In this weeks blog update the fishing see's us travelling to two rivers in one day in search of silvers and what an adventure it was, a proper road trip. The introduction includes a bit about piking in the form of how i am going to blog my pike trips this year and also a little on my thoughts on pike etiquette and how i see the unwritten rules being openly flaunted. We finish the introduction with my dad going the extra mile for his son piking in the bitter cold. I hope you enjoy the update so go put the kettle on make a brew and enjoy the update.
My Pike Blog....
I was thinking a lot this year about how to go about blogging my pike fishing and i mulled over a few ideas. Pike fishing is a lot more relaxed than my river fishing and as such you can go into detail about rigs and different set ups for each location you are on. The spare time waiting for a bite does also open up the opportunity for some video blogging which is also something i have looked at and hopefully will be able to do this year and include them in how i am going to blog my piking.
I have decided to move the piking onto its separate page within the blog and it will sit at the top bar of the page under 2015/16 Pike Season. This allows me to write a smaller recap blog of each trip and hopefully document the whole season as it happens. There are a number of potential stumbling blocks with this idea though and it might end up with some duplication on this blog and that one. Potential problems could be if the rivers flood and i go out solely pike fishing that weekend away from the river then i would have no content for the main blog. The other stumbling block could also be the sheer amount of writing on one page as you can not split the page down into bits it is one continuous living document with the most recent trip added to the bottom.
It does though allow me to divide my different fishing up and allows people visiting the blog to go to the area that most interests them. With no tabs or labels its going to have to be promoted by myself for it to be noticed as i don't think it will show on google searches like my other updates do. Either way i hope you enjoy the diversity i am trying to put into the blog and enjoy reading about my adventures on the bank in search of pike, of course the ups and the downs will be featured.
The first few trips are live here: http://satonmyperch.blogspot.co.uk/p/201516-pike-seaon.html
The First Rule of Pike Club
As mentioned above i have toyed with the idea of putting together a few video blogs and putting them on here or Youtube but the number on thing that has stopped me has been the fact it would be nearly impossible to put together a decent video blog without compromising the locations i fish. I have had many comments over the years that i should name the venues i fish and i don't for the safety of the pike and of course the fact that with piking there is a huge amount of hours put in learning good spots and tactics that work and i think recently some people are forgetting that we should not be naming locations where pike are caught.
I read only this week about a club member who had gone out fishing caught a few pike yet the report mentioned the exact location he had fished to catch them, why? the number one rule of pike club is you don't talk about the locations you fish publicly. By all means report a member had a fish on such a location but then do not go on to mention the exact place. This does no favours for the pike safely from people looking for areas to target pike for the pot and also is disrespectful to the anglers who put huge amount of time in and in fact goes to show how far these people are detached from real angling, wrong so wrong.
Love my Dad...
So I'm away fishing recently and sat there on the bank i was travelling light hoping to cover as much water as possible. A quick look to my right and threes a guy huddled up sipping coffee while the guy to my left looked to be breaking out some refreshing soup! The wind howling in my face and not even a chair to sit on i had no choice but to make the call, the call for supplies. My dad answered and asked where i was, a despondent sigh at my out of the way location was received. He said he would put me a flask together and run it through for me, what a star.,
Well 40 minutes later on the horizon i saw my shining night, carrier bag in hand. He then began pulling from the bag all manner of tin foil parcels! Got to say he went the extra mile for me, two rounds of door stop toast and 3 choccy biscuits i was one happy camper! Washed down with a nice warm brew and even had a pike to grace the moment. Fantastic stuff, the best dad in the world.
On to this weeks update
A tale of two Rivers.....
Autumn and its a time of year we always associate with pike but it is also a time where my trotting senses start getting into the mind set for Roach. This time of the year roach seem to start shoaling up, maybe they are the first silver fish to do this, maybe not, the mystery of angling is where the magic is. All we knew was there was a good head of roach in the River Dee and last year we had done well for them so we set the sat nav for the banks of the Dee and headed off into the night.
Arriving on the banks we where met with an angler, also eager to wet a line, but also it seemed eager to deter possible competition, "fishing rubbish here passed few weeks only small dace" was his line. My head was thinking he was very eager to get on the bank to chase these small dace given it was still dark. We unloaded the gear and made the 10 minute walk to the swims.
It is an area of the dee that is super deep under your feet and my memory serving me right i was at the tip of my 17ft rod last year. Pluming up this year i was finding depths of longer than my rod could manage so i was already not happy to not be fishing bottom. The swim seems to be a huge depression in the river bed as the river does shallow up further out and further down the swim it seemed. I plumbed up and found a run there i would be on bottom where i thought my hemp was hitting the deck. It took a while to get the first fish but when it came and it was a nice fat plump roach my enthusiasm went up a few notches.
My uncle slightly down stream was getting plenty of knocks but nothing solid to strike at. He then landed a Roach that was to say the least massive, easily the biggest roach i have seen. The splash at it hit his keep net confirming a sizable bar of silver. I managed to put a few more roach in the net but nothing like my uncles of the first fish i had caught early on.
The morning wore on and our swims completely died, there was not such much as a knock or even a sign of fish around and the river looked dead with no fish topping like they had earlier. It was time to make a decision as even leaving now by the time we had packed up and loaded the car and reached the river it would be getting on for midday. We decided to make a move and drop on the River Dane on the way home. Mine and my uncles roach from the morning shown below.
Travelling down the A roads we where soon on the banks of another river and to be honest it looked as low as i have ever seen her and really clear, i didn't hold out much hope arriving in the middle of the day. Setting up in the closest swim i had a snag to my left but the trot was just off rod tip around a sweeping slow bend with plenty of water and slacks that could hold fish.
I was into fish from the off with dace being the main quarry and i was amazed at the sport if i was honest i was expecting a really hard session and again goes to show how you think you know a place and them boom nature throws what you think out of the window! The fish took some messing around to keep them coming like following them right down to the extremity of the swim and changing depth to try a deeper line kept the bites coming.
Feeding also plays a huge part in it as well and i love nothing more than throwing hand fulls of maggots at a swim and getting a positive response from the fish with a bite a chuck but on this session i really trickled the bait in, literally 3 maggots every run through.
The final net was quite good considering the short amount of time we spent on the actual river
Till next time i wish you all tight lines and i hope the fish gods are good to you all.
Danny
Excellent write up, and a lovely bag of fish to show for your persistence. Really goes to show how changing tactics throughout a session really can keep the bites coming, regardless of how hard the stretch is or the conditions that you're in.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the next one!
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