Bonanza at Blithfield

I'd been looking forward to the weekend of 23rd and 24th of February for ages. Joe and I had the weekend booked at Blithfield Reservoir so I had the opportunity to fish with my son and the chance of a big fish or two. I'm pleased to say that the water didn't disappoint - especially for Joe.

Saturday was dry if a little blustery and we started off in the north part of the lake casting jerkbaits. Joe was first into a fish with a fine 20lb 12oz pike which he took on a burt. He followed that up with several more pike including one which was just into double figures while I only had a solitary jack. Things went quiet after the morning spell and we went off down into the south part of the lake. There I had a nice fish of 21lb 4oz on a slider. We were really chuffed. It's the third time we've had a twenty apiece and amazingly on each occasion it has been in a different country.

We finished the day with seven pike in all, a respectable total and we looked forward to fishing on the sunday with a good deal of enthusiasm. "Wouldn't it be great," we thought "If we had another twenty each on day two!" Well that almost happened but it didn't quite turn out like that.

Sunday was a little less windy but a lot wetter. We decided to start this day in exactly the same way we started the other - and it was a good decision. Joe picked up another twenty at 20lbs 4oz in almost exactly the same spot where he had had his twenty a day earlier and on the same lure. This was a beautiful fish - almost buttercup yellow in colour and after a bit more casting we opted for a change of plan this time and started slow-trolling soft plastics. When I say slow I mean it. We were actually scraping the lakebed with the lures and for Joe at least, it turned out to be very effective.

To cut a long story short he caught another five pike, one of them an absolute cracker of 24lbs 4oz while I had to make do with a solitary thirteen pounder.

Joe is a boz

Halfway through the day, the wind changed suddenly from the mild, wet southwesterley we'd been enjoying to a biting northerly and with that the sport just died.

Who cares? I don't think I've ever enjoyed a weekend's fishing as much.