Sullen September

Ok the pike season starts in October really, but I've turned to piking a couple of times this month. It's been wet, with the biggest, wettest September storm for 30 years and as happens every year now, a number of places were flooded. I had a lot to do this month, what with coaching sessions for various clubs and the all-important Pike Angler's Club convention so I didn't really have a free hand at the fishing but I've experimented with a newish venue, visited a new lake as a one-off and been back to an old haunt.

The newish venue is a stretch of river which I know holds pike, but where I've not yet caught one. I spent the day fishing lures, jerkbaits mostly, but I failed to raise a fish. The river was in good condition with reasonable clarity but they wouldn't have it on the day. I did bump into a salmon angler who assured me there was an eighteen pound fish caught from the stretch during the week before so I have another piece of evidence that the fish are there but I've still to catch one.

The new lake was an opportunist visit as I was fishing as a guest. I went across the pennines to give a slideshow to the Selby region of the Pike Angler's Club and as a treat their RO, Mark Green took me on his favourite water. It was only half a day's fishing, I couldn't cope with an early start and very late finish, and I arrived at noon to join Mark in his swim where he'd had a couple of double figure fish during the morning.

Mark moved his rods to one side, giving me room to fish alongside him and I cast out two deadbaits on leger rigs. The first rod, cast out toward a lily bed, had been out less than five minutes before I spotted the rod tip nodding as a fish picked up the smelt. A quick strike saw a long lean low double come to the net, not a bad start. That was it though, we didn't have any more fish between us although I did have a run, failing to connect on the strike.

At the end of the month the deluge hit the UK. This was bad for many people but it was something I had been waiting for because I wanted more water in the rivers. I planned a trip of a couple of days and I thought I had got the river level exactly right but there was a fly in the ointment which caused me some problems. A late burst of heavy rain, not predicted by the Met Office brought the river up again when I expected it to be going down.

This killed the fishing rather due to the extra colour and the marked drop in temperature and I only had two runs to deadbait during the three day session. The first fish came unstuck on the way in. I had seen it and extimated its weight at around ten pounds so it wasn't a great loss. The second fish made it to the net though and proved to be a fine 17lb 2oz pike, stocky and thickset, it didn't look like a September fish at all.

October tomorrow, time to get stuck in properly.