More lure fishing for pike this season

One thing I plan on doing more of this coming season is lure fishing. One reason for this is I've never caught a twenty on a lure, despite having phases when I was really into it. After getting my lure-caught best up to a whisker over 18lbs a few seasons back, I lost interest  as my efforts to improve on this failed.

Most of the time, I seemed to catch fish around the size of the one of the left. Last season, the lure rods gathered dust. Seeing a picture of a 28lbs fish from a water I've never quite got to grips with has whetted my appetite. I've never had a twenty off the water concerned either, so it's one to pencil in for a look when autumn comes around.

And then there's Enigma, the water which doesn't officially have any pike in. I'm not into summer pike fishing for obvious reasons, but I'm going to have an evening or two on there before the weather warms up just to see if I can catch one to confirm it's worth a go later in the year.

I now know for certain that there were pike in it many years ago. But they died, like everything else in the lake, during a catastrophe that occurred one winter's night a decade before I was born. 

Mason's Multistrand trace wire for pike fishing

This isn't just a steal at £26.10 inc P&P for a 200yd spool of 30lbs from Veals of Bristol - it's also a seriously good wire for bait fishing.

Sold as a trolling wire by US tackle firm Mason, of Otisville, Missouri, it's a little thicker and stiffer than most seven-strands for the same breaking strain.

It twists up easily, if this is your chosen way of making up traces. Just heat the tag end for a neat finish. It also seems more kink-resistant and a lot less prone to tangles than some of the thinner wires on the market.

No more changing traces every other jack. No more running out of wire either, as a spool of this will easily see most pike anglers through a couple of seasons.

Probably the best compliment I can pay it - apart from the price - is you can just forget about it and get on with your fishing. It won't let you down. You can also get it in 45 and 65lbs breaking strains for slightly more on the pennies front.

Bearing in mind other wires are £5 or more a spool, usually for between 10 and 25m, this stuff works out half the price.

So if you use around 3ft of wire to make a trace, allowing for all the twisting, going round the hooks etc, you can make 200 of them from one spool of this stuff. Click here for a link to Veals website.

Whale ahoy, from the archives

You could see it from the point at Thornham Harbour. A dark shape on the sandbank in the mouth of the channel, a good mile across the marsh away. So we put our coats on, me and Matthew the photographer.

We ignored the snow warnings on the radio, being me and Matthew. And we set off across the salt marsh as the tide turned, in search of an exclusive on the whale.

Several winters back, in the February of 2004 or maybe 2005, a 60ft whale washed up on the North Norfolk coast. It was blocking the harbour and there were rumours the RAF were going to be called in to blow it up.

Best get up there quick then, we thought. They hopefully won't decide to launch a precision strike while we're out there doing pictures for the papers. It took us a good hour to get there, as sleet showers lashed the coast.

They stopped for half an hour or so, as we reached the corpse of the enormous creature. Matt made me stand next to it to give the picture some scale. The wind turned and I had an action replay of my lunch thanks to the incredible smell of decomposing whale.

Then the weather closed in, with more sleet and a gathering gale. Instead of going the long, sensible way, we took a short cut across the marsh as dusk fell - scary bears as the tide began to flood the creeks and the visibility deteriorated.

This was my first proper whale. As in the first one I got up close to. Close enough to marvel at the incredible size of an animal few get to see in the flesh. Close enough to wonder what killed this great big blow fish, what drove it to beach on the edge of The Wash.

I found the picture amid some fishing snaps from the time. I was catching plenty of pike, back then, judging by the images on my old laptop. But the whale stands out, amid all the doubles and the odd low-twenty - a far more amazing encounter with the natural world than any pike I caught that winter.

A few days later, it was gone. Carried off by the sea, dragged across the estuary to Terrington Marsh on a spring tide.

That's like Mad Max in the Fens, that is

"Hear there was a few out down there last winter, I mention to a mate, in passing, as we discuss a drain. "Fair old trek, down a long old road."

"They got the Colonel's Pike in the pub an' all that, biggest one ever caught in the Fens an' stuff," he said. "But the roads round there's like Mad Max an' all that. As in it's like Mad Max and all that. 

"Don' even know anyone what go there mate. Th'ass proper bandit country. Roads are like Mad Max an' all that. Like Mad Max they are."

Markings show there are less pike than you think

Going back through last season's pictures reveals that these two pike are one and the same.

The giveaway clue is just behind its pelvic fin - the mark like a reversed letter C, with a dot just to the left of it. If you look, you can see it in both pictures.

Pikes' markings are unique, just like our fingerprints. Go back through your pictures carefully - looking at pike you've caught at different ends of the season, or over longer periods of time - and you'll sometimes find a repeat capture or two.

This fish grew from scraping 20lbs in early October, to 23lbs by late February. When I first caught her, she was long and lean with a big head and not much behind it.

She packed some weight on in the meantime, when I think at least one other person I know had her out. Those five months weren't without the odd mishap.


The second time I caught her, she had some obvious damage to her scissors and someone else's trace in her. Neither proved to be fatal.

And if she mades it through the last few weeks of the season and spawned successfully, she might even re-appear this time around - hopefully a little larger.

Here's a close-up of the mark that gives the game away - the reversed letter C and dot.

Look carefully and you can see that they're quite clearly one and the same fish.

 

One thing we can learn from repeat captures is they sometimes show there are fewer specimen pike in a water than you might think if you just take catches on face value.

At least three of the twenties caught from this bit of water were actually the same fish.

What this illustrates is just how important it is to conserve them. Because there are a lot less of them out there than a lot of people would sometimes have you believe.

