Box ticked.

Two days off work, one is pretty much written off by a horrendous weather forecast which leaves today and I’m busy this afternoon.  I’ve set myself a target to catch a Pike from my local river and with a couple of spare hours in the morning it seemed an ideal opportunity to walk the river with a lure rod and try to tick the box.  The rod I chose was a light one that had been wasting away in the shed without a tip ring for a couple of years.  I’ve had the replacement ready to glue on for quite a while and had only recently got round to fixing it.  My destination was the old millpond where I’d caught my first ever Pike in 1979, a stretch I ‘ve hardly fished at all in the last quarter of a century.

I arrived in bright sunshine and mild conditions, the river looked idyllic and with the recent deluges it actually had a decent flow and a tinge of colour.  There was an old man float fishing in the pool, his beard reminded me that I hadn’t listened to Seasick Steve for a while.  I was loathe to disturb him but stopped and asked how he was getting on out of politeness.  Ten minutes later he was still talking and had hardly paused for breath; it seemed he didn’t see me as too much of a disturbance.  I eventually extracted myself and made my way a little further downstream where I tackled up with a 5” Shad and began to cast.  The river looked good and it didn’t seem too different from when I fished this stretch regularly as a kid but come summer I expect the reeds and undergrowth will have made it virtually unapproachable.  The far bank has changed though, thankfully there is enough vegetation to hide the houses that have been built.

I slowly made my way downstream running the shad through the deeper gullies and catching nothing but strands of weed.  All too soon I’d reached the railway bridge which is the limit to where I can fish these days.  I was still without my Pike and thinking the old man was sitting in the spot where I’d have the best chance.  I was alerted by a disturbance back upstream, the Mallards had scattered and there was some kind of bird repeatedly swooping and skimming the river surface.  When my eyes adjusted I realised it was a Sparrowhawk trying to catch a Kingfisher which was flying back and forth in panic.  After a few seconds the Kingfisher escaped and the hawk flew grumpily away.

Back to the fishing.  The swims by the bridge are a little deeper and were often a good bet for a Pike when I was younger but I was running out of options.  Then a cast flicked downstream suddenly went solid and yes I’d hooked a Pike.  The fish was small (but I hadn’t expected anything else) and was soon thrashing around on the surface, waiting for me to scoop it out with the net which looked massive in comparison.  I’d done it, a Pike from my local river.  One that would be eaten in a second by the fish I usually target but one that made me very happy nonetheless.  With that I swapped lures to a fat little crankbait and made my way back upstream.  Great tits chirped in the far bank trees, nothing else interrupted my lure and I was soon back at the pool.

I couldn’t avoid being trapped in another conversation with the old man and as the words flowed it became apparent that much of the fishing talk was fictional.  I may not fish this area much these days but I know there aren’t twenty five pound Pike or five pound Perch present, which is a shame.  It also gives me good reason to doubt the big Roach and Chub he’d told me about earlier.  Still he was a pleasant enough fella and said he didn’t mind me flicking my lure across the pool a couple of times.  This I did but with no result, shame, a huge river Pike would have gone down a treat!

In the end I spent a little less than an hour by the river but came away with a sense of accomplishment and a desire to return to other old haunts.  In the summer I have Gudgeon to catch but if I get the chance before the season ends another little Pike would be nice.