Deja Vu

As expected the pike season petered out slowly. I caught a few more doubles, ending the season with around sixty but we've had such a cold spring that it was hard going right to the end. The cold spring has once again affected the tench fishing too - it's just like a repeat of 2012!

I've been determined to fish some new spots on my tench lake for a variety of reasons. It became noticeable last season that I'd had several repeat captures with one particular fish, the biggest I've had from there, showing up no less than four times. With 57 tench caught last season, mainly from one area, and several repeats I reasoned that the fish were being a bit territorial and that if I branched out a bit more I might pick up some different fish, maybe bigger ones.

The first two sessions in this new-ish area produced nothing. Denis joined me on day one and he did, at least, have a line bite while on day two I had a line bite of my own but no fish. I then spent a morning back at my old swim and picked up just one tench, a female of 7lb 8oz which was painfully thin - it obviously hadn't been feeding very much, presumably because of the poor water temperatures.

Next session, back at the new area, produced a result in the shape of two bream, a male of 8lb 15oz which was covered in spawning tubercles and a female of 8lb 5oz. It was the bream that drove me away from this area last year, constantly moving in and hoovering up my feed. There are some big bream in this lake but I'm really much more interested in the tench so I was a bit disappointed - was it going to be the same this time around?

My fifth morning's fishing was spent in a strong blustery wind which made the fishing difficult. It was cold too with occasional sharp, heavy showers some of which had lumps in. I've been experimenting with a new wonder-bait this season, fishing it alongside my standard maggot and caster rods and I have to say, the wonder-bait is winning hands down with all three fish caught so far falling to it. So it was again on this session when, shortly after first light I had a steady take and pulled into a fish that scrapped very hard indeed.

Several minutes were spent bringing this fish to the net, I was in no doubt throughout that it was a good tench and as I slipped the net under it I smiled to myself. 8lb 2oz, my first "eight" of the year. Still rather thin, this was a genuinely big fish which could weigh a lot more after feeding up and was in tip top condition. I slipped her back and watched as she powered away in the shallow water - but the day wasn't over yet!

Three times more the wonder-bait was taken, producing another female tench of 6lb 8oz, a male of 5lb 4oz and a small chub and all the while the caster rod lay untouched. Of course it might have been that the casters would have been taken eventually but for now the new bait is scoring well - I think I'll fish it on two rods tomorrow.

Out Like a Lion

March, so they say, comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Well this March has had other ideas, it's been the coldest March since 1963 and the fishing's been pretty tough. This time last year the surface temperature on the big lake was eleven degrees and the fish had started to spawn but this year it's actually been falling in recent weeks and now stands at a chilly 3.7 degrees, that's down from 4.1 degrees last week. It's actually day length that triggers spawning activity in pike and they surely want to spawn but they can't spawn in water this cold and so they just sit and wait.

I've eight doubles in March, I had twenty doubles last March and this year my biggest pike has been 17lb 5oz (two at that weight) while last year I had three twenty pounders in the month so both quality and quantity have suffered. What's more, the fish have been devillishly difficult to locate. They haven't been on their usual haunts at all and I've only had the little success I've had due to a perverse stroke of luck.

I set out in the boat one morning and headed to a favourite spot some two miles away. I have the spot marked on the GPS so it was easy to find and I soon had the anchors bedded in and four rods out with deadbaits on. I pulled on a few extra clothes to keep the chill east wind out and then decided to make a cup of tea - but where was the stove? I realised that I had left the stove on the bank back at the car in its camo bag so I had to reel in the rods, lift the anchors and go all the way back for it.

That meant that I had lost the first hour of daylight, the best time of day just now, and I cursed myself for my stupidity but I was determined to turn the situation to my advantage. I decided to fish a new spot that I had never fished before and if I blanked, well I blanked. Luck was on  my side however and I soon had a fish in the boat which weighed 15lbs 15oz. A little later I had another one, a fourteen pounder and although that was it for the day I've now visited this same spot several times and I've caught more fish from there.

The fish are very fat just now, a combination of undigested food (because the water is so cold) and spawn and there's surely a very big one to be had but with the fishing so slow, it will be hard to track one down. They're fighting exceptionally hard too, both on the water and in the boat as I'm trying to get the hooks out. The biggest downside I suppose is that it all seems to be happening in that short early morning window, the rest of the day seems to be a waste of time.

More cold weather due this week and I'm off to another water to try my hand there. This pike season isn't over yet.

