A 15lb+ Zander has been the target for Sam Moore over the last few years and living only 5 minutes away from the banks of the Lower Severn gave him a very good chance of landing one. Unfortunately for Sam, several of his angling friends had been lucky enough to experience a fish of this size and each time they did, Sam was on the other end of the camera doing the honours.

This all changed recently though, Sam told us “Last winter I sat out in every weather imaginable and brutal floods every weekend only to lose what looked like a very big fish right at the net while my buddy took a photo of my rod springing back and face dropping. Fast forward to this year and I hadn’t been able to put the time in that I’d like to due to an extremely busy summer but with the river rising fast I knew I had to give it a good go so me and my good friend Dave hatched a plan to do a dawn raid before the floods that were predicted arrived.

We arrived at the river on first light and were greeted by driving wind and rain, the thought of a warm breakfast and waiting till the rain slowed was discussed but we decided to go for it anyway and brave it. Once we arrived at our favoured swim I quickly flicked out two rods, one on ledgered roach and the other float fished right in the edge. Within what seemed like seconds the float dipped twice signalling a take, as I picked up the rod the float sailed away so I wound down and stuck into a solid resistance which initially surged away like a double figured pike.

While this was all happening Dave grabbed the net and stood waiting to scoop the prize, I think we were as shocked as each other when instead of the green flanks of a river pike appeared from the murky water a big silver flash of a big zander showed itself. Dave scooped it up in the net without any hesitation as I dropped the rod realised I’d finally achieved my goal. Once unhooked and the sling zeroed Dave hoisted her up whilst not letting me see the scales only to give me a smile and tell me ‘that’s 16.12 mate’ After a few quick photos she was returned to the water and erupted away back to her murky home. I am absolutely made up that it finally happened and soon received many phone calls messages of congratulations from friends as they knew how hard I’d worked for it.”