I Wonder What Happened Today

Yesterday I spent a while carefully making up a selection of pike traces, to replace the rather crinkly ones left from last season. Sadly the pike,today, were not impressed with my efforts. The venue today was another local pond, this one though hadn't been as badly effected by the hot dry summer as the previous one. I'd chosen a peg that provided access to a nice selection of pikey looking swims, sunken trees, edges of dying lily beds, a cut through, etc. There were even signs of predator activity as I set up, in the shape of scattering fish. Although the little pike causing the panic wasn't much bigger than the roach is putting on. Wobbled, drifted, static, popped up, nothing induced a run.

At lunch time I was joined by a friend I don't often get to fish with, due to our work patterns. While he wandered round the pound dropping small roach or sprats under overhanging branches or near tree roots, a favoured method of his that usually results in the odd jack or two. I moved a few yards , to the other side of a large tree which gave me access to another large are of the pond and several pikey looking features.. Around three O'clock my friend returned, water licked. For the last hour he chucked a couple of dead baits in to the middle of nowhere. A tactic with a remarkable success rate, but not today.

With the arrival of rain and the impending darkness we headed home and thence to the local of a couple of pints and the formulation of excuses for the blank.