Not With a Bang

This time last year the waters were getting warmer, the fish were on the feed and I was bagging up wherever I fished. What a difference now that we're in 2013! Two days on the big lake this week produced a jack and a low double for me while Denis got nothing at all. The surface temperature was still only four degrees, the temperature at which turnover takes place and the temperature at which there is no thermal stratification. In other words, it's four degrees from the bottom to the top with the same temperature prevailing at depths from 2ft to 200ft. This has been the situation now for some weeks and it's resulted in the fish being very difficult to track down. Thermal stratification has the effect of concentrating fish in big deep lakes and we rely on it far more than people realise. When it isn't there, the fish spread out to all areas and all depths and the fishing becomes hard.

Tomorrow's trip has been put on hold since the forecast predicts 20mph winds and a daytime temperature of -2 C. I'm keen, but I'm not that keen and I can cope with another day in front of the fire ok. We have several more days of freezing weather (but less wind) after that so I might get out but then mild weather is due to hit the UK - just as the rivers close to coarse fishing - typical!

Notwithstanding the poor weather I've been active in other ways just recently. We at Region 31 of the Pike Anglers Club have staged our first coaching day for 2013 with Prince Albert AS being the host club. It was a great day with 31 people, mostly children, being taught various pike fishing skills. It never ceases to amaze me that the things we take for granted in pike fishing can be so difficult for beginners to pick up. Tying a stopknot is something we do as a matter of course but with unfamiliar, cold little fingers it becomes an enormous task, one which many youngsters really struggle with.

Days like this are really important vehicles for getting the message across about pike and we take great care to stress how important it is to use strong tackle, avoid leaving baited traces in the water and handle the fish with great care. Only one fish was caught on the day, hampered as we were by ice which covered three quarters of the lake but the boys went away happy and I know we will see some of them on the bank in years to come.

Another little project that I became involved with was the Pikeathlon. Steve Davison and Shane Patterson have been touring mainland Britain fishing a different water every day for two weeks in aid of Diabetes UK. They've been sponsored of course and they've employed a team of guides to host them in each PAC region that they've visited. I was their host at region 31 and I racked my brains to think of a local water where I could take them where they might have a chance of a pike or two. We aren't well served with pike waters around here and i took them to the River Mersey, once the most polluted river in Western Europe but now far cleaner than it was.

We started the day with a hard frost but soon the sun rose into a cloudless blue sky - not the greatest of conditions but hey-ho! Steve took the first fish on a lamprey. It was just five pounds or so but it brought a sigh of relief from me - I had guided them to a fish which is more than some regions had done. We moved on to another stretch and Steve soon hooked into another. The bend in the rod suggested that this was a much bigger one but the hooks soon pulled free so we never got to find out how big it was.

Soon we moved on to yet a third area and Steve had a run very quickly which resulted in a pike of 9lb 8oz - the biggest fish of their trip so far. Shane then went on to miss a good take before catching a five pounder to round off the day. Several Region 31 PAC members came along to wish them luck at the end of the day and I sent them on their way up the motorway to Bonnie Scotland and better fishing.

 

The weather needs to warm up, and soon, or this season will be ending not with a bang, but with a whimper!

Frustration!

Yes you know the score, no blog for several weeks means no fish on the bank, or at least, not many. The turn of the year marked a turn in my fortunes and in keeping with many people I've found 2013 pretty difficult so far. the weather's not helped with rain, snow and frost conspiring to keep the fish down while I've had a lot of things going on that have prevented me from getting out fishing. The river's been up quite a lot with all the rain and at the times when it was just right, I've been tied to the house. Meanwhile the big lake's been fishing very poorly with many people reporting blanks.

Nevertheless I hitched up the boat last week and towed it up to the Lakes through ice and snow. I was to spend a day with Neil Titley, a police officer from London way who won a day's fishing with me under the PAC's introduce a friend scheme. Now regular readers will know that this never goes well, whenever I take a guest out we fail to catch. The fish might be feeding ravenously the day before, but on the day I take out a guest they clamp their mouths shut and refuse to feed.

So it was once again, I took Neil out early in the day in thick fog and really needed the GPS on the sounder as visibility was down to just a few yards. We fished lots of good marks that have produced m,any times for me in the past but we never had so much as a pluck on baits or lures. Neil's good company and at least when the fog cleared he got to see some of the stunning scenery that the lake has to offer but I couldn't hide my disappointment that we failed to get a fish. I'll have to take him out again when things improve.

