Suffolk leg of Pikeathlon

Well the Suffolk leg of Pikeathlon has been and gone.

I met the lads of the Pikeathlon 2013 (Shane & Steve) just before 07:00 at the car park and myself Shane had our gear ready to go, Steve on the other hand was still brewing his tea and sorting his readybrek out.

Once all of us were ready, we ventured to the first port of call for a hour of so, static deads with a smattering of lure fishing.
The day was overcast, but warmer than the last couple of days, so I hoped that this would encourage the pike to feed .

After 1/2 an hour, I had a follow by a small jack, but its snapped at the lure before sulking off into the undercut, only to be lured back out by Shane whom soon had the Suffolk leg underway with a fish of about 3lb.No1.
Soon after my change of lure resulted in another jack of a couple of pounds. No2. The guide was off the mark.

No more fish came to lure or bait, so we stopped for a brew and the guide revisited the tactics.
I decided that we would have to do a lot more roaming in order to challenge the 11 fish the boys got whilst being guided by the legendary predator ace, Sir Michael Brown (aka Mick Brown). I must admit to feeling a bit competitive, so after the brew we moved off to a marked that might throw up a couple of the bigger fish. But after fishing for an hour now more pike.
What now? Lunch. The boys stopped off in the village and got themselves some lunch time snacks, and as I drove to the next spot the lads comsumbed there game pie and other pastry delights.

We soon arrived at the next mark and set about tackling a small weir pool. My shad was soon hit by a jack and after some expert grabbing by Shane, another pike was release. No3.

We walked the river and and I managed another two and Shane weight in another pike. No 4, 5 & 6.

The river was proving hard, so we changed to the pits and what a change.
With the afternoon drawing on and with only 2 hours of fishing, Steve finally managed to get in on the act and got pike no 7 and his first of the day. Shane soon had pike no8 and with an hour and a half left, we hit the jack water for a final push to the magic 12 target to beat Mick Brown's leg of he event.

Shane's first cast on the jack pit, resulted in fish no 8 and he was soon had no 9 too.
I had a bigger fish on, and cursed when it throw the hooks, but as this one got away, Shane had fish no10.

With less than 1/2 left of the event, Shane plundered another fish to equal with Micks Brown's event total of 11.

With minutes left we, ran out of steam on the pit, but had 10 minutes for a bash on the final river stretch, but alas no pike fell to our lures.

So to sum it up, Shane Patterson managed a nice total of 6 jacks and a couple of specimen logs, Steve Davidson managed a blank saving solitary jack and I finished with 4 jacks, including a micro jack who thought a 6" Mann's shad was a tasty snack.

No photo's as Shane and Steve took them all.