An old pike fishing story

Everyone likes an old pike fishing story, so here's the tale of my personal best, caught many, many years ago from New Road Pit, Shepperton.

The photo below shows a couple of old Abu Hi-lo lures from the late 1970's.  They have adjustable diving vanes, which makes them very versatile, especially in the floating version. When I was growing up I used these lures all the time, for the pike from my local gravel pit.   They both have a story to tell and the stories are one reason why I am now loathe to use these two old friends.

The dark green lure is a slow sinker and it was reasonably successful, if fished deep and slow.  One winter, I fished it too deep and too slow - the lure snagged and I lost it.  But years later, whilst in the same spot, there was the body of the lure washed up on the shore, missing the hooks, which had long rusted away.  The rest of the lure was fine, except for the fixing point for the middle treble. 

The olive coloured plug caught me my best fish.  One February evening, after school, I landed a pike of 22.5lb, after an epic fight that started in daylight and ended in the dark. I had a shocking experience of unhooking the beast, on my own.  The fish closed the old fashioned gag I had at the time and I hadn’t heard of the modern way of unhooking.  I soon learnt by trial and error and got some deep cuts for my lesson.  Staggering home in shock, my mum almost fainted when I piled through the front door, gory but happy.  She insisted on taking me to the doctors next day for a tetanus boost, in the backside.  The excuse letter for my teacher was priceless: ‘Dear Mr Bennet, I am sorry Alex missed school this morning, he was bitten by a fish’.

Fat perch

A few weekends ago, when it was still Winter, or at least not Spring, let alone the Summer weather we had atthe end of March,  I actually caught some lovely fat perch, from Lydes Farm near Bristol.  The lake is set in the middle of a manicured golf course - a very modern type of water.  I caught the fish on juicy fat lobworms, collected at dawn from the local park, after some overnight rain. This is a very old fashioned way of bait gathering.  The best perch was over 2lb in weight and I lost a much bigger one. I also caught two ‘nuisance’ carp, both long commons, of 12lb and 7lb.  All great fun on 6lb line.

For tackle technicians, I have been using a paternostered feeder. The hook is tied to the end of the reel line after a float stop has been threaded on.  I then tie a link above the float stop, using a Billy Lane stop knot.  The tag nearest the reel is about 30-40cm and the other tag is trimmed down.  That way, the loading from the feeder keeps the stop knot tight and you still have the security of only one knot in the line, at the hook.  Useful when the nuisance fish are large carp.

Our own Bristol Avon Clean up has started

Every time I go fishing I pick up litter and plastic bottles.  It's depressing.  However, inspired by clean up campaigns on other rivers, I have decided to get something going on our own Bristol Avon.  I fish the river fairly regularly at Newbridge, downstream of Bath.  It is good fishing, in a very pretty landscape, with lots of wildlife - otter, boar, deer, water rail, wildfowl and more.  But the banks are marred by litter and the place deserves better.  So today, my girls and I made a start and managed to fill our rubble bags with plastic bottles from just three spots.  We collected over 200 drinks and energy bottles, plus about 30 larger bottles, 2 oil containers (one still with oil, but no lid - nice), 10 or so gas canisters, 5 beer cans and 6 glass bottles.  The girls were brilliant and want to go again, with some more help because I can assure you, 7 bags weigh alot and we dragged them about a kilometre back to the van.  With the exception of the oil containers, we recycled the lot at Tescos.   If you'd like to help, leave a comment or email me through our web site www.afla.co.uk.  Birds will be nesting soon, so a 'deep clean' will be impractical but we hope to do another session this spring.