Secret Squirrel

It's 17th January today, but you won't get to read this for a while yet. I had a good day yesterday you see, the change in the weather has brought the pike out to play and I was fortunate enough to be there to get some of them. I had five pike in all, an 11 pounder, a 13 pounder, a 16.05, a 16.07 and a nice 19lb 10oz fish. All were very fat and fit and interestingly all gave terrific screaming runs. Pike that run off with the bait in that fashion are usually in the company of other pike - that's why they run, they don't want anyone else snaffling their prize.


I missed out a bit though. Four of the fish, and a missed run, were all in the same swim. I fished there for a while and decided to move on, try a couple more spots and then go back to the same place later in the day. I caught nothing in the other spots but when I returned to the hot swim there was someone in it! Pretty unlucky since there were only two other boats out and it's a very big lake. Binocular syndrome methinks!

That's the reason for the secret squirrel. I know the pike are feeding but you don't yet and until the word gets out I'm not going to tell you. With luck I'll get a few more fish and squeeze a couple of reports into this one. Surface temperature was 5.5 degrees

One Week Later
Well its been a cold wet week and the lake's a different place just now. The surface temperature has fallen to 5.3 degrees and the level has risen considerably - by over two feet!

I was able to get there for two days this week, staying overnight in torrential rain followed by snow! The promised high winds didn't materialise however and in fact it was quite pleasant out on the lake. Day one went ok with four fish in the boat, the biggest going a little over sixteen pounds. Interestingly they all came from different swims and from widely varying depths, 25-50ft. The fish that came up from deepest water was bubbling and gurgling away on the surface just before I netted it - obviously venting air from its swimbladder through the pneumatic duct that pike have.

Day two was much more difficult with only a solitary twelve pounder to show for my efforts. I had another bait (half a bluey) grabbed by a pike just as I attempted to reel it in but I didn't hook the fish and it wouldn't be tempted by another bait.

Might get one more session in before the end of the month if the weather holds out.

Up For a Fall
A week later and I now know that I set myself up for a fall with this secret squirrell nonsense. We blanked! The cold weather and copious quantities of snow water seem to have put the fish right off the feed and despite fishing lots of good quality swims neither Joe nor I could attract a bite.

Question is, is this really an opportunity in disguise? If the fish aren't on their usual marks then they are obviously somewhere else and it just might be that they are in a big concentration somewhere. I won't get back to the lake for a while now but the snow and very cold weather are due to continue so I can't see much improving anyway.

Maybe a change of direction is called for!