Does my bung look big in this..?

Dead simple gravel pit rig for deadbaiting - cross-lock to attach trace, buffer bead, ET "river float" (no idea why they're called that, as they're just as good on drains and stillwaters...), bead and stop knot. Four or five swan shot on the trace, which cock the float as the wind blows a bow into the line.

A short-lived pike feeding frenzy on the pit

Nothing like a 50mph gale to focus your thoughts when it comes to where to fish. I toy with the idea of trying some new pits, but decide to try some old ones instead as the car sways in the wind tearing across the marshes.

I'm in no hurry to get out, thinking I'd let the storm that lashed the coast last night blow itself out first. By the time I get to the water, the skies are clearing and the wind's starting to die down.

The plan's a simple one - blast a couple out as far as I can heave them and twitch them back towards me, with a sneaky one down the margins. The first one's off as I'm fiddling with the rests on the second rod to keep the line out of the alders which line the banks.

I pull into a feisty little jouble - not quite a jack, not quite a double - that tears up and down in the clear water until I get the net under it. The hooks are out in a snick and as I drop it on the mat for a picture, the other rod goes.

Back goes one, out comes another slightly smaller pike which stays on despite the fact it's only attached via one point of the bottom hook.

Baits out again and the bluey down the margins trundles off in under a minute. I pick the rod up and pull into another jack. As I'm sinking the net under it, the other one goes. I drop net and fish in the margins and hook into what's obviously a much bigger fish which comes off inexplicably on the way in.

Goodness me, what rotten luck, I say. Or words to that effect. The jack's managed to get snarled up in the net, leaving me with a mess of trebles and mesh to sort out once I've dropped it back.

Seven or eight seasons back, I shared an incredible haul of 30-odd pike in this swim. I wonder if I'm on for something on a par with that today, so I take my time getting everything sorted, baits, spare traces and one or two other bits of kit to hand after I rebait the rods and sling 'em out again.

But the pike have got other ideas and the swim just dies on its feet. Common sense says move round the pit and see if I can find a few more. But it's turned into a glorious afternoon. And I wonder if it's gone quiet because a big fish has moved in, attracted by the jacks' thrashings.

As the last of the sun makes the birches shine like silver on the other bank, I wish I'd moved. As the light fades, the margin rod's away and the big pike that's taunted me through an afternoon's pipe dream turns out to be a six pounder, as the full moon rises over the pit.

Sump thing sure has changed

The first run comes minutes after I get the last rod in. A screaming take from a 3lbs jack. As I drop it back, another one's off. 

A plan was forming, as I loaded up the car. I'd try a pit I haven't fished seriously in years, where a stretch of bank offers a gentle increase in depths from a couple of feet to the deepest part of the water.

The idea was start in the shallows and move the rods into deeper water until I found the pike. This lasted until I got out there and found most of the swims were too overgrown with alder to fish.

Water levels were down to the lowest I'd ever seen them too, with barely a trickle of water through the outfall. This meant there was enough exposed bank on a corner which was usually underwater to get the rods out over the reed fringe, so I decided to give it a go there.

I like corner swims, because you can cover a lot of water. I put one up the margins on either side of me, in five or six feet of water,  and one out into the deeper hole. First the right-hander goes, followed by one cast along a reed line as I'm returning the first fish.

Two jacks becomes three almost as soon as I get the rod along the reed line back out. I recast and one takes it almost as soon as it hits the water, but comes off as I bend into it. I miss two further runs, one after another.

All the action's on the reed line. Or rather it was, as the swim dies on me.  Six runs in an hour adds up to a pack of jacks. This is the part of the pit where you used to find the bigger pike in the winter.

For the reed-fringed corner hides a secret in the shape of the sump - an area dug down to collect the water while the pit was being excavated. When it gets really cold, this is where the pike get to.

But it's not really cold today. It's as mild as anything. The westerly's lost its wrath overnight and it must be 10 degrees by 10am. There's a mackerel sky forming, like I haven't seen in years.

When I twitch a bait, it fouls. I reel in and find it covered in Canadian pondweed. Bright green Canadian pondweed - not the black, rotting stuff you sometimes collect on your hooks on gravel pits in the middle of winter.

The alder bushes behind me are in bud. When the next fish takes the bait, the penny drops. I sweep the rod back and find something slightly larger on the end. Not quite a jack, not quite a double - a jouble maybe.

It's one of the most vividly-marked pike I've seen in ages, so I snap a quick picture or two. I'm struck by the line of scales behind its eyes. This is no young eight pounder. I'm guessing it's a slower-growing male pike, few of which ever get to weigh over double figures.

This is so that during spawning, when they swim eye to eye with the female, their milt reaches the eggs as she sheds them. Male pike usually gather before the females arrive in the areas where they spawn.

I return it and when I get another run half an hour or so later, it's the same fish. Up the road on the Norfolk coast, there are daffodils already in bloom. An idea forms as I slip it back for the second time - is the weather now so out of kilter that the male pike on this pit are already gathering ready to spawn.