stevetheangler

Friday 27th October I headed off on a return to Pike Water 17 hoping to get sweet revenge on last week’s taunting and toothy inhabitants….

I left the house around 0700 with the car’s external thermo registering 8.5’C but about a mile from my destination the thermo beeped out a frost warning as it dipped to 4’C and had arrived and transported my gear into my intended swim by 0730…..

As on last week’s session I intended to fish with maggot initially in order to catch a few livebaits and to switch over to the pike rods around midday which is actually what happened although, whilst bait gathering’ a bit of swirling going on and the occasional leaping by small fry encouraged me to put out one of the pike rods earlier as a ‘sleeper’ with a couple of floatfished sprats on a double double-hook set up as a ‘mini-Xmas Tree’… however, nothing came to this rod at all although it was used for the rest of the day. Anyway, first cast with the maggot rod was made, post-setting up of all the required rods, etc for the day, at around 0830…

The ambience of the lighting at the pool was quite moody for the early part of the day…

… with this photo taken at 1006… and this was taken with no special effects, etc, on my mobile phone. Not even set to ‘monochrome/B&W’, as I said it just came out like this. I was a bit disappointed with the ‘aberrations’ down the centre but then again it does look like an old photo that got a bit creased/folded and adds a bit of character maybe? J

Later the day turned quite pleasant with blue skies, white clouds and some nice sunshine….

And so, I started on my bait catching … and had a small silver on the first cast and caught steadily throughout the morning …. fishing maggot on 6lb main line with 6” of 6lb braid as a hook length with a size 16 hook below a 3AAA bodied antenna … and fishing around 4’ deep in water with a depth of around 11’ – 12’. I catapulted out dead maggot – I’d had around 3 pints of leftover maggots from the Somerset trip which were getting a bit ‘old’ so I’d frozen them to death – but when alive they had been getting a bit sweaty and I’d added some of my dry groundbait mix to them – and the mix included my usual porridge oats and some floating pellets – and thus when feeding the maggots these ‘particle’ bit were also being fed and attracted some of carp into the area…

And then, as a consequence of this feeding, at 1115 a larger than usual capture was made …. of an 11lb 4oz common carp…

… so I continued with the bait fishing until noon and then pulled in the maggot rod … and baited up the second pike rod to live bait with one of the captured small silvers… a single size 2 hook through the lips as the bait retainer and a 2/12 double hook hooked into the dorsal fin was the ‘catching hook’…. and less than 30 minutes later I was doing battle with one of those pike … :). I’d been fishing the bait under the overhanging bushes to my side and straight out in front of me about a yard out for that time … but as soon as I dropped the bait, literally, 6” from the edge of the bank the water exploded and it was ‘game on!’….

And after a short time a nice pike of 10lb 14oz graced the net…

….however, it did get its own back on me… if you look at the picture closely there is a red spot between its eye and the end of its gill cover? That is blood … MY BLOOD! Whilst going to grab it to unhook, it jumped and caught my thumb with the edge of its gill cover opening up a small triangular flap of skin as if it by a razor blade … only a tiny cut, but did it bleed? YES!! In fact, even now, 15 hours later, and under a plaster, if I just catch it wrongly it still seeps blood … and at the time my thumb was dripping everywhere .. all over the rods, reel, flask, baits, chair, etc … but luckily I’d some dry (well, they were ‘wet’ ones once) wipes and some insulation tape – and some antiseptic spray intended for fish with sores, cuts and scrapes. So a quick antiseptic spraying and a makedo dressing of the wipe and tape were quickly applied and at least the dripping was contained for the rest of the session….And there was more …. at around 1445 another sail away bite was made on the live bait rod … a strike and a pike of around 6lb (+/-1) was connected …. however, as it came to the net it decided to do a ‘headshaking tail walk’ and I had the sickening feeling of the line going slack… I thought I’d snapped off but, on winding the line in, it appears that the crimping of the wire trace had failed or the wire had snapped at the loop to the swivel, as the trace’s swivel was still on the line… Just glad that I used barbless/crushed barb hooks – it is a club rule that for general fishing hooks have to be barbless although for pike fishing hooks with crushed barbs are allowed.

So, I fished on until 1530 without further action before tackling down and making my way home, very contented with the day! :)

Plans for the next week …. hopefully Monday will be a lure fishing trip with Liz although depends on the weather per usual … and I do need to go to my bank to sort out some money that I didn’t get from a 3rd-party ATM when the machine crashed a few weeks ago … and I entered a ‘dispute’ request for the refunding of the money that I didn’t get but which was taken from the account which the bank was taking up with the ATM operator for me .. but weather OK I’ll go fishing Monday and bank on Tuesday…. and Friday I’m thinking of a pike session on a canal that originally I was thinking of getting the lures involved in … but yesterday the leaves seemed to have increased their falling rate massively and on canals that’s the kiss of death for lures even if no boats pass – and just one boat passing turns the ‘difficult but manageable’ into ‘mission impossible’ as even the sunken leaves get churned up – so I may go for a deadbait on float approach…..

WATER TEMPS

Min:                 12.4’C
Max:                13.0’C
Average:         12.7’C

WATER TEMP TRENDS