The rivers have been in really good nick over the last week, and i have to say i panicked abit on Thursday when it decided to rain, i thought my chances of getting on a river would follow in the same vain as last year, colouring up and flooding just as i was due to fish them. Luckily the rivers where still in good condition come the weekend, well at least the big rivers were.
I started off on a small local river that i have waiting to get on for some time now, it is fed from drainage off the fields so it suffers for a long time after good downpours, and last year was pretty much a downpour! I was hoping the river had cleared by now like the bigger rivers had but i got there to find it hadn't. Not to be put off and to make the most of the new year, I thought I'd try my luck before moving on. The flow was quite steady which made working lures in shallowish water quite difficult and i couldn't work the lures where i wanted them for long enough, I tried in vain but couldn't find any fish.
So I was now heading for my second spot, a much bigger river. On arrival I was pleased to see it clear and a good level so i set about chucking big lures about, knowing that there was monsters about! I fished around for over an hour with nothing to show before I phoned to arrange a meet up with Paul from River Piker. I headed back towards the car so that I was easy to find when Paul arrived, it came close to the time we had planned to meet and I'd just switched onto a savagear 4play rainbow trout liplure. I was working it slowly as it swung back into the side of the river when i was met with a solid take, I did the usual look up at the rod tip to see signs of a fish on but nothing was showing. I was basically winching in what I presumed was a log or a fertiliser sack as i was getting no feedback what so ever, when to my surprised up pops a pikes head! It gave a couple of really pathetic head shakes before i slipped the net under her. Oh yeah...that's right.... NOW you decided to wake up! It was more of a wrestle than anything as it thrashed about in the net. I'm glad the bank was high and I couldn't chin this fish as the hooks where not in the best place and I dare say if it had kicked off like it did with my hand being in close proximity to those hooks, I could have been in trouble!
A quick photo of my fish pike of the year and back she went, nothing special, just a fat lazy pig of a pike and one to remember being my first of 2013
A couple of minutes later and Paul turned up so we headed off up the river in the other direction to see what we could find. There was less features this way and not allot to give away any locations of pike or prey so it was quite hard going and probably like trying to hit a needle in a haystack so we headed back to the car area to try again there. Not long after getting back I had realised i had left my net a long way back up the river so we had to drive round to get it back! This more or less made us decide to call it a day on this bit of river so Paul headed back to one of his local spots for a last hours fishing and i headed home towards a canal for a few chucks.
I still had the 4play clipped on so set about chucking that into likely looking areas of the canal, nothing was doing here either and it was quite dimly lit now so i thought I'd switch to one of my very brightly coloured Tailbaits.
This change of lure did the trick as i got a good solid hit that didn't connect and i looked over to see a big swirl where my lure was, this was encouraging so i continued casting and working the tailbait. Not long after I got another good hit and a pike was on, despite it being a smaller fish than the river fish it certainly had more energy and fought well for its size, it took the jerkbait right in which you don't see very often with jerkbaits, especially with it not being a good sized fish.
That was pretty much the end of the action for the day, I went home feeling satisfied despite fishing for a long time and only banking two fish, at this time of year its just nice not to blank. I'm doing OK at the minute with 4 sessions in and not yet having a blank!
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