Glorious start to the new campaign

I've been told my old nickname of Golden balls is now to be changed to Platinum balls.

I was up at 4am, on the bank for 4:15am and by 4:30am I'd shifted a mass of thistles and nettles from my peg. Now to throw a few lures and see what's about. I was expecting a mass of hungry jacks throwing themselves at the lure, as was the case this time last season. Twenty minutes went by and nothing.



I edged upstream, teasing the lure through a few more areas that normally produce, but again nothing was even showing. Thoughts of a bad start jump in and then back out of my head and I tell myself it's still early yet and turn my focus back on to working the lure.

I'm down to one final swim that I figured I wouldn't have hit for at least an hour or more but after forty minutes I'm already there. It's shallow and snaggy here so I keep the lure, my 19cm SG rainbow lip lure, up high in the water. The water is slightly coloured after a bit of rain yesterday. Out of the darkness comes a head. It seemed like slow motion though before I know it I've connected and the battle has started.

My first thoughts are to avoid the known snags so all I'm doing is keeping her head up so she can't get her nose down into anything nasty. Once past the snags I then take a look at the fish and  congratulate myself on a great start to the season with a good double. But then as she comes closer I have to ditch that and instead I'm telling myself it's a twenty, I know it's a twenty.

A spawned out twenty one pound pike. A cracking fish still though and I'm left with a spring in my step and a massive smile. It's great to be back on the river and even better to drop on a fish like this. Over the next hour I manage to miss three jacks, one possibly a low double. I move off to another stretch of river where nothing shows. Plans to tackle more water are met with cars that look like they belong to anglers and since I'm now struggling with lethargy from my recent bit of man flu I decide to call it a day. Maybe I'll get out later this evening if I find some energy but I'm not wasting what little I have to get to a river bank that is already full of anglers. I'll leave them to it, good luck.

Sending her back