Long Time No See

Ok ok, I admit it, I've been pretty lazy lately and haven't updated the blog. It isn't that nothing's been happening and I haven't been run over by a bus , I've just been lazy. My pike season had something of a delayed start this year due to the fact that I was selected to be part of the England Lure Squad. This was the first time England had entered a team for this event and it was to be fished on the Erne system in Northern Ireland. I guess I could go on at length about the event but the cold statistic is that we came 12th out of 14 teams, not a great result.

For my part I found it very enjoyable. The Irish did a great job of organising things and the venue was absolutely fantastic with good slipping, a great variety of water to fish and superb accommodation. It was the first time I had ever fished a competition and I learned a huge amount. Would I do it again? You bet! The team was captained by Mike Skipper and my fellow team mates were Gary and Sam Edmonds, Matthew Netherton, Evaldas Skablauskas and Gary Palmer who partnered me in my boat for the event.

As for the English pike fishing, well Chew was a disappointment once again and I caught very little. The place is nothing more than a lottery really, you either cast your bait close to a feeding fish or you don't. Kevin managed a scraper twenty and it was the only decent fish that came to our boat but several times big fish came to boats that were close by, frustrating stuff.

I waited a long time for the rains but when they came and the river rose, that was the time to fish. The fishing was good for a couple of weeks and I managed fifteen double figure pike in that time with the best ones going 17lb 4oz, 18lb 1oz, 20lb 2oz and 24lb 15oz. All but one of the fish came to lures and the one that came to a deabait was caught at night.

It's been dry now for some weeks and with the level really low the river doesn't fish well so Denis and I have been doing a bit of exploring and fishing some new waters. One of these waters has shown its potential already with me taking some good pike up to a very nice 19lb 6oz. This is something different to what we're used to with deadbaits being a waste of time buut livebaits turning up the goods. Luckily livebaits are very easy to catch at the venue so we have no problem with bait.