps I need to concentrate more on slowly edging soft plastics along the bottom or maybe to branch out into new areas on the canal, or perhaps abandon my usual predator fishing "percentage game" and seriously target them to the exclusion of pike and perch.
This was the first zander I ever caught, although the Canadian angler I was fishing with insisted on calling it a walleye, as is the North American way, a tiny, plucky fish that engulfed a soft plastic grub fished on a jig head as it bounced its way back to the bank. The fish was caught fishing in Clear Lake, an enormous expanse of water set amid pine forests deep in bear country. "Boys Own" fishing.
With the exception of those two fish, the nearest I've been to a zander (excepting the pewter walleye badge that I bought in Canada which adorns my fishing waistcoat) was netting this small "schoolie" sized fish caught by my brother on a late evening livebaiting escapade. I'm not sure if it's their unusual looks (that mixture of savage looking dentistry juxtaposed with those delicate looking spots on their spikey dorsal fin), their relative rarity or their notoriety (weren't they the fish that uninformed doomsday soothsayers told us would eat every last silver fish on the Fens?) that most attracts me to them, but there's definitely something about them.
This Saturday I've got an early morning lure fishing appointment with the Canal, so who's to say what might happen? I'm confident of perch and hopeful for pike, but a zander would leave me grinning for the rest of the weekend. I'll let you know ....
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