Abit of a mixture

Through the week i got a phone call from Paul River Piker asking if i wanted to fish one of his spots that produces big fish. I had planned to go out straight from work, so thought id go fish a few spots then go over to meet Paul.

I started off on a small dyke chucking frogs for jack pike, Ive been really enjoying this recently and despite there not being much chance of a decent fish, the hits from the jacks are fun alone. Its like Large mouth bass fishing in the states, the jacks are so lively and hit the frogs hard then continue to jump and tail walk. I just love the noise they make when they hit the frogs its very audible as well as visual. I had about 5-6 altogether before time started to tick on and it was time to put plan B into effect.

 

I had my ultralight rod strapped to the side of my bag for when i reached a canal spot, so i switched over from my frogging outfit and had a go for some perch. The action was pretty steady and i was picking up plenty of small perch. I was running out of time so i didn't walk too far and just enjoyed the change in method.

At one point I was bringing in a 3oz perch when a big perch came rushing in after it and snapped it in, half of the perch was in the bigger perches mouth! It must have been around the 3lb mark, it let go of the perch straight away. I started to try and flick the small perch off the hook by letting the line go slack but it wouldn't come off, typical! then the big perch kept looking as if it was going to swim away only for it to turn and shoot at speed at the smaller perch, this time though it just kept whacking the kopyto in the smaller perch's mouth trying the steal it. I had to try and get the small perch out quickly and get the kopyto back in the water but as doing so the big perch swam away! brilliant to watch though and Ive never had a perch take another perch before.

 

In the evening I went over to fish with Paul, I went trying not to think too much about big pike but knowing the kind of fish Paul regularly pulls out it was hard not to. After a few follows and change of lures I got a take on a rainbow savage gear 4play. The fight started off very strange as the fish must have been swimming right towards me and i was having to reel to catch up with it so it felt really small. Then all of a sudden it got heavier so at first i wondered what i had on, not too long after it surfaced and it was neither a biggie or a tiny pike but a modest jack, a nice coloured pike though. I wasn't too bothered that it wasn't a big fish as I'm always happy to catch and not go home on a blank.

we carried on fishing the area and Paul gave me the guided tour, explaining where he had caught his big fish from and letting me know where all the snags were. a few times i snagged up as the river was very low and momentarily i clenched my ass cheeks thinking i was in!

 

Nothing more came of the session and it was clear that they were not really on it so we cut our losses and headed home. Thanks for the tour Paul...