stevetheangler

Tuesday, March 17th, and at 0900 I was once again casting my lamprey oil injected sprat and smelt baits into the waters in search of Esox Lucius – or, for the layman, better known as pike!

As a change from my last session and, after noting that the pike captured on the underwater video recording made that session seemed to indicate the pike were swimming in the upper waters, I elected for float fished baits at varying depths – by the end of the day I’d fished the baits from literally 12″ deep (ie the float was directly touching the wire trace) and down to 9′ deep where the baits would be dragging bottom in the approx 7′ depth of water.

So, having made my first casts at 0900, it wasn’t more than a minute or two that the smelt float started a wobble and a 1 metre glide across the water but then ceased before I could prepare to strike – but it was enough *ACTION* to get the old ticker change from slow waltz to quickstep for a few moments! :D And in the next hour I had a fair few float dips and wobbles and one decent take that I struck, felt the resistance of, but the hooks failed to grip… and this missed take resulted in a large silt and bubble trail up the side of the pool as the fish fled the scene…

From then until 1100 there were again little nudges and minute dips of the floats – I assume these were chub hassling the baits – and between 1100 and 1200 the *REAL* fun started which was to carry on to the end of the session as a couple of pike appeared together, and both were good doubles, and starting the mickey taking… swimming backwards and forwards past me about 3′-6′ out from the bank with their dorsal and tail fins porpoising at approx. 20-30 minute intervals… and I tried twitching the baits in front of them, leaving both baits static at 12″ and 24″ depths in their path for their next pass-by … and what did they do? Looked swam past and tail batted them! And several times they did this! Then they came back along… stopped in front of me… one grabbed the other around the back of the neck as if to say ‘Look! I’ve caught her! Ho ho ho!!’ and then both swam off again… anyway, after a few more passings it was time for me to depart… so I packed up the tackle, put it on the barrow to leave – and then the final indignity came – as I started to walk from the swim I was given a farewell tail slap splashing!!

SOME TABLES NEED TO BE TURNED NEXT WEEK!!! THEY ARE 2 BATTLES UP IN THE CAMPAIGN BUT BECOMING COCKY – AND THAT WILL BE THEIR UNDOING!! I *WILL* WIN THE WAR!! :)

TEMPS:

Time               Air                  Water

0900                 5.6                    10.3
1000                 6.4                    10.3
1100                  6.8                    10.4
1200                  7.8                    10.5
1400                  8.9                    10.8
1545                10.0                    10.7

TEMP TRENDS: