How to score points with your partner: a personal best zander and another catfish

Mike mainly wanted to fish for zander. No sooner said than done, and we started the day vertical jigging because that had worked the day before. There was nothing to see, and after a fruitless drift we decided to move towards the shallows and cast among the weed, which had also worked the day before.

It stayed quiet for a while and I began to wonder what was going on. Luckily Lexi called out not long after that she thought she had a fish. When I looked, she was standing there with a thumping rod and I started laughing. That was no small one.

From the rod I could tell immediately it was another catfish. It is always fun to catch one on lighter gear. A lot of people have never seen an oversized tadpole like that, and they give good sport, so as far as I am concerned they are welcome up to a length of 1.30 meters. After a short fight I could get hold of the catfish and we took some nice photos for the home front.

We decided to fish the last hour flat out for zander. Luckily they were more present now and we had plenty of lookers, but not one of them committed. We were already past time when I decided we would keep going. The fish were there, it was simply a matter of time and the right shad. Just as we said this really was the last drift, they worked their shads over a nice bit of structure at the end of it. If no zander comes out of here, I said, then I do not know either.

And sure enough, two zander came to look at the shads and one of them took a shot. Mike set the hook and shortly afterwards a new personal best of 72 cm lay in the net. We were delighted, and there you have it again: persistence pays.