The Pikers Pit

Do most stop fishing for them about now till autumn?

The_Saint wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31 2024 16:29 -

Do most stop fishing for them about now till autumn?

Zander will usually spawn a little later than pike, so from about now to April/May seems to be the window, dependent on water temps of course. So, I personally wouldn't advise fishing for them early in the spring, although that's just me. But early summer, I think that's fine if you really have the urge to target them. Mid summer or when the hotter weather arrives? No. Many moons ago, when I first started to fish for zander, I'd bait fish on the river at night for them. We would catch a lot of zander, as there were simply a lot more of them back then. It wasn't unusual to get past 20 fish a night with two of you fishing a couple of rods each. But you only need the water to start to get warm, and they'll start to die on you, especially the bigger fish. That's on fairly shallow rivers and drains, most being less than 15 to 20ft. If you're fishing faster water, which carries more O2, then it's not so much a problem. I've done a bit of jig fishing in weirs when it's a warmish and they went back OK. Having said that, hands up, I learnt the hard way when bait fishing during the warmer months, what with propping them up with bank sticks in the margins and all that stupidity. Just like pike, my advice is to leave them alone until the autumn, unless of course, we get that rarity of a cool summer or if you're dressed up like an advertising board and speak Polish, then the hotter the better seems OK for those clowns.

With the rivers in flood most of the winter a bit of summer zander fishing is the only hope. I have sunmer zander fished since 1968

In the seventies all of our zander fishing was in the summer/autumn, mainly daytime, for some reason the perceived wisdom was that they couldn't be caught in the winter! We were still at school, but had enough common sense to look after the fish, and never had any real issues, that said, I wouldn't zander fish in the summer now, other than an occasional trip when conditions are safe.

I would avoid fishing for them in hot conditions as they can struggle.
I think early spring and late autumn is the best time for zander.
For me summer is the time of the warm water species such as tench.

Cheers, ALan

We used to deadbait for zander with the tail part of a small roach. There was a canal with a water inlet, if that was running we put our floats inthe middle of the "vortex" and usually you'd get a bite within minutes. Deadbaits under bridges also worked out great in the summer, if there was a bit of a flow in the water then you'd get bites, if there was none then no bites.

Thanks for your input gents, zed rods away till autumn now

Trouble is we can convince ourselves to not actually go fishing while others obviously carry on. I was go summer zedding this summer unless it gets hot.