Gotcha..! A pike at long last

I haven't fished this bit of the drain before and the first few casts see the lure weeded. There most be three or four feet of the stuff growing up off the bottom, as well as great patches of cabbages where the lillies never quite made it to the top.

It takes a couple of swims to suss out I can fish a Shad Rap over the top of it, tapping it down a couple of feet, then pausing to let it rise slightly before the next twitch and a couple of turns on the reel handle. I can see the lure flash and turn under the surface three quarters of the way across.

I get quite immersed in this, watching how the lure responds to different movements of the rod. I can even see why people like doing this. Then there's a swirl behind the lure and I see a shape launch itself at Mr Rapala. Up comes the rod and I've got one.

Into the net it goes. I drop it on the mat and snick the hook out of its light scissors hold with my fingers. A quick snap for posterity and back goes pike number one of 2012/13 - all three pounds of it. Mustn't grumble though.

I can't remember when the last time I caught one was, off the top of my head. But it feels like  long, long time as I watch the little pike swim off to become a twenty.

+++Monster pike in village pond mystery solved - click here.

Magic chicken doesn't spell 30lbs pike in the Fens

A huge swirl rocks the margins 20 yards up the drain, scattering fry in all directions. That's some pike, I tell myself as I reel the rods in, grab my rucker and hoof it down there. Moving swims requires two trips and the best part of five minutes by the time I've stumbled down the bankside undergrowth and found a couple of gaps to poke the rods through.

As I'm baiting up the traces, the pike stages a repeat performance. I see it's dorsal fin and tail lobe this time and it's a big old lump. The first bait goes bang on the nail. I drop the others on either side. They sit there for an hour, as the breeze gets up into the beginnings of a blow and the rain starts falling.

A large chicken walks past on the opposite bank. I've never seen a large chicken walking on the opposite bank of the drain before, so I wonder if it's an omen. Perhaps it's a magic chicken, which only appears when you're about to catch a thirty.

Maybe a mate who caught one on this drain a few years ago saw a chicken immediately beforehand, but neglected to mention this detail when he finally 'fessed up to where he caught it. The chicken ambles off. The bungs remain motionless.

My phone buzzes. "Caugth any fing yet 4eyes?" says the text. No, I reply. But I've seen the magic chicken. The car's only around the corner, so I reel the baits in and run back for the stove to get the Charlie on.

It lights first time, despite the fact it's been festering in the back of the car for six months. As I'm stirring my capuchino with a baiting needle, there's a massive swirl in the swim I vacated earlier. I debate whether to up sticks and leg it back there, but I recast the baits and sit on the floodbank nursing my coffee instead.

Is it time to get the lures out..?

On the plus side, today was a great day to be out - colder than it has been for a while, with a stiff north-westerly blowing. I left the heavy rods at home and went for a wander on part of a drain I haven't fished in ages instead. The swims I fancied are a long walk, but hardly anyone fishes them and they've been filed away in the must try sometime draw for ages.

It looked like it was worth the walk when I finally found a way through the knee-high nettles and other vegetation and took a look at the water. Bit clear, but so's everywhere at the moment. Bit weedy, but it's the right sort of weed, as in the stuff that grows up off the bottom rather than the dreaded azolla.

Bit blowy, but that's not a problem as I like a nice ripple. Best of all, no-one's fished it yet, looking at the virgin bankside growth. It takes a few chucks to get the depth right, mainly because it's deeper than I was expecting - several feet deeper than the average six or eight feet of water you find elsewhere on this drain.

Fifteen minutes' faffing about later, I've got two out with a pilchard on one and a nice foot-long blood sucker on the other. Two hours pass, I change swim after an hour and the next one looks even better but fails to produce a pull.

Around lunchtime, I decide to hoof it back to the motor and try another bit of the drain where I have had the odd fish. It's shallower, weedier and by the time I've got the baits in, it's running off deceptively fast. I change swim a couple of times, but again it's dead as a door nail.

Something occurs to me as I'm packing up to head for home. Something that might seem obvious, but is worth recording all the same. This time last year, you couldn't fish a lot of the system because it was weeded over with azolla. When it cleared, we caught some good fish that were lean and hungry - probably because they'd been sitting in the dark under the blanket weed not feeding.

