stevetheangler

Friday 4th November 2016 at 0700 I head off to Pike Pool 17 in search of my first Esox Lucius of the 2016-2017 season.

As the previous day was quite cold (1’C) I, like yer muvva tells ya to, wrapped up well – thermal baselayer top and fleece jumper with Swedish Army long-johns, with fleece onesie over, and a set of padded bib’n’braces over those – and then my usual waistcoat and jacket – and then find on the day blue skies, bright sunshine, and hardly a ripple on the water’s surface – and air temps reaching 14’C over the day – was I warm or what!?

Anyway, I arrive at the pool at around 0745 and I decide on my peg for the day – but before setting up my deadbait rods I pre-bait the swim with breadcrumb laced with fish oils and shredded fish bits and then I have a hour with a lure – a 9.5cm Savage Gear Soft 4Play white/silver body… but to no effect.

Arriving back at my swim, my two pike ledger rods are set up with a popped-up Spanish mackerel on one rod, and a mackerel portion (4oz) on the other… but 4 hours later, despite twitching in a yard or so every 20 mins, not a single bit of attention has been gained. So I pull out the two float rods – one is baited with 2 pink coloured sprats and 2 normal sprats in Christmas Tree fashion, the other with a ‘jack hooked so that it was held horizontal in the water – these were given 3 hours in the water during which various depths were set on each, they were allowed to drift, fished out in the water, fished on far bank and fished near bank – all to no avail. So for the last hour of the day I reverted back to a lure – a 14” wriggly tail eel – which was as effective as all the other methods I’d used. So… another blank….

Water temps over the day lay in the 10’C to 10.5’C band.

Picture of the week:

One of my angling clubs – Kinver Freeliners – held a charity night, and Matt Hayes, accompanied by Mick Brown, gave an excellent slideshow/talk and here’s myself hoping to get some of their ‘magic’ transferred!! But as you can see from the above write-up, it didn’t quite work out! :) And that was despite buying Mick’s ‘Pike And I’ DVD and his ‘Professional Pike Angler’ book too on the night.