A couple of difficult pike sessions

Yesterday I was planning on fishing a stillwater however it was too windy for the water I had in mind and the other water I wanted to fish is probably still choked with weed. I decided to fish a couple of stretches of my local river. I arrived at the first stretch before first light, the overnight temperature had plummeted, the river was slightly up and it was pushing through quite hard but I was still quietly confident.

After about an hour I had a cagey take on a lamprey but the bait was dropped before I could close the bail arm. After a couple of moves and bait changes I had another take, this time on half a mackerel. The pike was on for about 10 seconds before the hooks pulled, this is becoming a regular occurrence and it's something I'm looking at. I dropped the bait in the same area hoping that the pike would take it a second time. I waited an hour or so, nothing happened so I decided to move stretches.

It took about 45 mins to move stretches and get the rods back out. This stretch as produced a few upper doubles over the past few weeks so I was hopeful of a fish. An hour later a large smelt that had been cast towards the far bank was taken, a very positive take. I struck immediately and was into a jack, nothing massive (around 6lb) but it was a blank saver. The jack was quite difficult to unhook, but after cutting the trace I managed to get both trebles out.

Blank saver

I am still getting to grips with my camera so I took a couple of self takes, they aren't as good as I'd like but they are improving. After the jack there was no further interest in the baits and I headed home about 4ish.

Today

I wasn't planning on fishing today, the kids were back at nursery/school, the girlfriend was at work and I didn't really have anything to do (other than the endless list of jobs around the house). A quick check of the phone saw a text from Mick letting me know where he would be fishing. I looked outside, the fog was starting to lift so I picked a few deadbaits out of the freezer, jumped in the jeep and was on the bank half an hour later.

Mick had caught a few small chub and a couple of perch on the feeder before I arrived. I dropped a large smelt into the deep margin. A couple of hours later the rod tip started nodding but the drop arm on the backbiter remained static, I didn't strike I was hoping that it would develop into a normal run but it didn't. The tip stopped moving, I gave it 10 minutes before checking the bait and the smelt had a few teeth marks on it. The bait was cast into the same area but nothing else happened. Mick was still catching the smaller chub on the feeder he also had a better roach of about 8oz and a nice perch that went 1lb 1oz.

Micks perch

I think the cold snap has put the pike off feeding, the weather looks to get more settled towards the back end of the week/start of next week, hopefully I'll be able to fit a session in to coincide with the more settled weather.