A red letter day... with red as the word!

On Monday I had the great pleasure of accompanying one of angling's true gents, on a predator trip. The day was one of my best days in my fishing life. I will try to write a brief summary.

We arrived at the location for around 8, it felt great from the get go, with low light conditions accompanied by a nice temperature rise. We spent a while preparing the boat prior to getting acclimatised to being afloat. I am quite good on water as I have spent a lot of time with the kids in kayaks and canoes,as well as trips out to Blenheim etc. But this was like nothing i have been in before though very ,it felt very close to the water, the first wobble shocked me a little but it did not take long to settle down. It felt so different being able to maneuver into position and present the bait around areas almost inaccessible to others, whilst also being silent in your approach.

The tactics that we had decided on where chopped worm, bait droppered in then fish big lobs over the top. Though first cast did produce a sarg of about a pound, it did not really kick on.

So we changed are tactics, a very decisive move. the reaction was amazing with both floats getting movement straight away.....Esox everywhere!!! I personally have seen or witnessed pike action like it. Though the fish averaged between 5 and 7 pounds there masses of um! I think I would airing on the conservative side if I said that 50 pike were caught during the day. Again, another bonus of being in the boat meant that non of the fish saw the landing net and by using single hooks were very easily disgorged still in the water. Fish care does nit get nuch better.

It was interesting that though we caught a shed load of pike non were large...there must have been some big mommas in there somewhere but the smaller fish must have been beating them to the bait.

Amongst the pike were also some perch! I managed to land 3, all of whcih broke my previuos PB! at 2lb 13oz, 2lb 7oz and 2lb 4oz! These are pictured below.

2lb 13oz....new PB.

2lb 7oz...this one had a huge dorsal fin! Would recognise it again

This was the final and smallest at 2lb 4oz, also a very distinctive fish, as it had a large mark behind its dorsal fin.

Oh yeah... I also managed to catch my first every silver bream a whopper of 4oz!!!

A superb day fishing which I am still struggling to get my head around. Very pleased and most of all very grateful for the experience. Cheers buddy