It's Goodbye to All That

I've managed three trips to the Big Lake since my last report but no pictures of fish to show you. It isn't that I haven't caught any you understand, I just didn't bother with any photographs. If I'd been with someone else I would have had a few quick snaps but it takes so long to set the camera up for self-takes when I'm in the boat. Anyway, I thought, there'll be a big fish along any minute and I'll take a picture of that. It didn't work out though.

During the last three weeks I've seen the water temperature rocket from 3.9 degrees to 5.7 degrees and finally a balmy 8.2 degrees and it's brought change with it. The biggest change is the dreaded spring bloom. In April, as the sun gets higher in the sky so it triggers an algal bloom. I expect this year's bloom to be a bad one since we had proper turnover this winter, releasing all those locked-away nutrients to feed the algae. So now the water is green and visibility has dropped considerably.

What's more, the last fish I caught, a twelve pounder, was completely spawned out. They don't all spawn at the same time these pike so there will be others there that are still weighing heavy but they won't be far behind now.

So that's it for this season. I'll still do a bit of piking on one or two cold, nutrient poor waters but it's definitely time to wind it down now.

What did I catch in those last three trips? Three jacks and four doubles up to 17lbs 10oz. Not bad really I suppose.

I did have a couple of amusing incidents on the last day. My only take on a lure ended in frustration when the replicant came back minus its tail. The tail of the one that got away eh!

Oh, and I bumped into a very experienced piker who had obviously forgotten the first rule of boat fishing. When launching your boat, remember to keep hold of the rope!