The day I reconnected with the Severn Zander

After a long blank 96 rod hours and even with confidence low I decided I was going to have another crack at the river Severn after the big Zander, but this time I was going to try a new peg that I’ve always walked past on previous visits. I made my way down to the river at about 12:00 with my friend Dan who doesn’t fish but he asked if he could come along with me on this session, as we made our way down I noticed how good the river looked it looked spot on for a Zander or two with the flow sluggish, the wind blowing gently and the air temp quite warm, I was quite hopeful of catching. I set up my 12ft barbel rod with a 3oz quivertip, screwed on my shimano baitrunner 5000 loaded with 12lb fox warrior XT mainline then slid down on a 1ounce grippa lead and a bead then attached my 20lb Drennan wire trace which was attached to a size two single Kamasan hook to which I lipped hooked a small dead Roach onto the hook I normally only use a chunk of a fish for bait but thought I’d try something different,.

Here is the final result:
13lb 6oz river Severn Zander

I cast out at about 12:15pm to the edge of the flow, tightened the line to bait and place the rod in the rod rest and sat on my unhooking matt to watch the tip for a few hours ,hoping a Zander would pick up the bait. After about two hours nothing had happened so I decided to reel in change the bait to another small roach lip hooked and cast back out to the edge of the flow but this time further upstream and placed the rod back in the rest as I continued to watch the tip the wind picked up which made it a bit difficult to spot bites so I decided to touch ledger for a while with the line between my forefinger and thumb I could feel for a bite and strike with the rod with my right hand if a fish picked up the bait, after about 30 minutes I hadn’t had a bite and by now the wind had died down so I put my rod back on the rest and decided to watch the tip again when I had a very slight twitch on the rod tip almost instantly after placing the rod back down, so I picked the rod up wound down and struck in hard to my delight I was met with solid resistance after about five minutes of playing the fish I realised that the way the fish was fighting staying deep in the flow just shaking it’s head that this could be a big fish, as she finally broke the surface I saw the huge head of a big old angry Zander shaking it’s head violently trying to throw the hook but I was just praying that she wouldn’t drop off, I turned to Dan and said " this is a big fish mate" as I finally slipped the waiting landing net under the fish after a hard fight once in the net I even let out a huge yesssss! I then lifted the net onto the unhooking matt and peeled away the mesh of the net to unhook her and to my surprise I could see she was a big fish indeed which was neatly hooked in the side of the mouth I slipped the hook out and placed her in the weigh sling that Dan had already zeroed for me with the scales, at this point the adrenaline kicked in hard and I was shaking like a leaf as I realised I could have another potential personal best Zander on the bank, I lifted her up off the matt and when the scales settled on 13lb 6oz I couldn’t believe it as not only had I beat my personal best this was my 3^{rd double figure Zander of the predator season and what a way to get my confidence back up after it being so low with the blanks, I had to weigh her three times though to make sure I wasn’t dreaming as after 96 long hours of blanking on previous sessions, it was a shock to the system but a huge weight off my shoulders Dan turned to me and said "what a fish mate well done " after a few quick snaps I placed her back in the river and held her in the flow till she swam out of my hands and back into the murky depths, I recast out and even did a little dance on the bank I was so happy to have caught a new personal best plus a quick handshake and off Dan and a random passerby who had stopped to ask what I’d caught as he’d never seen a Zander before, then continued to watch the tip for another hour with no success we decided to call it a day at about 16:00 so I packed up and made my way back home with a huge smile on my face, to celebrate with a cold can of coke and a sausage sandwich, few people may think I’m mad still targeting Zander after 96 hours of blanks but it just goes to show dedication pays off.}

thanks for reading my 3rd article feedback welcome

with a special thansk to daniel capilliena for the pictures

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Jay Crutchley

A guide to Quivertipping for zander on rivers

Recently I’ve had a few people ask me how to quivertip for zander, as I fish for them this way and since I adopted the quivertip style thanks to a friend putting me on this method for zander my catch rate has improved landing zander to 10lb 12oz which I feel I wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t of converted to the Quivertip for them, so I thought I’d write a quick guide to give people an idea how to successfully quivertip for zander. As I’ve found zander so finicky on the Severn I use a 1.75lb test curve barbel rod with the 3oz quivertip and a shimano 5000 baitrunner loaded with 12lb mono or 30lb braid. For the rig I use a 1oz grippa lead as I find it holds bottom on the severn nicely and offers less resistance to the zander as they don’t like resistance, but I will jump up to a 1 ½oz lead if there’s a bit of extra water on the river, for the trace I use 20lb Drennan green pike wire with a size 2 single Kamasan hook to which none of these components have let me down so far you could use tiny trebles if you don’t have confidence in single hooks say size 8’s or 10, so now you’ve got the idea of gear I’ll move on to bait, for bait I use either a small 2/3oz roach, bleak, eel sections, lamprey, Rudd, skimmer, trout or a small chunk of any of these bait’s as zander have small mouths there’s no need for big baits. But when I say chunk I mean it could be tail, head or middle section as zander will snaffle it up if it’s small enough for them to grab.

now you’ve got gear and bait sorted time to move onto the river it’s self, whether it’s the severn, Trent, Ouse or a canal you fish this method will work quite comftabley but you may have to use a bigger lead on the tidal Trent as I doubt a 1oz would hold bottom quite as well on the severn, 1st of all look for a swim with overhanging trees a bridge or any other features to fish to even deep holes as zander will hold here and pounce on the prey fish as it swims past their noses, it’s best to travel as light as possible so you can spend an hour in each swim rather than just sit and hope, when you’re in the swim try recasting to different spots every so often like the crease of the flow where 90% of my zander have come from but never ignore the slacks or margins as there just may be a fish or two sat there waiting to pounce, once you’ve cast out place your rod in the air at a 45degree angle like you would barbel fishing with a slight bend in your tip. Now you’ve got the gear, bait and cast out sorted it’s time to watch for bites which can be interesting as bites can be anything from gentle taps to vicious takes on the rod tip, if you think you’ve had a bite hit it st8 away as you don’t get many chances with these zander as there so finicky, people will say zander don’t fight even on the quivertip but believe me you know when you have one on as they just hold in the flow and stay deep, but the bigger ones tend to just stay in the flow and shake their heads hard trying to chuck the hooks, it’s important once you’ve hooked into one to keep the pressure on and pump the fish up to the waiting landing net.

Well that should give you a rough idea into the world of Quivertipping for zander as It’s helped me improve my catch rate and I hope It helps to land you a monster or two!
just a few point’s I’d like to make here:

1.dont get me wrong you very well could hook pike on this method too hence the stepped up 1.75lb test curve rod, and before people say you wouldn’t land a big pike this way if it picked up your zander bait, you’d land it if you played it carefully as a friend of mine landed a rouge 23lb pike this way so it can be done,

2. you don’t have to use 1 ounce lead you could use a bigger one if you prefer but my choice would always be a 1oz grippa.

3. Always carry a sizeable landing net, unhooking matt, forcipes, long nose pliers and bolt cutters.

4. This method could very well work on still waters but as I don’t have any near me that old zander I couldn’t give people an honest answer.

5. Also I’ve heard people use feeders with this method loaded with chopped up fish small pellets and Groundbait to draw in the prey fish as the zander will follow

6. The reason I don’t sit behind alarms and wait for a run is the reason being by the time the alarms gone off the zander has already dropped the bait in my expercaince

finally thanks for reading and hope it help’s feedback welcome

jay crutchley

The diary of a river severn predator hunter