Picture-perfect monster zander caught by @Alessandro Altamura in Team Westin Italy on his favorite lure, a Shad Teez in the color Pearl. Big congratz Alessandro! Westin-Fishing
Rémi Seigler in Team Westin France was vertical jigging with a 20 cm Twin Teez in the color Fireflake and his 28-52 gram W6 Vertical Jigging-T rod when he got this absolutely stunning big zander of 90 cm. Westin-Fishing
Zander are the Euro version of a walleye. Datus Proper had a good riff in his Pheasants of the Mind book* where he compared the sporting qualities of unsung species. An example he used was how walleye in midwest North America had a huge culture built around them despite being less than a thrilling sport fish. Zander were not treated the same in Europe despite being much larger and were lumped in with so called coarse fish like carp. His point was how arbitrary our sporting prejudices are. He was using the example to defend the pheasant as a game bird. To my surprise, pheasants were lower on the class rung than I knew and to Proper it was all human hubris. Even Steve admitted that Proper taught him to fully appreciate pheasants.
A really fun read on zander is in Open Season by Bill Humphrey who has a couple of books in Steve’s book on books. Chapter 12 was one of Steve’s picks. That story was in Open Season, too.
And as you might have guessed, they have been released in North America where they can be an ecological hazard.
* Chapter 43 Steve’s book on books