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