Tag: zander

Niewemeer

Please note that this is part of the fishing in Holland and Expats guide, the parent article can be found here.

NiewMeer is a lake situated just outside of Amsterdam connects the Schinkel in Amsterdam and the circular canal of the Haarlemmermeer polder. It is reachable via tram and also by boat from the Amsterdam canals. It contains Carp, Pike, Zander, Perch and many other species ( including catfish) however it is best known for its predator fishing. As I didnt really fish it for carp the rest of this article will focus on the predator side of things however if you wanted to fish for carp you will find it relatively untouched as I only saw 2-3 other car anglers there in the years I fished it. Continue reading “Niewemeer”

Session report – Teddington Weir / Lock

Recently I popped up to the tidal Thames at Teddington for a session with Richard Crimp and one of his friends. I has been encouraged to fish the Thames when I looked into the Thames Anglers Conservancy website and forum. The chosen section was at Teddington Lock and when I arrived I could see that it was popular with anglers with many already setup on the island in the choicest swims. Even through the best angling is to be had at high tide when the river flow slows to a crawl, anglers were there in numbers several hours before this.

Continue reading “Session report – Teddington Weir / Lock”

Favourite rubber shad ?

So what are you favourite rubber shads ? I have to say that some lures are so beautiful it seems to be almost sacrilege to cast them into the water.Whether it be for pike, zander or for the humble perch noting beats the sensation of a lure caught fish. The sudden jerk, the feeling that the lure has become alive and the fact that you don’t need to store them in the freezer šŸ™‚ I love lure fishing, it was what got be back into fishing after a long break, bored in Arva ( Ireland) I bought a fishing rod, a reel and some lures not really expecting to catch. Well a few jacks later from Doogra lake and I was hooked again ! the rest as they say is history.
Continue reading “Favourite rubber shad ?”

Setting up a stinger on Rubber Lures with wire

After the recent article detailing how to setup rubber lures with little more than braid and flurocarbon I thought I would do a quick post on how to set them up with wire if you are fishing waters that have significant numbers of pike or if you are fishing a water where wire is mandated. Personally speaking as long as the water has a low number of pike and you are vertical jigging, I dont see an issue fishing with out wire but for those places where there are loads of pike here is how you set up your lure with wire.

This in this article I will use the rather versatile Fox rubber pro shads as they are my favourite “big” rubber lure and do seem to catch almost anything. Indeed I have had several size able pike to them over the years ( note that the zander only started last year..)
Continue reading “Setting up a stinger on Rubber Lures with wire”

Winter lure fishing

Well with the winter retreating at pace it was time for a quick session for Zander today, as I know that there are zander in Bosbaan, and even last year I found a dead decaying zander of about 1m floating around stinking up the place, they are there waiting to be caught. As today was probably going to be my last ever Dutch fishing session for quite a while I thought I would pop down to Bosbaan to have a go before the season for zander ended at the end of the month.Ā  Bosbaan was today in glorious colour, really warm ( fleece only) and with the sun out it was a pleasure to walk around.
Continue reading “Winter lure fishing”

Vertical jigging for Zander – the lure

Well it has been a while since I wrote an article on Zander fishing and I thought I would write on on the more technical aspects. Now I warn you I am no expert on Zander fishing and only caught my 1st one last year, whilst pike and perch were easy I really struggled with Zander and only thanks to the help of Juul from www.fishingamsterdam.com did I manage to break my zander duck and now I feel confident, not expert by a long way but if the zander are biting I can be confident of a fish.

The main issues that I had in the past that prevented me from banking a zander were in 2 areas

  • Lure setup
  • Jigging technique

This article will deal with the 1st of these 2 items, namely how to set up your lure and end tackle.The 2nd article will deal with the actual fishing style it’s self.

IMPORTANT NOTE, THIS ARTICLE DEALS WITH A SETUP THAT IS UNSAFE IF YOUR WATER CONTAINS A LARGE AMOUNT OF PIKE AND IS SUITABLE ONLY FOR VERTICAL JIGGING. IF THERE ARE PIKE PRESENT USE A WIRE / HEAVY (80LB) FLUOROCARBON TRACE BOTH IN THE LURE AND TO ATTACH THE LURE TO THE MAINLINE.