If you care about tomorrow's fishing in the Fens, look after the pike you catch today.

Th'ass called Mike - as in Mike the pike

You have one new message. Press one for main menu, press two for... "Hella, hella - yew there Cress..? I got some more information for you about the pike w'oss in the Village Pond. Th'ass called Mike apparently. As in Mike the pike.

"I heard that off the Bread Man. He say him and the Village Shop Lady's been feeding 'im on the quiet so they don' upset the parish council.

"An' yew know what - that likes sausage rolls, old Mike do. Bread Man reckon he was on his lunch break, threw half a sausage roll in and ker-splosh, that come right up and took it.

"He say that hatta' be a pike, great big long ole thing, so they call't 'm Mike, like - as in... Anyways they bin bungin' the odd sausage roll in ever since. They reckon he live right in the corner by the shop. Sits there waitin' to be fed he does. Bread Man reckon he's a real big 'un too. Thought I'd better let you know. See yew roun' podna."

I 'd forgotten the pike in the Village Pond. Put there (allegedly) to thin out the ducks. The one I was going to try and catch before it got boiling hot. The one that's now developed a taste for sausage rolls. The one the Bread Man and the Village Shop Lady have christened Mike. As in Mike the pike.

I weigh up the options. Popped-up sausage roll on two size four Owners. Catch pike and offer story to Village Magazine in exclusive deal. Ace village pike angler foils monster in Village Pond on snack from Village Shop.

I retire to my study, to get a rod sorted.

The best club for pike fishing in the Fens

"I reckon Chris spent so much on day tickets last year he could have bought the river," says the Chipper Bailiff to my mate, in a  frisson of bailiff humour. I bite my lip, as I put my brand new shiny King's Lynn ticket back in my rucker. The man had a point.

When I rejoined Lynn AA last season, I re-discovered a few old haunts I hadn't fished for years. I also re-discovered what great value for money the Lynn Book, as locals call it, is.

There are various membership options - you can fish all the rivers and drains for £38 a season, add Tottenhill Pit for another £2 a year, or include the Shepherd's Port complex for £56 a season. If you go once a week between October and March, that's less than £2 a throw. Go twice a week or more and it's peanuts to fish over the course of a season.

At least three of the waters on the ticket did fish over 25lbs last season. The Fens might not be what it was a few seasons back, but there were numbers of 20lbs fish from two of the drains on the ticket. Back up fish were a different story. But the jury's still, out on why. And while the people I regularly see out and about enjoyed their share of blank days, most ended the season with a few more twenties to add to their tally.

Hence the title of this post, because if you weigh up what came from neighbouring clubs' waters last season, the Lynn club was streets ahead of most of them. It's also a friendly club, which welcomes predator anglers as warmly as it welcomes matchmen and maggot drowners. No silly rules in other words. And no bait bans.

This probably explains why the club continues to thrive despite the recession. That and the fact you get a lot of water to go at for your money, including 85kms of the Great Ouse, Little Ouse, Middle Level Drain, Cut-Off Channel, Relief Channel and Old Bedford River.

Click here for links to Google maps and info on club waters.

Lured away to the Antiques Roadshow

"So then laddie, what have you brought along to show me..?" I'll swear Fiona Bruce looks sterner in real life than she does on the telly. 

I feel a little uneasy, having reached the front of the queue. Behind me are people with real works of art, antiques and medals won in the trenches of the First World War.

I have brought a box of lures along to show Fiona, after having a sort through my collection.

"Um, they're some of my pike lures," I mumble, as the cameramen close in on the box with the broken lid I got in the New Year sale at Homebase in King's Lynn, reduced from £9.99 to £1.99 with double Nectar Points not to be used in conjunction with any other offer.

"Och, quite a collection," says Fiona, lifting out a rare yellow perch-pattern ShadRap. "That has'nae seen much action, has it. Hardly a tooth mark on it. And these spoon fellas with the rusty hooks - I must say they'd be worth more if you looked after them. Oh my, what's this - a Jointed Rapala in firetiger..? Very last season, I'm afraid.

"Thanks for coming along today. I'm sure these would be worth something in the right hands, but I've had my researchers take a wee look at you and I'm afraid they say you're nay lure angler. Tenner the lot on eBay if you're lucky. Next..."

"MWAARP, MWAARP, MWAARP, MWAARP. Good morning Malcolm, it's 9AM," barks the alarm clock I borrowed from Malcolm.

It all comes back to me as I rub my eyes and drag myself out of bed. Today is the day the Antiques Roadshow comes to RAF Marham, in Norfolk. I have taken the day off, to take the wife along.

An hour later, we're through security. We stash the car by a sign saying Runway In Use, No Parking before we join the long queues of people bringing stuff for Fiona and her panel of experts to pore over.

There are people with paintings, people with carrier bags full of crockery and people with family heirlooms large and small. The crew of a Tornado jet are explaining the finer points of its multi-faceted armed reconnaissance capabilities, ready to be unleashed on the next middle eastern dictator who makes the price of petrol go up, to a bus-load of pensioners.

"How come they can park here," asks the wife, unimpressed by the 800mph warplane's bristling array of weaponry. "They must have got here early, before the queues," I shrug.

As we near the hangars we spy Fiona Bruce, waxing lyrical about some exciting find. A few rows back in the queue, a man waits clutching what looks suspiciously like a lure box - bought in the New Year sale at Homebase in King's Lynn with double Nectar Points not to be used in conjunction with any other offer.

"I bet she's going to go through those and say they're all pants," I say to the wife, as Fiona looks up and throws a brief, knowing glance in our direction.