Shads do work then?

[MrMakk]

I've had a long steak of blanks with my last fish being caught when Daniel joined me for a session back at the beginning of the new year. well untill recently when me and Ian had a session booked with Andi whom had kindly offered to take us under his wing and show us the way with these zander and soft plastic shads (my bogey lure). I was out the door for 6:20, and we arrived for just around 8 o'clock on the carpark to meet up with Andi. we all got set up and began to fish, I had snatched one of Ians relax kopyto shads as its colour is what Andi says does well on the canal and advised using it. soon after Andi had a follow which at first we thought was a zander, I gave a cast in not far from where the follow was and managed to have a perch bolt out from under our feet and gobble the 2.5'' koptyo.



The perch that ended ,my blank spree.
So thats my first fish caught since beginning of the year a long blank but you can't say I haven't tried, as the saying goes '' you not catch unless the line is in the water''. Others have also been finding it hard too - weather, spawning, location of the fish, conditions and the up and go attitude with a hint of luck, all play a part on if we catch or not.

A while later Andi managed another follow or take but the fish managed to escape the net, it even happened to Ian not long after as he managed to hook onto a fish. Andi then decided we should try another stretch of the canal a short drive away. Whilst I was talking to Andi regarding technique and how I can improve on it, Ian called for the net as h was on a fish, for Ian it was his first zander at 5lb ''well done Ian'', he was chuffed to bits...



After Ian's fish, we again moved to another stretch of the canal, Andi was getting short on time and only had another hour or so to spare, Andi and Ian managed a couple more schoolies/shoalies between them Ians on a texas rigged worm and Andi's on a VIB blade from spro, that was it for the rest of the day. I'm being honest here now, but during the day I learnt a lot more that I have in the past month or so blanking. I've gone to removing the collars on my jigheads as Andi advised collarless jiheads due to them keeping the shads better and stops them splitting and with a dab of super glue keeps them secure fro slipping off, I even have a better idea on how to approach a water with a shad, and how to handle a Zed (when I gt round to catching one) thanks to Andi and his guidance


Also in the blog - http://www.alexmakkfishing.com/

[lilmule]

Your Zander looks like a walleye relative,sort of bottom feeder of minnows,jig head and curly tail here or spoon up and down in place.
Had a nice time with friends anyway and for a perch that one is a dandy,ours are normally smaller.

[MrMakk]

Ian's Zander, not mine (am yet to catch one) but I agree your walleye do look very similair but with a deeper brown/green to them compared to the european Zander which come across to me as more sliver/sheen to them.

yeah the perch seem small to me too .. they can go to around 4-5lb in weight and that's classed as a good 'un

[lilmule]

A 1lb perch here is good,thats a dandy,slightly different species as well.

[keithdog]

Good to see your blank spree has ended. Now it's time to get some Zanders! Good luck your next time out. Have you tried fishing with 1/4 oz. plain jig heads tipped with a live minnow? That works great on walleyes here.