Wow, now that is off of my chest lets continue with the rest of the article.
Continue reading “Vertical jigging for Zander – the lure”

Out zander fishing with www.fishingamsterdam.com

As you can see from the post Winter Wonderland it is cold, damn cold at the moment. This has led to me being housebound for 2 months unable to get out as the lakes have been frozen. Due to this I have been going up the walls suffering from fishing related “cabin fever” so much so that my wife ordered me to go fishing at the 1st opportunity. As I had been out with Juul from FishingAmsterdam.com before it seemed the logical choice if I wanted a 1/2 decent chance of catching a zander to book with Juul.

The date was set and I was full of anticipation, at 07:40 sharp I arrived at the pre agreed meeting spot to be presentedĀ  with a cup of hot coffee and a croissant, not a bad start and it bode well for the day. Juul discussed the options as to the quarry and as zander were on the menu ( figuratively) we decided to start on them and then around lunch time swap over to pike as the day brightened up a little.

We arrived in the Ijselmeere before 08:30 and after a short journey began to fish for zander using the vertical jigging technique ( some of my UK readers my be unfamiliar with this technique so look back here for an article) and rubber stick baits. Alas the day did not start out all that productive with only a few missed takes. Zander at any time of the year are finicky biters but in the winter they practically just nudge the bait. You end up striking at the slightest vibration in case it is a zander just inspecting the bait.

One of the things I really like about Juul is that generally he will also fish as well ( depending on the number of guests) which means that if he is not getting takes then you know that the area is devoid of fish. This is quite a confidence boost as with zander it is easy to start to think that you are doing something wrong… some times there areĀ  just no hungry fish in the area. Anyway a brief move to another hot spot saw us again jigging away waiting for a hungry fish, and before long there was the telltale gentle pluck on the lure, and I was in.

People often say that zander don’t put up much of a fight and sometimes they are right, however not today each zander put up quite a scrap and they continually dived and dived for the bottom but each were eventually beaten by the net.
Continue reading “Out zander fishing with www.fishingamsterdam.com”

Zandering in the Rain

As we only had 1 day and as Bosbaan’s lines were still in myself and Marcel decided to go out Pike fishing. It had been good weather all week so we decided that Sunday had to be good.Ā  Err welllllll, it rained. It raid a lot. It rained so hard I thought we were going to have to build an ark. I had to bail the boat out 3 times else I would have been sitting in 3 inches of water, and, as I write this post it is still raining.

Due to the inclement weather fishing was tough going, we needed a huge drogue just to stay vaguely on track in the water and with the wind turning the rain into horizontal bullets, our hears were not in it. Just after 2pm we decided to go and fish on the other side of the Nieuwe Meer Sluis, so with heavy hearts we moved on knowing that apart from jack pike there was not the chance of a good fish.

How wrong could I be ? with in 20 mins of starting fishing Marcel proclaimed to have missed a bite and the next cast this was his prize.

DPP_00066Not a bad Zander all things considering and a welcome end to the day. Hopefully next time we will be more mindful of the weather as there is no shelter on a boat when the weather turns like that.

New PB Zander

Well after last weeks trip I just had to get out, so myself and Tom popped down to Nieuwe Meer with fly rods and jigging rods.

well it was an incredibly wet day but we persevered even though I lost a rod ( err less said about that the better even thought 200+ eur went over the side ) I managed a PB 6lb 4oz Zander

bigzander-nierI also must admit that this zander didn’t go back. I am a committed catch and release fisherman, but after 45 mins of holding it upright in the water it was not going to go back. We killed it humanely and gutted it there at the lake. A mate of mine offered to cook it and so it was his. Sad end but at least it didn’t go to waste. Moral of this story, zander are not as tough a carp and really more than 3-4 mins out of the water can be terminal for them. I have read that sometimes you need to prop them up for several hours with bank sticks in the margins so if this ever happens again I will do that.