This weather is no good for fishing or I’m getting soft in
my old age, probably both. I’ve not done
as much fishing as usual, just a short chub session that gave an almost predictable
blank and a barbel session on the Nene trying to take advantage of the slightly
milder weather on Wednesday and Thursday, again a blank. In between this I had a trip for perch on a
local water and actually had a bite, I missed it, but that was better than the
two pike anglers either side of me that blanked if you don’t count two
cormorants hooked and lost. There was
an interesting sight of thousands of starlings coming over the water at dusk
and giving their aerial display before settling in for the night.
A small section of the starling's display
Then I got a chance to partner Dave Mutton on a boat on Chew
Valley Reservoir, can’t miss that chance can you? If anything in fishing can be called a
lottery then this must be very high in the list. Each week that the pike trials are on there
are hundreds of hopefuls that brought a ticket for the raffle. Almost every day there is a thirty pound
pike caught, sometimes more than one, and each of those hopefuls are thinking ‘today
will be my turn.’ If you were to
consider the tactics used then I imagine that most of the big pike fall to float
fished sea dead bait and most of these will have been presented on the bottom. Very little skill and a very big slice of
luck so I’m well pleased to say my turn for the ‘luck’ card came on this trip.
We arrived about an hour late due to a long traffic build up
in Bristol where a couple of road workers were looking after what appeared to
be two cone stuck in the middle of a traffic junction. I measured the queue going the other way once
we got past and it was 1.4 miles, absolutely barmy. Still we got out on the water about 9.30am
and it was obvious that results had been poor, those boats that could be seen
were spread all over the place rather than the usual gathering around the
current hot area. We went off towards
the dam near Walley Bank and settled in about 28ft of water. Dave got a take which is always exciting on
this venue but it proved to be a jack of about 6lb and nothing happened after
that. About 11am we moved into slightly
shallower water and yet again Dave was soon into a slightly better fish of
14lb-12oz, we both felt this was a good sign that other bigger fish could be
present and we were happy to give it the rest of the day until the 4.10pm
finish time.
Dave with his 14lb-12oz pike
Watching the odd boats we could see as well as the bank
anglers and there seemed to be no action as the hours ticked by towards the
deadline. It was about 3.55pm when I got
a very slight indication on one of my rods and watching the float it bobbed up
and down for some minutes before I struck.
The float had not moved from its position and I was very confident that
it was a trout attacking my mackerel bait, but the result of the strike left no
doubt that it was not a trout.
Initially not a lot happened and Dave asked if it was a jack, then the
fish woke up to the fact that it had been hooked and zoomed off quite annoyed I
think. I good fight and eventually it
went into the net and onto the boat. A
check showed the only the tail of the bait was showing suggesting he had just
sat there munching it on the spot, fortunately we are both confident in this
situation and the hooks were removed without harm to the fish. The scales showed my first trout water pike
went a very pleasing 25lb-11oz but that proved to be the last bite since next
day was a blank for both of us.
25lb-11oz Chew lottery prize.
Those
that think trout water piking is easy should give it a try and build up a few
blank days and then possibly revise their ideas. Still that's it for now so tight lines until the next update comes along.
Pike float sits in the dying rays of the setting sun.
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