This time around, the drains are clear and full of life. And I doubt the pike in them have been going too short on the food front. Maybe it's time to grasp the nettle and give the lures a go - as in leave the bait rods at home and give it a serious go.

It's otter than July

Another winter's pike fishing begins with a cold, grey, drizzly dawn. The water's clear but there's a gentle flow, a slight ripple and prey fish topping for a fly hatch.

Bream anglers are having a post mortem after a biteless night session a few swims downstream. There was a shoal here but it seems to have decamped elsewhere. One look at the water tells you that, with no colour caused by the silt a shoal of grazing slabs disturbs as they root around on the bottom.

This doesn't bother me too much - I'm sure the pike follow the hand-sized roach and rudd around on here, not the dustbin lids. The banks are overgrown but I can get the rods over the worst of it and crash through the rest if I need to net a fish.

I check the hooks, bait up the traces and drop one either side of the feature the prey fish are dimpling over.  I let the flow pull the braid into a slight bow to cock the bungs.

The 2/3oz Guru leads hold the floats steady, baits parked just where I want them. As I crack open an expresso, a familiar cacophony of honks and squeals sounds in the distance as skeins of geese make their final descent to the beet fields. Autumn's here, no messing.

A bung wobbles and falls flat. The line tightens and falls slack as I pick the rod up. I sweep it back over my shoulder anyway and connect with weed instead of the first pike of the season. Maybe it dropped it as it felt the rig weeding up. They do that sometimes.

I re-bait and drop it back in the same spot. Maybe that's where they are, I decide, so I reel the other rod in and pull off the slightly sorry looking sardine to replace it with something more solid that will withstand a longer chuck.

I sling the sardine in the margins, watching it sink down onto the weed. Then the weed moves as a pike of three or four pounds shoots out, grabs it and does a U-turn in a swirl. Oh well, at least I've seen one.

A run-less hour passes, before there's a swirl that sends the prey fish flying in all directions off the reeds on  the far side. Bigger lead and I could get over there, I think as I debate which rod to reel in and change to a 2oz bomb.

Then a head appears. Then a long shape sets off along the surface - another first of the season. I grab the camera out of my rucker and stand to get a better shot, as the otter heads off along the bank.

The picture's pulled up and sharpened a bit in GIMP but you can see what it is - as in not a mink.

I saw one here last season too - not to mention spraints and smashed swan mussel shells elsewhere on the same part of the system. This time around, the water just goes dead. The prey fish stop topping and if you hadn't been here half an hour earlier, you wouldn't think there was a fish in this part of the river.

It's lunchtime. The sun's broken through and the day's doing its best to warm up. A hobby hurtles up and down the reeds as I pack the rods down. I'm sweating in my bunny suit by the time I get back to the car.

Where to go pike fishing in the Fens

Tomorrow's the big day. Time to get up and at 'em again. Where's the obvious question. One of the rivers looks in fine fettle - even though I haven't caught much to write home about on there for a few seasons now.

One stretch in particular seems to be producing good nets of roach, so this might be the bit to start on for the first few hours at least. I know the swims which did a few pike at the start of last autumn, while I was twiddling my thumbs on a different stretch a couple of miles away.

This was because I headed for the areas where bream were shoaled up. On one of the feeder rivers bream shoals were the key to finding the bigger pike a few winters back. This time around I'm going to steer clear of the bream areas and concentrate on fishing where people are catching roach.

One or two drains elsewhere in the system look a good bet. The main reason for this is they're not covered in azolla because they've been running them off. The water's high but clear, meaning there's a lot more weed in them. One of my favourite areas is barely fishable, but the growth's sparser on others.

You can fish in a fair bit of weed as long as you float fish and let the baits sit once you've tightened up to the lead.

There's also that new water, with as-yet unknown potential. So one way and another, it's back to the usual dilemma of where to make a start. Early days, so no big drama if I end up giving two or three waters a quick hit tomorrow.

I'll also have a lure rod with me. If I had any sense I'd probably leave the bait rods at home and go for a wander with lures. But bait fishing's my comfort zone, despite my ambition to catch my first twenty on a lure this season.

Just going pike fishing again feels good, as I pack my kit; checking and double-checking I haven't forgotten some essential item or other. This is it. So stay tune between now and March 14, because who knows what's going to happen out there in the big bayou this winter.

+++Click here for a review of last season's pike fishing in the Fens.