The MasterBlanker

Well Finally !

Was trying to catch a Zander for 6 months and was failing each and every time… turns out I was piking with zander lures hence all I caught were pike.  Anyway on a walk home from the pub I spotted, a boat liveried up with  the logo www.fishingamsterdam.com on the side. Anyway to cut a long story short I mailed them and got a date sorted out. The price was reasonable at about 110 per person for a days fishing where whilst Zander could not be guaranteed ( no fishing place can guarantee fish) that there would be a very strong possibility of fish. Anyway after a lot of anticipation the day came around, Juul called me the night before just to do a final confirmation of location and pickup time.

The next day at the alloted time we were on the pier, and the boat that I had spotted the weeks before was there with out captain and guide Juul.

Juul, is an incredibly experienced fisherman not just for Zander but for ( it seems) most other species of game fish world wide and soon made us feel at home on his boat.  Just a few words about his boat, it is exactly like mine… however it beats it in almost every way possible The boat is exactly what you would have in mind if you told someone that money was not an issue, just put me together the best boat you could to fish off of the back of. He has dual echo sounder displays, a front mounted, remote controlled trolling motor, proper seats and some funky rear thrusters. Couple this with a massive cool box filled to the brim with goodies and you know you are on for a good day.

After orientating us with where we would be fishing and the target species, we started to tackle up. Normally I do not like to use hire gear as mine is normally far superior ( I am an unashamed tackle tart) however I was blown away by the rods that we were directed to use ( well actually I was blown away when I caught a fish on them). They were 1 piece Spro “Godfather” rods designed for vertical jigging combined with small spro reels. The action on these rods had to be seen to be believed, on Tuesday I will be calling my local tackle shop to make an order as small fish were fun to play, however even with the day’s biggest fish ( 4lb’s 4 oz more on that later) there was loads in reserve and I felt in complete control. Read more…

Back from a quick trip to Bosbaan, 4 carp 10+ bream all on ccmoore meteor + a strawberry dumbell popup fished snowman style. Put out a lot of maggots + stickmix and managed to get them on the feed. Had a lead about and discovered that all this rubbish that the Bosbaan is just flat featureless clay pit is rubbish. Yes the water is of a fairly even depth throughout but there are mussel beds, muddy patches  and other underwater features that do hold carp. I think that in stead of fishing a roving approach I will find a mussel bed, put out a marker and bait it heavily and see what happens the next time.

Weather this weekend was also strange. Superb Friday, wet and immensely cold Saturday and a lovely warm Sunday. Oh well at least there was a carp or 2 )

Q