Super Smelt takes Big Brace

Had a good day out yesterday and caught some good pike while others on the water appeared to be struggling a little. I was left feeling a little as if I should have done better though.

It was a cold, still morning. The kind of start to the day when you know nothing will happen for a while and so it proved. In fact it was around ten o'clock before I got any action. A float disappeared and I struck into a good fish. I got this one halfway in and out of the corner of my eye spotted a second float go. I bustled the first fish into the net and picked up the second rod. The fish had had the bait for over a minute by now and I was a little concerned that it might have swallowed the bait. I needn't have worried. I wound down and struck, only for the pike to throw the hooks after a few seconds. I got the bait back, a smelt, and used it again.

The first fish was still in the bag though and on the scales it went 19lbs exactly. It had taken a smelt in 28ft of water. This fish showe dclear signs of handling damage and in particular, the skin under the jaw was split - you can even see this in the picture. Shortly after this, I had a hit on a lure - a Fox Super Twintail in Purple Haze pattern to be precise. I didn't hook it though and couldn't get it to take again.

Once the sun got high things got difficult as they often do and in an effort to try and find a fish I went deeper. This paid off in the end when I took a fish of 20lb 3oz in 45ft of water - again smelt was the bait. I used fill-in flash for the photographs as the sun was very strong by now (it was around three in the afternoon) and I'm really rather pleased with the result.

There was handling damage on this pike too - I do wish people would take more care. It was superficial though and will heal quickly.

I finished the day off with a 16lb 14oz fish which yet again took smelt. I'm not a great believer in any one bait being better than another but I have to say I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't taken those three smelt with me. Four runs on three smelt with multiple rods in use but no runs on anything else.

Surface temp at 4 in the afternoon was 7.9 degrees - still quite cold despite the hot sun.