I decided to fish peg 16 for no other reason than I had never fished it before and the angler below me on the same peg in the last match had only weighed about 2 1/2 lb and I wondered what I could manage.
Anyway I levelled my seat box and sat looking at the peg for a few minutes looking for any signs of fish movement as the water was very cold and clear, I could see the bottom about 5 meters out in 8ft of water.
I set up the pole first and had a plumb around the peg and found 9ft of water at 11.5m which would have to do as fishing any further out would have made presentation difficult with the wind blowing downstream. I also set up an elasticated whip at 5.5m with a 2gr rig for fishing Maggot and Caster over Groundbait.
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| Line 1 breadpunch at 11.5m and line 2 Casters at 5.5m to-hand |
I wanted to try bread punch today but getting the liquidised bread down in the flow was going to be tricky, anyway I had a quick look around and found some suitable sized stones. I planned to form balls of bread around the stones to get them to go down to the bottom as quickly as possible and it worked a treat as I watched them go down.
After a couple of golf ball sized balls of bread were cupped in I baited up with double punch and shipped out the pole and laid the rig in downstream inching it through the swim. The rig had only travelled a couple of metres down the peg before the float slid away and I was into the first fish of the day which turned out to be a 5oz Roach. Over the next half an hour I was getting plenty of bite and catching the odd 2-3 oz Roach before the inevitable Pike strike, I didn't get to see it but it was definitely a large fish but thankfully the fish come off the hook and the Pike went with it. Oh well in with another ball of bread and then first put in I had another fish so at least the fish were still there and feeding but it would only be a matter of time before it returned.
The head Bailiff Ray walked up behind me and while we were chatting I had another bite and wham as I was shipping the pole back the Pike grabbed my fish, because he was standing on the top of the bank he got a good view of the culprit and estimated it at 20lb.
I thought he was probably exaggerating a bit although I knew it was a good size and wasted the next 10 minutes playing the bloody thing before my hook length gave way.
I decided that I had better do something else as there was no way I could beat this Pike to the draw and so came on the inside at 5.5m to hand on an elasticated whip with a No 8 elastic in it.
This would at least allow me to swing fish up to 8oz to hand and hopefully avoid the pike, after a slow first 10 minutes on the whip I caught a small Roach of around an ounce on maggot.
I was feeding a small nugget of groundbait every couple of put ins and started to get into a steady rhythm with small Roach and Dace but decided to try Caster as I had been loose feeding a few every put in and I wondered if there were any better Roach there.
First run through with a Caster on the hook resulted in a 4 oz Roach and then another couple before I had a little run of 3 oz Dace, I then hooked a Roach of 6oz and just as I was about to lift it out of the water the Pike made a grab for it. Now this time I got to see the beast in the flesh as it was only 4 metres from the bank and it was a bloody monster of a fish and I had to admit that the estimate of the bailiff earlier was no exaggeration at all.
I carried on running the gauntlet for the next hour before deciding to pack up as I was getting quite cold siting in the shade and exposed to the wind.
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| A decent catch in a few hours on a very cold day |
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