stevetheangler

Thursday, 25th February, I headed off on a pike fishing session at the same venue as my previous session – which had been 16 days previous! Seems that circumstances dictated for various reasons  that I couldn’t get out earlier and although it seemed an age since my last waterside ventures I hadn’t realised that it had actually been so long and thought it had been more like 10 or 11 days!

Anyway, tackle sorted and lightened from previous visit and with bait and, remembering last session, barrow loaded I headed off from home at around 0730 arriving at the venue’s car park around 0810.

Barrow was a godsend and, although a couple of short breathing stops were needed en-route I reached my planned destination – which was the one intended for the last session but due to fatigue never reached.

No capybaras spotted either!! LOL!

Anyway, for various reasons, the day was not the most enjoyable day for me… Firstly, I’d recently had a lot of almost sleepness nights in a row and even the overnight preceding the trip it had gone 0400 when I fell asleep and the alarm to get up, get ready, and get out went off at 0545. Then the forecast had said heavy overnight frost and daytime temps rising to 2C and so I donned my padded bib’n’braces for extra warmth – and actually the temps were quite mild even at 0800 due to a clear sky and the sun rising, and that coupled with the exertion of barrow pushing soon made me over-warm – so warm in fact that my specs constantly misted over and I couldn’t see where I was going… and on arrival the swim was like a sun trap in the trees with me facing directly in the sun and effectively feeling like a sausage under a full grill… so there I sat tired, fatigued and heat exhausted for most of the morning.. and probably those reasons I was almost totally unco-ordinated and along with niggling tackle problems too I took an age setting up and first casts were not made until 1030… and by 1200 I was trying to force myself to stay until at least 1330. But a bit later the temps dropped, the bib’n’braces were discarded and I got slightly more envigorated by chatting to a fellow member and eventually stopped until the planned 1500 finish…

Anyway, as to the fishing – I’d cast out the depth sounder around the area in front of me finding a level 18’ of water at casting distance and sloping up to 3’-4’ about a rod length out… so firstly I threw out a few balls of crumb containing blitzed sardine and mackerel as an attractant rubby-dubby in the intended fishing area and then straight ledgered two baits – one a small ‘jack’ on a single size 2 hook on the 18’ level , the other a sardine on the rise at around the 11’/12’ depth mark. And there they sat, except for a few minor twitches made to try to attract the attention of any marauding predators, until 1400… untouched.

At 1400 I decided to change the sardine bait to a fresh one and to change its presentation slightly – and the new bait had a balsa pop-up stick pushed into its guts and stooped so that it sat around 2’ above the bottom. But an hour later when I decided to tackle down still no indication of interest had been noted.

TEMPS:

Water temperature was measured at a constant 6C all session.

TEMP TRENDS: