Just what is it about pike fishing in the Fens

Funny how you get into fish, isn't it. I mean how you come to choose a particular species, a type of fishing or consider yourself a particular type of angler. From time to time, I've flirted with fishing for other things.

I've tried to get into zander, bass, eels and tench - roughly in that order. I usually buy some of the gear you need, give it a go and sit there wishing I was pike fishing. I then go back to pike fishing and wonder why I ever bothered.

Even now, I'm not completely sure why I'll probably never forsake pike as long as I can still hold a rod. It's not like I'm even that good at it, compared to some of the people I know and fish with from time to time.

I've just enjoyed it for as long as I can remember. It floats my boat, if you like. Crap picture of scraper twenty (above, right) but I can still remember how thrilled I was to catch it.

I spent last night messing around with a couple of rods, thinking about presenting baits over the marginal shelf on the Big River, with leads to nail them down in 20ft of water attached via weak links that will bust if I hook into one and the rig snags the lily roots.

I might not even fish there today. I might get up, have a brainstorm and head off somewhere else. I might have a look to see if the big fish I saw a week or two back under a rickety old bridge on a land drain's about.

Or I might give the Saving Private Ryan stretch a look. Or the Bomber Drain.Or even - well, who cares, when there's six months of this looming large. There's plenty of time for exploring and chasing half-baked hunches - as well as re-visiting a few old haunts.

I haven't even caught a pike yet but I'm loving it already. Maybe that's the magic of pike fishing in the Fens for you. I'll be out there living the dream again, either way today. Wearing the same lucky trousers.