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Currently Piking

ouchthathurt

ouchthathurt

Well-known member
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May 15, 2021
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Location
Hastings East Sussex
Favourite Fishing
Shore
A nod to had1lost2 who started the currently carping thread, I have swiped and rehashed the title!

After the recent new PB of a 6lb 9oz daughter (wifey was furious when I tried to use the gaff) I have been up to my elbows in nappies and baby clothes, but with paternity leave fast coming to an end, wifey decided that I best get the rods out at least once for a few hours before returning to work.

I have been rediscovering my childhood love of pike fishing, spurred on by my younger son wanting to catch his first pike, something I have advised against unless fishing with an experienced piker, so as it looks like we will be pike fishing when he’s down, I have been getting my pike gear out to have a go, the last session just before baby was born was a blank, I was pestered by eels that took a shine to my roach deads.

This time, I hit the bank with a nice selection of deadbaits, sprats, lampreys, roach and my personal favourite, rainbow trout (caught my first pike on trout) so I set up my two rods with a simple running ledger using 1.1oz leads to a home tied wire trace consisting of fox 26lb wire to 2 x size 6 trebles. One rod was baited with sprat and the other with lamprey. Having flicked them both to the drop off ledge, I sat back to wait the drop off of an indicator. After many a sleepless night, nodding off was an issue, so I turned the alarms up and tried to doze, but it was pretty bitter with an air temp of 3c.

It was a long, slow day with no interest to my baits, the lines didn’t even twitch all day. Come the evening, I decided to have one last cast with rainbow trout down the margins, which was also left untouched. Calling it quits I decided to reel in and head home. When I reel in, I always slowly twitch the bait back rather than just crank it in, so I twitched the rainbow trout back towards me. 10yrds out, I felt a thump as something hit the bait, I stuck into a jagged fight, a few mins later this obliging jack slid to hand, nicely hooked in the lip. Although small, it saved the blank! I headed home happy, looking forward to getting back soon. 2C04967A-CF72-430C-ACEA-ED0BCE076AAC.jpeg
 
Nice fish.
I’m waiting for the local river water levels to reduce before I go back to pike fishing.
The river ones fight more than the lake ones
 
Nice report Ouchy! Nice looking Jack. Hope Mum & new little 'un are doing well - did you put it in a bucket to recover before attempting to put it back? !! 😁😁 🎣🎣👍👍
 
Piking? Bloody Gypsies get everywhere 😉

Seriously though …. If I were ever to Freshwater dangle then Pike would be my prey .

Nice Fish 👍
 
So with Christmas over, the boy and I carried on our quest on Wednesday for his first pike, heading to my local ressie that does a few, the weather was absolutely awful, high winds, pouring with rain, nice and mild though, a day of static deadbaiting and wobbling didn’t produce a single twitch for either of us, cold and fishless, we headed home. So that was it. 409B4A03-E3C5-457F-B59B-A25EC93F7FB2.jpegE25AECC4-5ADC-406B-9BD3-4C3F006CF298.jpegOr was it??

I woke up this morning with “that” feeling, the one you get when you just need to be in a spot with a rod in the water, so I dragged the boy out of his warm bed, wrapped ourselves up with waterproofs and headed out into the driving rain and high winds again. This time, we just took one rod each and a selection of plugs, spinners and shads and headed down to a tiny canal that I’ve never fished, let alone seen anyone else fishing. We headed off into the rain to find the canal very high and coloured, not best lure fishing conditions, but rumour has it, that this tiny canal holds pike, I reckoned that they would only be jacks, but my son only needs one bite to catch his first pike, so it was worth a go! We walked for miles, flicking little lures into the water, having real issues with the weed and crap washing downstream, it seemed hopeless. I told the boy we were going on a hike and walked about a mile and a half to a wier that was catching all the debris, the water from here looked more inviting, wider, slower and deeper. But flicking lures about still didn’t produce, my boy picked out a tiny perch spinner and stuck it on, thinking a perch or a jack would have a go to save his blank, off he wandered, casting as he went, with me having to clamber through bushes and trees to unsnag him every 3rd cast as a gust of wind snatched his spinner mid cast and threw it up the bank! I stopped to talk to an old boy who was telling me that we were flogging a dead horse as the water was like hot chocolate, I had to agree that it was looking dire, i began to doubt there was anything in here, with that I started walking up to where my boy had got to, when I saw him lift his rod sharply and it took on a lovely bend, “snagged again” I muttered as I headed towards him, with that, his rod slammed down and his reel screamed… he was in! Now despite his best efforts, this fish wouldn’t come off the bottom, it just went on unstoppable runs up and down the canal, I started to think, this is no jack! After 10mins, it finally broke surface, bloody hell its a crocodile! My bottle proper went then, as did the boys! He was literally shaking with excitement as I managed to get a net under it. 79AA3069-B4BF-4AD5-94E6-FFF2BDB29CF0.jpeg3DA86078-D113-4733-90D9-2404DC55C2C1.jpegAt 18lb, it was one hell of a first pike! From a tiny canal that I’ve walked hundreds of times without a thought of casting a bait in there! Why I suddenly woke this morning with the overwhelming urge to go try it, lord knows, but I’m glad we did! I blanked, but do I care? Like hell I do! Plus, I know they are in there now, so I’ll definitely be heading there when the kids are back at school!
 
ouchthathurt said:
So with Christmas over, the boy and I carried on our quest on Wednesday for his first pike, heading to my local ressie that does a few, the weather was absolutely awful, high winds, pouring with rain, nice and mild though, a day of static deadbaiting and wobbling didn’t produce a single twitch for either of us, cold and fishless, we headed home. So that was it. View attachment 37673View attachment 37674Or was it??

