Stormy weather

For one reason or another the wife managed to scupper nearly all of my plans to get out on the bank this week. If it wasn't picking her up from work, it was taking the dog to the vets !! still I managed to sneak out for a bit this morning.  The weather also tried its best to spoil my plans with storms through the night and into dawn dumping their tonnes of rain into the river. It had a bit too much extra water coming down for my liking however I did visit the new spot I've been waiting to try at around 7am, but just didn't fancy struggling to fish from a bed of stingers high above the normal bank edge, the extra water now creeping well over the bank and pushing through at a rate of knots.


It's lookin a bit black over Bill's mothers !

Thank god for the local canals, at least you can usually depend on them to be fishable if the rivers ain't.  I headed to one through the last of the morning storms hoping to find the water colour suitable for lures. Luckily it was ok - well, ok for this canal. Visibility was about 2ft or so which is enough if you can get the lure within reasonable range of a pike's face, that's if its other senses haven't already detected it anyway.

The fluro orange gold lowrider was put into action first but after a number of fan casts I eventually swapped it for an orka shad tail, the change bringing an instant result with a feisty jack to save a blank on an otherwise uneventful morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a few more before the flood

Saturday morning ...



pin eye

Caught a jack on the first cast of the day right down the edge under my feet.  It had a strangely small pupil, so it'll be easy to recognise if I meet it again.

 

 

 

Second fish came in the next swim from under a tree, near bank.

 

 









Third fish from the sand bar swim again along the downstream edge, he missed first cast and practically swam into my feet, but not to be put off on the second cast he nailed it.

On the way back I checked out a new area a mile downstream that I've never cast into yet.  Only had time for a couple of exploratory casts into the large slack pool one side of the river but nothing stirred, never mind I know there will be something there. Looking for another double now maybe this will be the spot?

Seeing double ...

On a small stretch of river nearby there are a good head of pike, mostly small jacks but I have encountered some slightly bigger fish on a couple of occasions. I only ever lure fish for them here and up until now the largest fish I have landed is a mere 9lb 10oz but I know I have come close to sneaking a double out a few times.  I know full well it would not be anything significant even if I did land one but it would give me a certain sense of satisfaction to get double from one of these few swims that I regularly visit. After all we can spend our hard earned money travelling further afield to larger rivers or venues to fish for the big fish that these places hold, and I often do just that, but it's equally nice to have somewhere within a five minute drive from home that you can pop down to quickly and catch a few fish from, whatever size they are. In other words a double would be a pretty good fish from here.

Recently I bought a couple of new lures from a local tackle shop that were selling off their last few savage gear 4play jointed lowrider and lip lures. I bought the last two in 13cm a burbot brown lip lure and an orange/yellow low rider. This would give me a gaudy bright one and a more natural looking colour.  I've used the soft 4plays before and new they worked well but this would be the first of the hard lures in the range I have tried.
The first go with the orange/ yellow about a week ago produced a follow from a reasonable looking fish definitely one of the bigger pike but I couldn't get it interested again after that initial response.

Today I started on the burbot and cast it in the same spot to see if there were any fish around, several casts later I decided to swap it for the yellow as the light was starting to drop a little and the water although quite clear was darkening with the start of the evenings shadows. I soon decided to move up to the next spot at the head of the run where there is less streamer weed and a cast across the river can be drawn back unhindered. As the lure reached the middle I slowed the retrieve slightly to adjust to a more twitching action. Before I had time to continue a fish swept up and t-boned the lure across its flank. After a rather short but spirited fight I bundled the fish into the net before I knew where it was. And so with that it was done, finally I had bagged my double from the river at 10lb 15 oz and a new lure caught PB.