Deads 2 - Lives 1

Two outings since my last update, the first of which was on one of my local rivers, targeting the barbel. A definite blank, despite trying 8 or 9 pegs, with two rods when space allowed, zero interest.

My last session of the year was on the same venue as the first of the year, a canal. At over an hours drive it's not really a local venue, but the mild wet weather has left my local rivers in a constant state of flood and the lack of any real frosts have left the still waters choked with weed so my local options are very limited.

With a full day free I was aiming to fit a lot in; pike fish two different canals and recce a still water (an old quarry) on the return journey home, however things didn't go to plan and in the end I was happy with just having enough time to fish the one canal.

The heavily coloured canal didn't really fill me with confidence

I was using my standard deadbait gear, DLST P1's with Shimano 6010's, one rod a simple float fished deadbait, the second rod, a float paternostered live roach or skimmer.

Just over an hour for the first interest, the live bait was taken and a nice pike of 9lb 3oz was soon landed. My first pike for nearly two months and the blank avoided so I was pleased.

The rods were leapfrogged along the stretch, positioning the baits as close to the barges or the far bank features as I could. An hour or so later a mackerel was taken, a slightly better fight this time and a better fish.

Whilst unhooking the pike I managed to cut myself on a treble that someone had left in the pike's scissors. They had managed to cut the eye of the treble off, but left the hook points ?, cheers! It didn't take long to sort, cutting the points and barbs off and it near enough fell out. The fish seemed familiar and once returned I compared it to photos of other pike I've had from this stretch. I had caught this fish on my last session here in March.

Yesterday 12lb exactly (l), 19/03/15 12lb 1oz (r)

The session continued in a similar fashion, leapfrogging the rods every 15/20 mins. Rain was forecast for early evening so I put most of my gear in the car and just kept the essentials on the towpath. The rain was torrential and I was considering packing up early when the deadbait had some interest, a large smelt was taken this time. A couple of minutes later another 12lb'er was in the net.

The largest of the session 12lb 2oz

An enjoyable and productive last session of the year.