I woke up this morning with “that” feeling, the one you get when you just need to be in a spot with a rod in the water, so I dragged the boy out of his warm bed, wrapped ourselves up with waterproofs and headed out into the driving rain and high winds again. This time, we just took one rod each and a selection of plugs, spinners and shads and headed down to a tiny canal that I’ve never fished, let alone seen anyone else fishing. We headed off into the rain to find the canal very high and coloured, not best lure fishing conditions, but rumour has it, that this tiny canal holds pike, I reckoned that they would only be jacks, but my son only needs one bite to catch his first pike, so it was worth a go! We walked for miles, flicking little lures into the water, having real issues with the weed and crap washing downstream, it seemed hopeless. I told the boy we were going on a hike and walked about a mile and a half to a wier that was catching all the debris, the water from here looked more inviting, wider, slower and deeper. But flicking lures about still didn’t produce, my boy picked out a tiny perch spinner and stuck it on, thinking a perch or a jack would have a go to save his blank, off he wandered, casting as he went, with me having to clamber through bushes and trees to unsnag him every 3rd cast as a gust of wind snatched his spinner mid cast and threw it up the bank! I stopped to talk to an old boy who was telling me that we were flogging a dead horse as the water was like hot chocolate, I had to agree that it was looking dire, i began to doubt there was anything in here, with that I started walking up to where my boy had got to, when I saw him lift his rod sharply and it took on a lovely bend, “snagged again” I muttered as I headed towards him, with that, his rod slammed down and his reel screamed… he was in! Now despite his best efforts, this fish wouldn’t come off the bottom, it just went on unstoppable runs up and down the canal, I started to think, this is no jack! After 10mins, it finally broke surface, bloody hell its a crocodile! My bottle proper went then, as did the boys! He was literally shaking with excitement as I managed to get a net under it. View attachment 37675View attachment 37676At 18lb, it was one hell of a first pike! From a tiny canal that I’ve walked hundreds of times without a thought of casting a bait in there! Why I suddenly woke this morning with the overwhelming urge to go try it, lord knows, but I’m glad we did! I blanked, but do I care? Like hell I do! Plus, I know they are in there now, so I’ll definitely be heading there when the kids are back at school!
Click to expand...
Quality mate
 
ouchthathurt said:
So with Christmas over, the boy and I carried on our quest on Wednesday for his first pike, heading to my local ressie that does a few, the weather was absolutely awful, high winds, pouring with rain, nice and mild though, a day of static deadbaiting and wobbling didn’t produce a single twitch for either of us, cold and fishless, we headed home. So that was it. View attachment 37673View attachment 37674Or was it??

I woke up this morning with “that” feeling, the one you get when you just need to be in a spot with a rod in the water, so I dragged the boy out of his warm bed, wrapped ourselves up with waterproofs and headed out into the driving rain and high winds again. This time, we just took one rod each and a selection of plugs, spinners and shads and headed down to a tiny canal that I’ve never fished, let alone seen anyone else fishing. We headed off into the rain to find the canal very high and coloured, not best lure fishing conditions, but rumour has it, that this tiny canal holds pike, I reckoned that they would only be jacks, but my son only needs one bite to catch his first pike, so it was worth a go! We walked for miles, flicking little lures into the water, having real issues with the weed and crap washing downstream, it seemed hopeless. I told the boy we were going on a hike and walked about a mile and a half to a wier that was catching all the debris, the water from here looked more inviting, wider, slower and deeper. But flicking lures about still didn’t produce, my boy picked out a tiny perch spinner and stuck it on, thinking a perch or a jack would have a go to save his blank, off he wandered, casting as he went, with me having to clamber through bushes and trees to unsnag him every 3rd cast as a gust of wind snatched his spinner mid cast and threw it up the bank! I stopped to talk to an old boy who was telling me that we were flogging a dead horse as the water was like hot chocolate, I had to agree that it was looking dire, i began to doubt there was anything in here, with that I started walking up to where my boy had got to, when I saw him lift his rod sharply and it took on a lovely bend, “snagged again” I muttered as I headed towards him, with that, his rod slammed down and his reel screamed… he was in! Now despite his best efforts, this fish wouldn’t come off the bottom, it just went on unstoppable runs up and down the canal, I started to think, this is no jack! After 10mins, it finally broke surface, bloody hell its a crocodile! My bottle proper went then, as did the boys! He was literally shaking with excitement as I managed to get a net under it. View attachment 37675View attachment 37676At 18lb, it was one hell of a first pike! From a tiny canal that I’ve walked hundreds of times without a thought of casting a bait in there! Why I suddenly woke this morning with the overwhelming urge to go try it, lord knows, but I’m glad we did! I blanked, but do I care? Like hell I do! Plus, I know they are in there now, so I’ll definitely be heading there when the kids are back at school!
Click to expand...
Fantastic report and photos. A day you will both remember forever. Big well done to your son (y)
 
Well done to your lad what a cracking fish to pop his pike "cherry". Watched the latest offering from the Ginger fisherman yesterday, he was piking on his local canal, I was surprised when he reckoned that ideal conditions for lure fishing for big pike was dirty water with visibility of around 1.5ft. He was using honking big 25cm lures that were sending out serious vibrations. He was nailing fish after fish.
 
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