Wednesday, 13 May 2015

Desperate times...

I haven’t had any time lately, not just for the usual reasons but also because I find myself helping out the 13th PAC committee which took over the reins a couple of weeks ago.  More about this here; http://www.pikeanglersclub.co.uk/thank-you-12pac-hello-13pac/

During the winter I got back into the habit of nipping out with a lure rod when I had a couple of spare hours and that is the only fishing I’ve managed to do lately.  I know a nice feature packed pit with lots of weed growth and clear water and I felt confident this would fit the bill for a bit of spring sport.  Either I’ve got this prediction badly wrong or more likely I’ve forgotten how to fish with lures.  Not that I’ve ever been particularly good at lure fishing but more often than not I’ve usually managed to put a lure passed a Pike that has been desperate enough to eat it.

My first trip saw me mostly using one of Dave Greenwood’s “Slither” glidebaits and I did tempt a fish into taking a couple of lazy swipes at it without hooking up.  The next time out I hooked a Jack on a spinnerbait buzzed through the lily pads and got it almost within reach before it twisted itself off.  I thought I’d cracked the method and for the next couple of trips I thrashed the lilies to the proverbial foam without moving a single Pike.  To be fair I did spend a lot of my allotted time chatting to friends on those two trips.  By now April had turned to May and I still hadn’t managed to catch a fish of any kind since 14th March.

Desperate times and all that…  Sunday morning saw me taking Isaac and one of his friends maggot drowning on a little pool that should guarantee a fish or two.  After the lads had managed a fish or two using whips I baited up a waggler rod & flung it out.  After a while the float appeared to be moving and I set the hook and wound a very small pale looking thing towards me.  As I swung the tiny fish towards my outstretched hand it looked decidedly Perch shaped but was almost transparent so maybe it was a Ruffe?  I’ll never know as it wriggled and dropped off into the water in front of me.  It would not count in a match but I felt in the circumstances I’d done enough to claim the capture and I like to think it was a Ruffe simply because I can’t remember the last time I caught one.

So with my duck broken I made another attempt fishing lures on the pit confident that I was on the start of a roll and my first Pike of the season would be a formality.  I should have known better.  True I did spend a bit of time chatting and yes I did tempt a Jack into chasing the spinnerbait and making a fool of me.  Any sensible person would give this up as a bad job and go fish somewhere else so I suppose I can’t be sensible because at times like this I’m just stubborn and find myself plotting and planning.

What I really want to be doing is attempting to catch Tench and for the next month I will hopefully be spending some time doing just that.  With my track record for catching these things and the fishing form I find myself in, what could possibly go wrong?


Meanwhile… Thankfully the situation in Norfolk seems to have calmed down with no new reports of dying fish.  The BA have finally got in the act by offering to help clear up the dead and rotting fish, wouldn’t want any holiday makers getting upset would they?  The EA netting teams have been brilliant and the guys on the ground are owed a debt by anglers.  However other people within this organisation really ought to take a long hard look at themselves.

Unfortunately there has been another fish kill in East Anglia, this time on the Suffolk Stour, more details here;

http://www.pikeanglersclub.co.uk/river-stour-fish-kill/

As I don't have any pictures that are remotely fishy here's some Charlatans instead.

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