Well the late season bonanza seems to be more or less over with the fish now well into spawning fully a month earlier than usual. I only managed one day's fishing this week and it was a little slow with just a jack and a spawned out 19lb 8oz pike. I had a hit on a lure which I didn't hook and had a lure followed by a good fish to the boat but both the pike I caught took deadbaits, with the nineteen falling to half a mackerel which it took as soon as it hit the bottom. Surface temperature on the day was 6.5 degrees.

With the days getting longer and water warming up it's time to move on to other things. I'll be doing a lot more lure fishing in the coming months and indeed I took delivery of a parcel of lures from Rollie and Helen's this week. I've got to stop buying the things, I've got hundreds of them now! Then again, I did have to replace my Black Perch Squirrley Burt, it was getting a little tired. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this one was properley sealed and weighted - looks like they've beefed up their quality control at Musky Mania.