My start to the river season.

All through the closed season, I like many was waiting, and waiting and waiting for June 16th. At times it seemed like it was years away but finally we're all back, it's great to be back.

Savage Gear lip lure

Luckily for me I have been on the dreaded afternoon shift but I don't always mind it too much as it allows me to get out on the bank most mornings and come the 16th I was up and about early doors. I'd got a few things to attend to mid morning so I could just get in a few hours of fishing and enjoy myself. Last year I bagged a twenty in no time and the year before I did ten fish in less than an hour or something so this year I was expecting to come back down to earth with a bang, as far as opening days go. Going with that mentality put me in the right frame of mind for a bad session, and just to go and enjoy being back on the water. Once I'm there, stood by the river there's really no rush, no urgency and no waiting any more and I actually just enjoy it. On that first morning it feels as though I have all the time in the world to do whatever I want and there's no rush or no need to catch. A fish would be nice though.

It wasn't to be a spectacular session fish numbers or size wise. I had a few half hearted follows to the point where you were tapping the pike on the nose with the lure and it wouldn't take. I knew it was going to be one of those days after that. I ended up missing two fish but landing three. A happy return, if not as spectacular as previous seasons, but I'm well happy to be back.
 
After that first session I was in a totally chilled out mood. There was no rush to catch a monster or have an epic session and so no major plans were made for the following day. I just decided to get up and go fishing and see what happened. I then spotted a photo on Facebook where Nathan Edgell had caught on his surface frog. Now I normally use those on still waters simply because there's usually weed and the waters tend to be of a good depth and clarity but I decided to have a crack on the river. So far this year for a few months at least there's been no massive floods and so the weed has had time to spring up in a few spots. Somewhere to aim for and to expect a pike or two laying up. So that was the plan, have a chuck and see what happens and I wasn't to be disappointed at all. After ten minutes I was shaking like a shitting dog. I'd had four surface hits and managed to not hook one of them properly. They were on and then off and crashed about in spectacular fashion.

I did hook one properly, had it on, played it right to the net. As it was just coming over the net, the pike thrashed it's head and the frog shot out. Oh so close! But with this kind of fun there wasn't even any need to land a fish, I honestly didn't care. If you've never done it before, get some heavy braid, a strong rod and a couple of frogs and just go out. Cast out, wind in and try your best not to strike at everything you see, just react to the rod being pulled out of your hand, that's the time to set the hooks. Get yourself over to Lure Lounge and grab a couple of Koppers Live Target frogs as now is the time for surface fun.

After the mayhem, it went quiet on the surface so I had a bit of time left, switched to the usual and bagged two pike, one on a Burt and one on a SG low rider. Two fish in the bag, loads of spectacular fun on the frogs and another great morning.

Squirrelly Burt

Koppers Live target frog

So I'd now got a bit of a frog bug. The adrenaline kicks in, you get the shakes and the visual spectacular show is out of this world. I had to go back and have another go just to get my fix and that's exactly what happened. Wednesday morning I was back with the frog for an hour and again I was in for a treat. Surface to air missiles were being launched from a submarine in my peg. Ha ha, you have done some frogging haven't you? Hooking up with these hits isn't the easiest, I expected to lose far more than I bagged but I was now due a fish to the bag and finally it happened. Success on the river with my Koppers Live Target frog. I even managed it again the next day landing another pike, a two toned fish I know I've caught before so that was pleasing to see again.

Koppers Live target frog

All in all a good first few days of fun on the river and I'm glad to be back. There's going to be more like this, more options and it's just going to get better and better, I can feel it in my water!

Savage Gear lip lure

Repeat captures

It's a well known fact in fishing that when specimen hunting you can often catch the same fish time and time again. They're often  named and their weights catalogued by fanatical fans. Some fish even become nationally famous and make it to the newspapers as well as every fishing magazine. Pike in particular have been known to be caught again by the same person in the same day. Do they have a memory like a goldfish, are they just ferocious eaters or maybe they're just the Chuck Norris of the fish world and a treble hook or two doesn't bother them one bit?

I've been fishing one particular area of river just below a weir with great success over the last six or seven months, but I've just been happily fishing away and not taking note of which fish I catch. Sometimes you can't help but take note, such as when you catch a fish with an upturned lip or one I caught which had a huge growth on it's side. I've not yet caught these fish again because I would have recognised them straight away. A few days ago though I caught a 17lb pike and today it got me wondering if it was one I'd caught before. I quickly checked the photo and couldn't see anything too distinguishing other than laboriously checking individual spots on the fish and comparing them to my other photos. The only problem being that of all the fish I've caught i've not bothered to take a photo of each one and the ones I have I might have photographed only one side of the fish and then on another fish I've photographed the other side. So not too easy to trawl through my photos and spot recaptures. Many of the fish I have photographed have been  in excellent condition with perfect fins, mouths and the rest. It seemed as though it would be a waste of time even attempting to catalogue the fish and spot recaptures. The thought crossed my mind that possibly from now on, since I seem to fish the same spot, maybe I should quickly take a photo of both flanks of the fish I catch so that it would help me in the future identify and give each a cuddly name.

I've caught stacks of fish around the 5-8lb mark from my swims but not bothered taking pictures of the majority. I've not done bad for low doubles either but most of these remained free from the fishing paparazzi. However of the three largest fish I've had from this river I do have at least a few decent photos of them. I quickly looked back to last year and found the 17lb pike our Jack caught and the 19lb pike I caught. They were not the same fish as the one I caught a few days ago but looking closer I noticed that the 17lb pike my lad caught had a notch out of her tail fin. Perfect, that's something I could look out for in the future that would distinguish it from the rest. So I next flicked to the 19lb fish to see if there was anything on this fish to help identify it. To my amazement It was the same fish as Jack had caught. There it was, a little noggin' missing from it's tail and slight deformity. I shouted Jack to come see and we continued to check the photos more closely. We also noted that some of it's more distinctive spots near it's gill were also the same on each fish. We'd definitely both caught the same fish.

Of course this fish was bigger the second time when I caught it. So next task was to try and find out the dates of capture. Most digital cameras these days store all the details in the picture file, so even if you haven't made a note you can easily find out the exact date and time the photo was taken. By simply hovering over the image on your computer all the details will pop up in a little floating box. When Jack caught her it was on the 8th August 2011 and when I caught her 30 yards up stream it was the 2nd October 2011. A full two pound weight gain in just short of two months. That's pretty impressive to me and shows there's a good stock of food for the fish because I also know there's a lot of pike in the area too, plus of course the herons, cormorants grebes and kingfisher. The thought running through my mind now is that if she's continued to increase in size at even half that pace she's past the twenty pound barrier by now. I also now know there's another fish that this time next year could well be past that barrier too. From now on I'll be keeping an eye out on the fish I catch a little more carefully. I'm not sure if I'll be cataloguing every fish or not but at least when I catch a double I'll try and take some photos to help see how the fish grow should I catch them again.

2012 pike tally

Total 9

Largest 17lb