I got down to the river for a few days this week and had mixed fortunes there as well. I try to fish somewhere new every time I go and so I bought a day ticket for a stretch which I'd not visited before and resolved to spend the entire first day on it. The track down to the river was pretty bad but the 4x4 made it ok and I was pleased with what I saw when I got there. This stretch was a good mix of fast and slow water with plenty of places for the pike to hide away and some pretty obvious swims and I was delighted when I took a nine pounder on just the third cast of the day.

I was using some of the new 9" Fox Replicants again but now I've chopped the back hook off them after my incident with the twelve pounder where the hook came out through its eye. I've caught plenty of pike on lures with just a belly hook so I wasn't at all worried about hooking the fish but just two casts later I had a hit right by the bank and failed to hook the fish. It was a mid-double, maybe fifteen pounds or so and it had appeared to have taken the lure well into its mouth but when I pulled into it, the lure came out again.

A short while later I had a similar experience when another fish of around the same size struck close to the bank. Once again I pulled hard and again saw the lure fly free. As if that wasn't bad enough it happened a third time but this time it was a much bigger pike, well over twenty pounds. I had this one on for a few seconds, just enough time for it to give two big lazy rolls before the line fell slack and my fish was gone. I couldn't understand what was happening. I blamed the lure, it must be just a bad hooker, I unclipped it and slung it in the box vowing never to use it again but the replacement lure didn't get taken by anything else all day and I ended up with just the one pike.

Next day I fished more familiar territory but the river had fallen a little overnight and the colour had dropped out of it. This had killed the fishing and the most I could manage in a full morning was a jack. I broke off for a bit of dinner and a cup of tea and decided to fish another stretch many miles downstream where I figured there might be a tinge of colour in the river. I was soon at the waterside and was pleased to see that I was correct, there was a little bit of colour here and I set to lashing the water to a foam. The lure I chose was an old style Euroreplicant with a size 3/0 treble attached to the belly and no back hook once again. I've caught a lot of pike on this particular lure including some big ones so i was well confident in using it.

After six or seven swims I hadn't had a fish but then I settled in a very awkward, steep swim with a slack behind a little bush. I dropped the lure in and drew it slowly back towards me. As it reached the surface, a big pike shot up from the depths, engulfed the lure and came right out of the water in the process. I struck but incredibly the lure once again flew out of the fishes mouth and struck me in the face. The pike, which was easily 20lbs plus, shot off across the surface. I cursed and cursed. I checked the hook, it was ok but I sharpened it up anyway. I soon calmed down, settled down in the swim again and cast the lure once more. It wobbled its way back to the bank but just before it reached it an upper double figure fish emerged and gulped it in. I struck again and AGAIN failed to hook the fish WHAT WAS HAPPENING?

I dropped lure back into the swim and it was taken on the drop! I pulled into the fish, got a couple of kicks out of it and the line fell slack. I could never remember such a run of lost fish, I was absolutely devastated at it all and I just sat down and buried my head in my hands. That was when the answer hit me. This awkward swim was forcing me to fish from a high bank. The other stretch had been all high banks. I was just pulling the lure out of the fishes mouths because the lure didn't have a back hook!

I changed to a Savage gear Rattle Shad, flicked it out and immediately caught a jack, and then another jack. How many fish were in this nonedescript swim was anybody's guess but they seemed to be stacked up like breeze blocks. I dropped the lure in again and an eight pounder took it. Well these weren't big fish like the ones I'd been losing but at least they were getting hooked properly. Next cast I hooked yet another pike and this one was a little better at 17lbs 8oz. A nearby angler took the picture and he commented that I had some blood on my face, doubtless from when the lure hit me earlier.

That was it, no more fish came my way from the swim and I had no takes from any other swim either. I decided to stay over and fish the bush swim again at first light but the night was cold, very cold and in the morning there was nothing there to take my lure. I fished hard all morning for just one jack and then broke off for a bite to eat and a brew. It was twelve o'clock and I was running out of options. I packed all the gear away and decided to fish another short little stretch before heading for home.

There are just four fishable swims on this stretch, the water is very pacy and any fish that were there had to be hugging the bank out of the main flow. The first swim I fished was very turbulent indeed and I knew there was just one spot to place a lure, a tiny pool of still water no more than six feet across. I flicked out the lure, turned the reel handle twice and the rod was bucking in my hand. The fish was thickset and muscular and weighed 16lb 7oz. No more fish in that swim so on to the next. here I immediately had a low double which fought like a tiger. Swim three didn't produce but I had a single figure fish follow the lure again and again. I finally had just one cast in swim four and picked up a jack, the last pike of my trip.

