11:20am, time for a fish surely!

I've never really fished through the winter before and most of my pike fishing has been in the early warmer months or around autumn, but this year I've seemed to have got the bug for pike more than everything else. I've fished for other fish about three times in total this last year and the rest has been for pike only. I've heard before how the fish fatten up through the winter, and the patch I fish seems to be proving that. I've caught various sized fish but often the "jack" seems to be around 7 or 8lb. That's the average fish with not many smaller being pulled out and a sprinkling of doubles and my best from this patch at 19lb. My lad, perfectly enough named Jack has also pulled his pb 17lb pike out from here too. Not a bad start for a lad who only got in to piking this year and only comes with me maybe one in ten outings. Beginners luck maybe but it has him hooked for life now. Many of the fish we had in late summer and through autumn were good fit fish but some were pretty slim. I'm now seeing fish which possibly may have only been 8lb back then which now have a nice bit of girth to them. Very pleasing and gives me plenty of encouragement to keep going in search of my first river twenty.

This one is Jacks 17lb pike. Still new to piking we hadn't got around to holding the fish and he didn't feel up to it so he did the camera work instead. Great fish for a ten year old though! (Caught on a SG 19cm rainbow lip lure.)

Today, as usual I had a small lure session before work. I had a few new lures to test and I got side tracked figuring out how they worked best. I stuck on a few Savage Gears in between casts but after an hours fishing I'd not had anything to any lure.  I tried a couple of swims I'd not today touched but got nowt, so checked the time and it was 11:20am and nearly time to pack up for work. Going back to my main swim I stuck on a SG loose body, ready to fish 19cm in perch pattern for it's first outing. My lad has a couple of the soft lures and I have a few small ones but this is my first cast with the 19cm version. A quick flick close in and close attention from myself and I realised you can slowly tease these lures back in, they suspend really well and a tiny jerk gets a great response from them. The action does look superb and it'll bag me many fish in the future that I am sure of, and it'll be one to stock up on time and time again. In fact If I'm correct, a Yorkshire lad caught a Yorkshire forty a week ago on the exact same lure. I launched the lure out half way across the river just short of the main flow, gave it a tiny twitch and let it sink making sure I was still in contact with the lure. Then I started the retrieve, which I decided would be a slow jerk method, and a few seconds later it's fish on. You can tell when the fish is bigger. The jacks shake their heads about, dart this way and that and the fight feels more erratic. The larger fish have plenty of fight, but when they want to stay low that's where they stay and you don't get them up from the depths so easy. I had my lads Kodak play, shock proof water proof pocket camcorder on me so quickly got it out and held it in my rod hand. It's not so easy to film like this but I managed to get some footage of the battle. The fish came up a couple of times and leapt out of the water and I even managed to get it on film instead of filming the floor like I normally do. I felt I could keep my net dry and chin this one out, gave it a quick weigh and then grabbed a couple of self take photos of the 12lb fish. It's a gorgeous fish with a bit of beef to it and will be a twenty of the future I'm sure. A decent session out before work and I'm happy with the results. I'm not a greedy fisherman and all though  my targets are that river twenty I'm in no rush to get it, it'll come eventually I know it will.