My Grafham Water fishing addiction was as strong as ever and I needed a hit! It felt like an age since my last trip (maybe a week or two) so me and Giles set about planning our next trip. We had cleared up on the Perch on our last visit so we set our minds on targeting the Zander. I had been brushing up on my vertical jigging technique by watching youtube videos of the Scandinavian guys. Pinpoint accuracy is the key and the way they use fish finders is amazing. They can pick a fish out and target it by dropping the lure right on its nose. 9 times out of 10 they get a hit. Now our fish finder is by no means cutting edge technology but it would definitely be helpful.
The day arrived and Giles was due any moment. However there was one slight problem. I had locked my wallet and garage keys in the garage the night before so I needed to do my Burglar impression and break into my garage! With the help of a crowbar I retrieved my wallet and set about loading the car with my gear. Giles arrived and now fully loaded we headed off to the "Theatre of dreams" as Giles call it. A pretty good description as Grafham is a monster fish Mecca! Not long after joining the main road my car decided to lose power! Could anything else go wrong! Anyway, long story short the car got better again and we made it to our destination with time to spare. Phew!
We piled our gear into the boat and decided it would be rude not to see if the Perch were still in a feeding mood at the Main Tower. We dropped our chosen lures down set up drop shot style but it was obvious early on the Perch were not playing ball. They had been targeted there pretty heavily since our last visit and had moved on to less pressured areas. So we moved to an area I knew had produced some large Zander and Perch recently. We started picking up fish on the finder almost instantly and set about trying to tempt something into biting our jigs. We started a drift over the fish and we started getting a few bumps on our lures but no full on takes. We tried to find the shoal of fish again but they had moved on. Giles thought the sound of the petrol engine may be spooking the shoals so we switched to the electric engine. We started a drift into the main body of the water and again picked up fish on the finder. I felt my lure choice was not quite right and remembered I had found a Berkley ripple minnow lure the previous trip. So on it went and this time when my lure was dropped down I was met with a solid hit. I could feel it was not a big fish but when it turned out to be a small Zander we knew we had found them! He was hooked on the stinger I always put on my rubber lures.
Now we knew we were in the right area to target. In 1,200 acres of water up to 65ft deep you really do need to stay on them when you find them. This is where a fish finder is worth its weight in gold. Even a no frills one like ours. I was putting my homework to good use and fished as accurate as possible. My braided main line has alternating 2ft Black and Orange sections which enables me to count down to the exact depth the fish show on the finder. I dropped my lucky lure down again to where the fish were and it did not take long for another hit to come. This time a small Perch popped to the surface and again was hooked on the stinger. Right at the end of a drift Giles was next into a fish. Again a small Zander was netted and Giles was well pleased to get in on the Zander action. We started seeing less fish on the finder so moved over a little way and found some big shoals! Time was getting on and we had maybe half an hour or so until we had to get the boat back to the Lodge. With the lure dropping down I just hoped it would be met by something more substantial. Well it was and I hit into a knock that bent the 7ft jigging rod double! For a moment I thought it was the lake bottom. I felt a bump and knew it was a much bigger fish. It was heavy and hooked 55ft down so bringing it to the surface was nerve racking stuff! Giles kept saying it was a big Zander and when I saw it surface from under the boat I just wanted it in the net! Well in the net it went and we let out a big cheer of relief as the fishing had been so hard. Yet again the fish was hooked on the stinger and shows how important it is if you want to hook more fish. The angry looking Zed weighed 9lb and was my biggest lure caught Zander.
The fish went back down into the depths nice and strong. We had time for a few more drops but nothing else was fourth coming. After the potentially show stopping incidents in the morning I felt the day had ended on a well earned high. We did very well considering how difficult the fishing had been for everyone else. Although none of the monster Zander put in an appearance this time we still have a few trips left before the end of the season at the "Theatre of dreams".
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