Here's to the next time, whenever that may be.

Bad Karma

We've had a bit of snow here and there in the past week, nothing really serious but it's been enough to hamper my travelling and force a change of direction in my fishing. I got the boat out on the big lake for the first time in nine months - a bit of a "shake down" trip as Denis calls them, a chance to iron out all those little niggles and assemble a different set of tackle. One big niggle was the old lighting board trouble. There's a gap in the market for a quality lighting board for boat owners that doesn't let you down every single year as mine have always done. I coupled up the boat and once again, not a single light worked and it was another hour or two before I could get under way after buying new bulbs, checking out connections and cleaning terminals.

First day out was reasonably fruitful in that I picked up five pike, albeit smallish ones, with two on deadbaits and three on lures. I had decided to concentrate on just one type of lure in order to give it a good trial - the new 9" Fox replicant. I've bought two of these, I used the "roach" pattern last week and took fish to just short of 19lbs and this week I wanted to catch on my other one, the perch pattern. Now apart from changing the tebles and split rings on these lures, something I always do, I had made another change to the roach pattern in cutting off the back hook. I had done this because I was using it on the river and chopping the back hook makes a lure less prone to snagging. On the lake however, there are virtually no snags and so I left the back hook on - something that turned out to be a mistake.

I picked up a couple of fish on the lure but found them a little difficult to unhook because the back hook on the lure is both very large and stands unusually proud of the body of the lure. It's rigged in such a way that the hook shank is close to the top of the lure body and so almost the entire bend is showing. This hook is at least a size 10/0, maybe larger and is much larger than the back hooks that were fitted to the original replicants.

The third fish I caught on the lure was a pike of around twelve pounds and I was horrified to see that the back hook on the lure had pierced the roof of the fishes mouth and come out through its eye. The pike will probably survive ok with just one eye, although its feeding will be hampered and it will probably not now grow as big as it might have but we really don't want to be in a position where we are disabling our quarry.

The action and the size of the lure is good, the quality of the plastic is spot on and it casts well so I will be using the new replicant some more but I will be cutting off that back hook from all the ones I buy from now on. I've put up a picture for you to see. The top lure in the pic is the one that caused the damage and underneath it you can see one of the original reps with a much smaller back hook. At the bottom the trio is made up with my other new rep, with its back hook snipped off.

I stayed for two more days but I'm afraid bad pike Karma struck after my incident with the lure and I caught nothing else. I did have a huge floating platform come past me though with a digger on it - well it was something to watch on a blank day.

A Slow Start to 2013

The rivers finally dropped and Denis and I bided our time until we thought the level and clarity would be just right for our lure fishing approach. We opten to arrive at the water's edge during a match so that we could weigh up where the prey fish were shoaled up in the expectation that there would be a few pike hanging off the shoals. It didn't quite work out like that though, many of the matchmen were having a lean time of it and weights were poor. In fact it was noticeable that it was the better anglers who were getting the best weights - exactly how it should be I suppose but it didn't help us much.

After the match we dropped into a couple of swims where the matchmen had told us they were having pike trouble, with roach and chub being snatched off their lines. This can always be a hit-and-miss strategy since when the match is over there are several thousand disorientated roach chub and dace all being released back into the water - easy prey for any pike that are hanging around. I didn't catch in this last hour or so but Denis had a fish just short of fifteen pounds which took a perch-pattern replicant.

Next day we fished the match length but it was hard going. I picked up an 18lb 13oz pike very early in the day, almost before it was light but apart from a few bumps and follows on the lures that was all the action I had. The fish was caught on one of the new 9" Fox Replicants which I was trying for the first time. They are very different to the old type replicants, heavier and with a much more pronounced tail action I found it a little difficult to keep them down near the bottom where I wanted them.

We fished hard all day for little reward but Denis did find a pod of fish late in the day and made hay with seven in all, six of them over ten pounds. He took the biggest one after dark on a deadbait and he reckons it was eighteen pounds or so but never got to find out because after unhooking he slipped on the muddy bank and dropped the fish back in, unweighed.

Next day we split up and fished some different stretches of river. Nothing happened for either of us except that I had a fish follow my lures six or seven times without taking. I sat on it with a deadbait for a full hour but it wouldn't take that either and in the end we both met up again and finished the day on the match length. First cast here I hooked a bike. Not, not a pike, a bike, and although my line was strong enough to pull it to the side I couldn't lift it up the bank and the line snapped. Next cast the lure (an old-style euroreplicant) was seized by a nice pike which went 17lb 14oz. Then I had a follow off a much bigger fish which would probably have gone 25lbs plus. It followed twice but then wouldn't come back for more despite using all the usual tricks like a change of lure, different retrieve rate and so on.

