stevetheangler

On Friday 10th November, I headed off to Pike Water 17 at the usual time – but actually arrived there later than usual due to (a) a traffic accident at a set of traffic lights – a Porsche, I think, with a crumpled front end was blocking the entire junction and the police were in attendance along with a low loader which was in the process of hooking up the car and winching up on to the trailer and thus had a 10 minute wait until the road was clear and then (b) I had to call in to feed the cats of a friend who had gone away for the weekend – and which also meant I wasn’t travelling my usual route either. Anyway, by the time I was at the pool and tackled up ready for first cast was around 0845.

A quite a cool morning – and day, in fact, as it got cooler as time went on as I was sitting on a tree lined bank and once the sun moved past from directly in front of me I lost what little warmth there was from that. And it was also quite a breezy day, a cold breeze which also had quite a chilling effect … AND I’d left my fleece beanie hat, my snood and my fleece gloves at home … so it was quite an uncomfortable day in all … and hence one factor in why I packed in early at around 1415, the other being the lack of pike!

OK… so I started, as usual on my recent pike trips, fishing with maggot on the float for some live bait. The poles I’ve ordered, yes…poles in the plural, as I originally ordered a 6m elasticated pole but now I’ve also an 8m whip on the way too…. haven’t yet arrived – should be today as I write (Sat 11th) or Monday so I had to revert to the trusty rod’n’reel. However, I used a different set up to the usual one and swapped my 6lb line rigged rod for my lighter canal setup – 3lb line, size 18 hook, with a loaded crystal waggler that took 2 No 4 + 1 No 6 shot to cock. I think it worked slightly better and I’d 10 baits in the bucket by 1030 when I snagged a tree and had to pull to break and thus rather than re-tackle up I put out the 2 pre-tackled pike rods both with live baits at differing depths and swung out to different areas – I say swung out as I’ve yet to have a pike – even lure fishing – more than 2 rod lengths out from the bank – and they usually with 6-10 feet of the shore line – however, saying that I do fish waters that are 3+’ deep even at the water’s edge – obviously things would be different on waters were the water is only 6” deep 10 yards out!

So, by 1330, I’d not had a touch on the pike rods and decided in the interests of getting a bit warmer to re-tackle the maggot rod and fish that, which I did catching a few more silver ‘sprats’ before deciding at 1430 to call it a day and heading home to a hot bath…

Planning on Monday, 13th, to give the pike a day off and head to a mixed pool, with Liz, for whatever comes along … and back to the pike on Friday 17th….

WATER TEMPS

Min:               9.0’C
Max:              9.3’C
Average:       9.2’C

WATER TEMP TRENDS