End of the Year

I got up bright and early on New Years Eve for another days pike fishing. So the usual tasks of feeding the cats, getting hot food and drink ready and loading the car with the gear was duly done. I was soon on my way and arrived at the water in the dark.
I scanned the water for signs of life and decided that with the warm conditions I would target a section of the water which still has an abundance of weed on the slopes leading to the deeper water.

As I unpacked the car, another piker turned up and abit of chit chat happened. Unfortunately, no Intel was forthcoming as this was their first visit of the season.
Off I trudged to my first swim of the day and I soon had the three rods out, with three different baits and each presented slightly differently.

The popped up roach was the first to go off and I tightened down to nothing. As I reeled the rig/bait back in it was soon evident that the alarm had been tripped by the diving tufted duck.

The lamprey was the next to go off and again I tightened down and felt a solid resistant and it was moving fast. I had a nice healthy bend in the rod and was ready for a good fight, then the whole thing when completely solid. Snagged solid. After some heaving, I was soon clear that I was not going to win this battle with the snagged, so I started to pull on the braid by hand. The mono lead link gave way, only for the trace to get snagged up, so more pulling and soon the trace was coming back to me, but the bottom ST41 hook was straightened out.

New lead and trace was soon back on and another bait was back out, but about 20 yards to the right of where the snagged was.

It was not long before the third rod was away, but as I got to the rod, the line had stopped peeling from the spool and as I tightened down, it all locked up again. So more pulling and this time the it gave way. The rig was retrieved along with the lead intacted, but another treble straighted out.

What the bloody hell was this snag? A double decker bus. So with this thought, I decided that two snag up was enough, and slightly earlier than planned, I upped sticked and moved swims.

It didn't take me long to decamp and setup again in the new swim with bait back out.

The rest of the day was uneventful even with with my best efforts of recasting, repositioning and trying different baits and presentation methods. It was odd really as it should have been a day where the pike were feeding, but alas another blank was soon upon me. 16:00 cam and I was soon packing for for the last time in 2011.

It been an odd year in terms of fishing, not caught an awful lots since the end of March and a pike for 19lb 2oz was the best specimen by far, but my first zander of 8lb did run it close for sheer excitement.

But it has been a good year for fishing related things, been to my first PAC Convention, organised my first charity fishing match and at long last bought the perfect pike rods in Dave Lumbs' BB350 Baitblaster rod.

So, out with 2011 and in with 2012, this coming year I hope to get back out for the pike over the rest of the winter/spring, with maybe some more zander fishing. Then come spring/summer I get back out after the bream and tench on a my local and hopefully get onto the a carp lake to hunt out some of there big tench and bream.

Tightlines for 2012!!