Unexpected Catch On A Homemade Glidebait

[diemai]

Hi there , folks ,

Yesterday I've been fishing a smaller old gravel pit owned by a fishing club where I have membership .

Cast and worked back a homemade "Heiddy" sinking glider(in Europe we call it a jerkbait)for the third time and suddenly had a fish on , ..........after hauling back twice to set the hooks I've felt secure enough to try and capture the event on film and picked out my camera from my jacket's chest pocket .

In expectation to have hooked a small pike , which is the typical target species for glidebaits over here(well , not only small ones ) , I was pretty much surprised to see a nice zander(close relative of your American walleye) surface and suddenly became very anxious that I might still loose it in the end , ........I did not even know , that this species was stocked in that pond , and usually they hardly take such kinda lures as well .

But everything went on fine and I was able to land that well fed fish of 27" length , ......good average size but big for that pond , I suppose .

This catch was the only one for that session yesterday , but it surely made my day !

But such attempts filming fighting fish after having hooked them could also go terribly wrong , as I've experienced a few months ago :

But this time it worked out , ......here is another picture of the zander and lure !

greetz , diemai

[crankpaint]

Nice fish bet it taste as good as it looked too,thanks for the videos

[diemai]

Thanks a lot , mate , ......indeed one of the most sought after fish for kitchen over here , not only for fishermen , but in general , too .

greetz , diemai

[carolinamike]

diemai, thanks for your post. You have answered a question that I have been wondering about for some time now. I'm doing some work for a company in Germany and part of the name of his bait is Zander. Besides the Zander, what other fish do you guys target, I know pike is one. Real nice fish by the way. When I saw you reeling it in, I thought it was a walleye. Great job, congratulations!

[diemai]

diemai, thanks for your post. You have answered a question that I have been wondering about for some time now. I'm doing some work for a company in Germany and part of the name of his bait is Zander. Besides the Zander, what other fish do you guys target, I know pike is one. Real nice fish by the way. When I saw you reeling it in, I thought it was a walleye. Great job, congratulations!

Thanks for your interest , mate , ............so let me answer your questions :

We have a few target species for lurefishing over here , but which differ regionally as stocks of certain species differ as well .

No.1 target species everywhere is pike , and in some places real trophy fish of 50"+ can be caught f. e. the only slightly salty bays of the eastern portion of the German baltic coast area , ...but also in the the biggger natural lakes of northern Germany .

In the bigger streams of the country pike are more abundant , as these rivers are not kept very natural anymore , rather changed into shipping highways and/or forced into manmade flood preventing riverbeds , .......so they lack natural and seasonally submerged meadows at their banks , that pike do require for spawning .

So in these rivers like Elbe or Rhine the zander is the No.1 predatory fish , as it can adapt better to these conditions .

Off course there are exceptions to the rule , zander are also stocked in many natural lakes , as they are much sought after for cooking , ...but in these clear and calmer waters they are quite hard to catch on lures , ...river fishing , especially in the lower tidal portions of some rivers , is pretty much more successful .

Another frequent prey for the lure angler is the European perch , .......they are living virtually everywhere , can be a nasty , unwanted lot at times taking lures meant for pike and zander , but on the other side they are also a welcome prey for others , as they are good cooking either , if one knows how to handle their thick skin .

Some waters hold heaps of small perch up to 10" , others also contain real big ones of 20" , some reservoirs down South are wellknown for big perch , ...but here in the Hamburg area I frequently catch some over 16" as well .

Another predatory fish around here is a member of the carp family , English name is asp , .......the only pure predator of that family , .....bad for cooking(very bony) , but a very fierce fighter on the line (Can get up to 40" , I guess, but catches of 25" to 30" are most common) .

They are living in many waters , but are hard to catch , especially in stillwaters , ..........in the bigger rivers the chances area lot better , one can see them chasing into schools of small minnows on the surface , sometimes far out on the river , .......it requires smaller lures , that can be cast far , to attract asp , ....but if the lure does not exactly match their actual prey scheme , they are not likely to take it !

Then we also have the big European silure(catfish) , ........was abundant here up north in the Elbe river , but nowadays the stocks are exploding , ......they rather have them more down south , they are the biggest local predator , down south they catch them in around 100" sizes and bigger at times , ......up here north they've never grown that big , but I've already heard about a 64" silure caught in the harbor of Hamburg few years ago .

These silures are most likely fished on with deadbait , .....but I've read statistics , that about half of the catches are made on lures , ........often they are unexpectect bycatch when deadbaiting for eel or lurefishing for zander in local rivers , but only the smaller ones can be landed in this case , the bigger ones most often do snap the line .

Furthermore we have seatrout and a few salmon up here in northern rivers and around the Baltic coast ,....... rainbows , brownies and grayling in southern rivers as well , ...but stocks of these kinda species are quite low , as we lack naturally kept rivers in our rather small and highly industrialized country , ........but yet still catches are made .

greetz , diemai