My best days fishing by a long mile....

Earlier in the year I took a fellow lure angler John to a spot i had been fishing and done well for trout there, he ended up getting his PB river brown trout on lure. We then talked about getting together on a spot he knew of that sometimes throws up big fish, and until recently we had never got it sorted.

Through last week, John was sounding more and more confident that he was going to put me onto a nice fish, but i know in the past when you start to think about it and get excited, it never usually happens. So i tried to not think about it and just treat it as a normal outing where i would hopefully catch a fish or two.

We arrived at our first swim on the river and John sounded like he knew the place well, telling me about the depths and where I'd probably get a fish, he didn't even start fishing at first and just told me to cast into this certain spot. I think i had about 5 casts and a change from a jerkbait to a savage gear 4play got some attention when a boil came on the surface met by a solid take. Not knowing i had my drag set pretty loose, I said "don't think its anything special" then it came into view and i was completely wrong! 20lb dead and my second ever 20 on a lure within 5 casts, top guiding from John!!

We cast about the same area for abit chatting but nothing else was moving so went up river to the next swim, I was chuffed to bits with the 20 so thought I'd play around with a few different lures and clipped on one of my jerks, it was in fact the very last one that I'd kept for myself and never even fished with it.
First cast downstream and after a couple of handle turns everything went solid, the fish headed towards me and again at first it just felt average. Then it moved some water before tearing off.

 

When it came into view again, we could see it was bloody huge! looking down on a pike from above while it is flaring its gills and shaking its head in what seems like slow motion, its unbelievable how wide there heads are. John told me they had big heads on this river due to the food diet of big bream, and they certainly did have big heads. I was willing the lure not to come out and eventually it was in the net, John lifted the net and the noises he was making got me excited, then i looked into the net and could see it was quite abit bigger than my 20 and fat with it too (shakey knees time). My new PB of 24lb caught and christened on one of my foiled jerks and also caught on the rod i had just built, can fishing get any better?

 

A stunning fish in top notch condition.

I was starting to get that awful feeling when your doing well and your fishing partner isn't, its like you don't want to catch another until they've had some fortune. To be fair, John was still spending more time guiding me than fishing. next fish however fell to John, and saw him off the mark with a nice clean fish.

What happened next was the only real spoiler of the day, John got another fish on which took right under his fish after following in and John gave the lure a jerk and it took it. It bolted off and was giving a really good scrap when it must have swam under a branch, you could hear the line squeaking and see the fish right in front of us yet Johns line was pointing the opposite direction wrapped around the branch, it looked as though it was raising up in the water and i thought there might have been a chance to net it, sadly it gave one last kick and the line gave way, worst of it was it was easy another 20 and we'll never know just how big. Really a gut wrenching moment.

We stayed in the area and i missed another decent fish that took the jerk and spat it out straight away before John had another big fish, possible 20 come for his lure but not fully commit, it then sat in the margins nosing our lures but not taking before swimming off.

I cast back upstream close to the far bank and just as i start to turn the handle another fish is on... bloody hell this is crazy! In the net and weighted, 18lb i was having a brilliant day!

We thought about moving on from this area and coming back for a possible chance of getting the fish that followed and maybe even the fish that snapped John off.

So downstream we headed, the action continued for a short while with smaller pike, a couple each i think we had with John having the better one.

The action then dried up for quite abit of river despite it looking fantastic and very pikey in places, after a few hours had passed we thought it a good time to head back for the fish we had stirred earlier.

Within a few casts back at the productive area i was in yet again on my foil jerk which i had put back on after fishing downstream with a variety of different lures, I knew they liked it so clipped it back on. The fish came into view and my first thoughts were 'No, surely it can't be...' It was! another 20 and 21lb exactly. I just could not believe how well my day was going and I was really enjoying it after getting abit fed up through the week at not being able to get out as much as I'd have liked over the last month.

Love this next photo with the open mouth 

Back she goes....

 

John finished off with his best of the day that confused it when it came flying in after his lure with another following it, i don't think he realised until the first fish turned away and the second one took the lure!

We fished abit more upstream and had another mid double have a go a few times but not manage to get it.

Im still not sure its sunk in what a brilliant day ive had and its all thanks to John with his guiding and sharing his excellent river spot with me.