A social blank

Out for a barbel session last night, fishing a river with a much larger head of barbel than on my last session, so I was hopeful of a fish or three. I was fishing with Mick for the first time in a few months and we decided to fish a double peg and have a bit of a catch up.

It was a very mild night, still t-shirt weather at 03:00, a very nice evening to be on the bank, unfortunately the fishing wasn't up too much and we didn't have a take between us. Probably should of went eel fishing!

A new book arrived last week, Dilip Sarkar's River Pike, the first book for nearly thirty years dedicated solely to fishing for esox in our rivers. The last effort was the late John Sidleys 'River Piking' which is a bit dated and mainly focuses on a section of the River Severn. The Sidley book has a bit of a following and usually commands a high price on eBay, sometimes up to £100, luckily my copy didn't cost anything like that.

I haven't found the time to start reading the newer book (yet), but I have only heard good things about it so far and I'm looking forward to reading.

I'll be starting to get my pike gear sorted over the next couple of weeks, with the aim of having my first session towards the back end of September. I have a few stretches of river in mind for my first pike session of the season and plenty of areas that I haven't covered before for later sessions. I will also be continuing my search for a local still water that holds pike to a decent size, I want to try and avoid the jacks this winter and finally land that first elusive twenty.