Having so much rain l nearly headed off to the river in search of eels but decided to forget these until next season, however with so much rain going into our waters what species should l be looking at. The obvious answer was zander and with the conditions overcast and mild headed to Old Bury Hill.

Introducing a concoction of cut up sardines, sprats, mackerel and dead maggots laced together with Sonubaits Supercrush Green the action was immediate and over the twelve-hour session 28 fish fell including 21 zander to 12lb 13oz, three pike and three carp to 18lb 6oz! All the fish were taken on sardine sections hair-rigged on either a light running ledger set up or on the waggler using a Korum Precision Big Fish float rod! Now that’s what l call fishing!

Wednesday l was called in on ‘insect day’ to spend a few hours with my girlfriends sisters son, James. Conditions weren’t great but the method lead proved its effectiveness on a fining down river Loddon at the worst time of day and supplied James with three bites which resulted in two chub, both personal best of 4lb 6oz then 4lb 9oz. A Sonubaits 13mm hard pellet did the trick with a mixture of 4mm, 6mm and crushed halibut pellet pressed around the lead.

With another invitation to fish Old Bury Hill again this time with good pal Alan Stagg, and needing all the confidence l can for two features early next week on the venue we returned in similar conditions. This time however l wanted to see if l could catch on the feeder using a quiver-tip as bite indication. Using a Korum Precision Multi-feeder rod it didn’t take long for the tip to pull round and my first ever zander to fall to the method. Weighing 8lb 1oz it was the first of many that came to my net over the next few hours, obviously the cage feeder loaded with liquidised fish sections pulling a few extra fish into the swim, however it was the sleeper rod fished more conventionally with a resistant free running lead that produced the best two weighing exactly 10lb plus another lump of 12lb 12oz. Alan was catching as well and by the end of the session we both landed nigh on twenty zander each, certainly fishing at it best!