About time we had an update ......

Ive not been out a great deal since my last entry, twice to be exact, but ive still been catching a few despite the weather starting to turn a little colder. I dont know if its just me but Autumn seems to have started very abruptly. That heatwave at the start of the month kind of lured us into a false sense of security and all of a sudden now the trees are losing their leaves extremely quickly and the lakes and rivers have a distinct wintery feel to them.

On Friday 21st I had an after work trip to a club water with a proven reputation for some very large Perch . Even though ive had the ticket for nigh-on six months this was to be my first visit and i had high hopes. I found a nice looking swim with some large beds of Canadian pondweed to fish too and started plumbing the depth. It was soon apparent it was very deep for a tiny pool and i had 9feet under the rod tip. My intention was to floatfish Lobworms and see what came along, the pool holds a lot of small Carp and i was hoping they wouldnt be too troublesome.
After 10minutes i had a sail-away bite and connected to a nice fish, i was surprised when a Chub of about 2lb was netted. Another half a dozen of these followed to well over 4lb aswell as a Carp of about 3lb but the Perch were conspicuous by their absence.
A switch to maggot brought a string of Roach, Rudd and Crucians, i also had a couple of small Perch to about 8oz too. I only had a couple of hours of daylight left and i was just reeling in yet another tiny Roach when all of a sudden there was a big swirl behind it. I lowered it back in and just as it disappeared into the murk there was a heavy thump on the rod and my line started to steadily pull out towards the middle of the lake.
Obviously i didnt stand a chance on a size 18 hook which was already in the Roach but i struck and the rod hooped over savagely before springing straight leaving me with a very tattered and very dead Roach. So they wanted a bait with a bit more wriggle did they?
Within 5 minutes another roach was being lowered in, this one however was liphooked on a size 4 and suspended beneath a chubber float. It barely had time to settle before it shot off and my strike met with a bumped fish.
Cursing my luck i hooked up another Roach and once again it was taken on the drop . There was no messing this time around and a Perch of about 2lb was soon bristling indignantly in the bottom of the net. This was followed about 10 minutes later by another one of a similar size. Another bumped fish and a missed run occured before it got too dark to see any more . I packed up having taken something like 25lb of fish and my appetite for another trip there was well and truly whetted . I had left my camera in my other kit bag so there are no pics to remember the session by unfortunately!

The following day i attended the annual Milton Keynes Specimen Group bash and as ever it was another good-un. Mick brown was the guest speaker for the evening and he did a great job of keeping us all entertained with his slide-show and fishy ramblings. It was nice to catch up with a few old aquaintances aswell as meeting one or two new ones and I even won a tacklebox system in the raffle too which was a nice bonus!

My most recent session was spent chasing Pike and i gotta say it was pretty tough going . I covered a lot of water over a good couple of miles and despite starting at first light it wasnt until mid afternoon when i had my first pickup. The water was painfully clear and as I twitched my bait for the umpteenth time that day i noticed a decent looking fish glide in and turn away from it at the last minute. It stopped sideways on about 6 ft away from the bait eying it up. I twitched it again and the Pike turned, another twitch and with a gentle flick of its tail it sidled up to the bait and engulfed it in one fluid movement. After a bit of gill flaring it turned and i struck, the rod hooped over and after a very energetic battle which involved lots of tailwalking i slipped the net under a very lean and mean 12lber.



A move to another swim followed and as i prepped a rod to be cast out i glanced into the water and froze. A Pike of similar size to the first had literally just taken up residence in the margin to my left and, sensing an opportunity, i slowly turned  and picked up the now baited rod and gently lowered it in about 3feet away from the fish. The Pikes fins visibly bristled and it moved very slowly towards the bait which was now resting on the bottom . 

After staring at it for what seemed like an age the Pike flared its gills as if it was trying to blow the bait up off the bottom. The bait moved a little and the fish ever-so-gently mouthed it before a final flare of the gills saw it disappear from view. I struck and the fish twisted and rolled on the spot for a split second before spitting my dead Roach back at me  and shooting off leaving a shower of silvery scales shimmering in the water in its wake, gutted.

I stayed put in the same spot and kept a bait in the margins. After a while a jack of about 3lb showed up and started examining the bait. It obviously didnt like what it saw though and slowly swam away out of sight. Five minutes later after i had sat back down, the float bobbed under and stayed under. I stood up for a peek and was surprised to see that what looked like my lost fish had returned and was sat there shaking its head with my bait in its mouth! no wonder that jack didnt hang around! I struck and had a repeat performance of the first round, it had gotten away yet again! I packed up after that with plenty of food for thought and plans to return for some more 'sight' fishing very soon!