Town vs The Toon

Pike  on a custom colour MH Custom Lure

I'm awoken at 5am by a text from my piking partners to says its a raining cats and dogs, well it is a bank holiday Monday after all, so I shouldn't have expected anything else. So we decided to snoozes for a few hours and see what happens.

Text are exchanged and the game is on with cast off set for 08:40 so I better get a wiggle on as its 08:10 and I not ready.

Quick shower and shovel some breakfast, before heading out of the door with a cuppa in the thermal mug and bloody hell its cold outside. I thought this was the summer, so back inside for a jacket. Car thermometer reads 7 deg C.

Arrived before Craig and setup the lure rod, got waders my waders on and before long Craig arrived.
After we exchanging chit chat we head on our way to the first spot of the day. Upon arrived at the waters edge, a strong wind is blowing in our faces and its cold, ice cold. Is this really June????

Lures are clipped onto the wire traces and we are away with the first cast into the bay. It very weedy and we soon move on after no hits, but I spy some bream still in the shallows spawning.

We moved about abit trying a variety of spots before my Rapala Subwalk is hit by a sold thud. After a short scrap and fish of 3lb is brought into the shallows, gloved, unhooked and returned.

We continue to thrash the surface with lures in all shapes and colours before we move on to a new spot.

The Rapala Subwalk was starting to get some more attention from pike in the shallows and it wasn't long before another jack struck the lure after it stalked it from the weed. The jack was no more than a 1lb in weight and was soon released. I had another couple of follows before I got an almighty wind knot and had to stop fishing for a bit while, so with the mighty tractor boys (Ipswich Town Football Club) 2-0 up before halftime, the Toon army (Craig) (Newcastle Utd Football Club) had  hit on his copper lure, but no sooner had he got it on he was off.
I was soon back into the game and we continued to walk the bank casting lures, we had a couple of follows, but nothing hit the lures.

We reached the end of the bank were we could fish and I decided to give Craig a banker area to fish and the killer Rapala Subwalk lure to try. Surely, this would grab him a fish.
I on the other hand was tempted to try the new lure pattern that Mark at MH Custom Lures had kindly produced for me. I fished an area that had been productive the previous week, but with small fish no greater than 5lb.
The custom Magnum lure was cast out, retrieved and recast on a number of occasions, before I brought it back across a shallow gravel bar. The rod hooped over and again I was into a fish, this felt and better fish, not huge but it was putting up a good account for its self.

Best of the three..again

After a spirited fight a pike which might have just scrapped a low double was gloves out. 3-0 to the town!!

After a shot for the blog, the pike was returned to fight for another day. 

We did have a few more follows on the way back to the car, but in most cases they either snapped at the lure and missed or followed it in from a distance. I did have a chance for a four fish, but the pike was only marginally bigger than the spoon and soon realised that its eyes were bigger than its belly and turned away.

It was great way to spend 5 hours on the bank travelling light with the lure rod and minimal tackle.

I'm really enjoying my lure fishing at the moment and have had a number of ideas on colours and lure patterns that I will be speaking to Mark at MH Custom Lure about. 
I hope the summer does not come onto quickly, as when it does the water temperature will rise and it will get too high for the pike fishing of any type and then the lure rod will be put away.


Tightlines