Friday I decided to pay my first visit of the season to the dreaded clay pit, a place I love and loathe in equal measures. Halfway down the path I noticed blood on my right hand. I've no idea how I cut myself. Most of the blood was on the middle finger, but it was the index finger I'd cut. When I got to the water the sun put in an appearance an mad to place look quit pleasant. It can look I right miserable place in winter.
Normally I us small baits such as sprats or smelt here, but this time I decided on one small bait, a smelt, and one big bait, half a mackerel. The smelt was placed beside a fallen tree on the top of the shelf an the mackerel at the edge of the dead and dying lilies. The head of the mackerel was chopped up and chucked about the general area I intended to fish. After half an hour I got my first run on the mackerel which I missed, along with the second and third. There was only very slight damage to the bait. I then got a run on the smelt which I again missed. The bait went back out as it was only slightly damaged. The next run was also to the smelt, but I hooked something, or thought I did. As it came up to the surface a little jack which had hold of the head end let go. I had three more encounters like this until I ended up with just half a smelt. After a lull I had another run on the mackerel. Again a similar sized jack had hold of it, but well away from the hooks and let go as it got to the surface. The next run was from a slightly larger fish which put up quite a spirited fight before letting go of the bait. There then followed any lull.
I did contemplate moving the hooks further up the bait, but don't really like the close to the head end as it tends to result in deep hooked fish, especially when they get over the 6-8lb mark. Just after three, as I was boiling water for a brew, the smelt moved away and this time I managed to hook the little horror. This one, just hooked in the front of the mouth, was probably the smallest one I'd seen. I didn't get another run after that.
The fact that little jacks appear to have eyes bigger than their bellies probably accounts for more dropped runs than anything else. A some what entertaining, but frustrating day. I do know there are bigger pike in here. I've seen a couple of pictures of 4-5lb bream that were grabbed on there way in and the distance between the teeth marks shows it wasn't little jacks that had grabbed them. At least I didn't blank though, unlike my last few sorties here.
With the rivers still up down and all over the place, it was back to the gravel pit for another spot of piking. Due to a couple of errands it was well into Thursday morning before I arrived. As sprat hadn't been too successful I decide on fishing sardine near the tree roots and a smelt out towards the middle, both under floats. The pit is slowly filling, but tree roots that are normally under water are stll high and dry.
I didn't have to wait long for the first run, which resulted in a little slightly tatty jack. It put up quite a spirited fight. When released it tuned and shot straight back to the bank, beaching itself. When turned round and released again it swam away slowly. The second shower of the day arrived not long after along with a fall of leaves and branches which was the reason I'd put my brolly up in the first place. I'd been hit a couple of times by small branches and had leaves in my cup of tea. Another angler arrived around one for a spot of maggot drowning, but failed to get a bite.
A couple of times fish scattered near the centre of the pit and also over to my right. In fact there seemed to be quite a bit of pike activity to my right, but it's a tackle grave yard and I would have spent a lot of time hauling branches out. The next run came as the light was fading, on the nearside smelt. A considerably heavy fish that hugged to bottom all the way to the net, causing trials of bubbles as it moved about. A remarkably light fish, at 7lb 6oz, for it's size. By the time I'd sorted it it was pitch dark so time to go.
While contemplating the fact that I'd not seen the robin today it also occurred to me that I'd not seen the kingfishers on any of my recent trips either. Given the size of the fish the predators were scattering there's no shortage of food for them. Nor is there a shortage of diving platforms either.