We fished a different stretch again the next day but again it was frustrating. I picked up a jack early on and then had a jack hit the lure but not get hooked. Then I played cat and mouse with another small pike for some time, raising it seven times in all during which it missed the lure twice, bumped it several more and then finally got pricked after which it didn't return. My last cast of the morning resulted in a better fish which weighed 18lbs 5oz but was long and lean.doubtless due to lying up without feeding while it waited for the flood to abate.

We went home after that, puzzled as to why things had not gone well. The fish were being cagey and it was as if they were hook-shy but on three of the stretches we fished, they have hardly been fished for with lures at all. Oddly, the float anglers were reporting that the pike were not snatching their fish off the line but just coming up to look at them. I'll never work these pike things out!

2012, The Year in Review

Well I'm still sitting tight while the last of the rain and wind crosses the country, it's due to abate quite soon so I'll be out fishing later this week unless this cold I have gets any worse. Time though to look back at the year and see how we got on. All in all it was a very satisfying year with new waters fished, plenty of big fish caught and a few really good catches.

First Quarter
The period from January to the end of March produced some really good fishing for both Denis and I with a total of fourteen twenty pounders between us along with a large number of double figure fish. Quite apart from the numbers of fish, they were of a really good size with a 25, a 26, two 27s and a 28 pounder featuring in our catches. There were some big catches too, with several 100lb+ bags of fish and regular multiple catches. Maybe the most remarkable catch was taken on a day when I continually dropped into swims that Denis had just vacated and pulled out a pike. Poor Denis was getting more and more frustrated as I pulled out a nine, a nineteen, a twenty three, a twenty six and a twenty seven, which had a two-tone head, while he remained fishless. He made up for it all on the last cast of the day though with a twenty seven of his own.

The pike all came from two venues, one of which I had never had a twenty from before, and came on a mixture of baits and lures, although lures accounted for the majority of fish with soft plastics in particular doing the business.

Second Quarter
This was entirely devoted to tench fishing and we decided to start our tench campaign early, kicking it off in April. This was a mistake, largely because we had one of the wettest, coldest Springs for many years. We went through the usual routine of early morning starts day after day but it was really hard work with few bites and fish that were smaller than we had hoped. The fishing improved as the year rolled on and the temperatures rose but no double figure tench came our way and indeed I only had one fish over nine pounds with Denis taking none. I did have one excellent catch of tench, fifteen of them in all with four over eight pounds on a day when they fed well but that was a real exception.

Inevitably some bream turned up during our tench campaign including some doubles, though none of them were huge. Denis had the biggest one at 12lbs 9oz, a pb for him.

There were some really good things that happened during the tench campaign mind. I was delighted to catch some tench from a completely different area of the lake - I'll be fishing there a lot more next year. Time too to look at new baits and different methods I think. Lobworms will feature much more in my tench fishing in 2013.

Third Quarter


I hardly fished at all from July through to September. A long trip to America to visit Sarah, my eldest daughter along with all the preperation for the trip meant there was little time left to wet a line. I didn't miss the fishing, July and August are rubbish for fishing - at least they are for the kind of fishing I do.

I started piking early this year. The summer had been a cold wet one and water temperatures weren't high so I targeted a trout water and a river. The trout water was a real disappointment with few decent fish getting caught by anyone - I'll have to put that one down to experience. The river turned up a few fish but as per the rest of the year, heavy rain and high levels had a major impact.

Fourth Quarter
This period started well and I picked up four 20lb+ pike with the biggest going 24lb 8oz along with plenty of double figure fish. Denis and I have tried quite a few new places to fish and some of them turned up the goods with some nice pike, mostly on lures although the biggest came to a herring.

Denis had our final twenty pounder of 2012 with this fine 22lb 3oz fish which took a perch pattern replicant, I don't know what he'll do when he loses that lure!

Late November the rains started and it seems they haven't stopped now for over a month. The rivers have been out of order and I've not been tempted to get the boat out and do some Lakes fishing due to the wind and the things I've needed done in the house.

That's all due to come to an end it seems in a few days and I'm like a coiled spring ready to hit those banks

Happy New Year everyone, let's hope the fishing's as good in 2013.