I'm not really sure why I thought I needed an action cam, but Aldi were selling this one for £50 which seemed o have a decent spec and most everything I've bought from there has been quite all right, so I took the plunge. I have a theory about devices like this - if I have to read the manual to carry out it's basic function then there's something wrong and it's not fit for purpose. Having got it out of it's box I shoved a memory card in (it's not supplied with one and won't work with out one) and switched it on. It protest about incorrect format of the SD card so I formatted as requested, poked a few buttons, swung it round the room and had my first video. Plugging a USB cable in it asked if I wanted charge mode or storage mode. I assumed storage mode so I could download it to the computer which worked fine. The one thing I didn't do, which I normally do with this sort of device, is reset it to factory mode. This showed when I looked at the video file which seemed to be quite huge for ten seconds of video. The video had been record at some ludicrously fast frame rate which my video editor struggled with. Factory rest set it to 4k 60fps, but I lowered it to 1080p 60fps even though I have screens capable of displaying 4k I reckon most people would view anything I published at 1080p or lower. The other thing I noticed, which worried me a bit, was the video wasn't as sharp as I'd expected. It was after I'd removed the protective film from the lens. It comes in a case with a myriad of plastic bits for attaching to all sorts of things, but no bank stick adapter which isn't really surprising. Having charged it up I put it in it's waterproof case and put it in the sink to see if it was really waterproof. It was. I eventually found the tripod adapter and my spare bank stick adapter so I could mount it on the end of a landing net pole. While fishing a couple of days later I had a poke around the tree roots with it and tried the good old underwater fish release. These things are done blind as WiFi doesn't work under water so the remote viewing app for the phone won't work. I was surprise by the the images it got given the lack of clarity in the water. I did have it pointing the wrong way at one point and thought it wasn't working as all I got was a brown blur and not the tree roots. Although on little screens things often look better than the really are, they images were quite good on the computer screen at home. One problem though, everything was upside down. I'd managed to knock the rotate setting off probably because I kept prodding the screen and not the two buttons on the side when I was looking at the settings, My video editor managed to rotate it and the results can be seen below. Overall my initial impressions of the camera are quite good, the biggest learning curve is going to be editing.
I know I'm rather late to this action cam lark and a lot of you will know these things already, but I'm going to document my trials and tribulations with it in the hope that it will be of use to somebody even if that's just me.
The weather forecast for Friday was dull and overcast with occasional showers and the odd bit of sunshine, which was remarkably accurate as at sat at the side of the gravel pit not sure whether to put the brolly up or not. The pike I was after were not playing ball though. One single run, which I suspect was a liner as the sardine came back unmarked. The swim I'd chosen gave access to several features, such as an old weed bed, tree roots and a plateau that often produces a biggy. Not today though. At least there was no Canada Geese making a racket. The high/low point of the day was trying to convince someone that the pheasant sat in a tree was in fact a pheasant. He seemed to believe that as ground nesting birds they didn't roost in trees. What he'd have made of a second one arriving just after he left I don't know.
A bit of a disappointing day as this is one of the few fisheries that I rarely blank at. I'm going to blame the variable weather and the low water levels for the blank. The forth coming rain isn't going to do the river levels any good so it looks like it will be a while before I get to the rivers.
What was supposed to be a quiet day in the country, by an old estate lake chasing pike, was somewhat ruined by the Canada gooses making an unholy racket. Along with pheasants they are one of the few birds that make crows sound like song birds. When there's a couple of dozen of them going at it you could do with ear protectors. They did move away from near where I was fishing so it wasn't too loud later on.
My plan for today was to stick to one swim into which I scattered a handful of chopped up sprats and some dead maggots. A sardine was lobbed over to the bottom of the drop off near the island, eventually. While I was plumbing the depth I landed the rig exactly where I wanted it four times. It took half a dozen casts to land the sardine in the right place under the trees. I've found in the past if the bait is too far from the edge of the drop off you don't get a touch. The sprat rig started half way between me and the island just touching the bottom so the wind and natural drift in the water inched it along.
After a couple of hours I got my first run, on the sprat, a feisty little 68cm jack. This gave me the chance to use my newly acquired action cam to video one of those under water release shots you see so often. I had been poking the camera around the tree roots on the end of a landing net pole to see what was there, if anything. Not much as it turns out.
That was it for the day. I did try dropping the sprat under the near bank trees and around the dying reeds, but failed to elicit another bite. Still it was better than last time.
We've had a couple of frost now, including one particularly hard one, so there's no more excuses - out with the pike rods and down to the estate lake. Thursday I sat for several hours willing the floats to move, but nothing. I tried the ye olde sandwich and cuppa trick and going for a pee, but the day remained fishless.
Friday I went down to a local gravel pit which, surprisingly, was rather low. It had risen about 4" since summer, though it's still a couple of feet lower than I would have expected. A sprat was dropped to left by some tree roots. and a sardine out towards to centre. Halfway through the morning I got my first run. Whatever it was nicked my sardine. About half an hour later the same thing occurred again. The same thing happened a third time, but this time I retrieved a badly mauled sardine. Quite how a pike can get a bait in that state an not get hooked I don't know. What was left of it was chopped up and tossed around the tree roots.
Halfway through the afternoon I got my fourth run and this time made contact. A rather golden looking little jack around 2lbs or so, which managed to jump out of the landing net after I'd unhooked it. My fifth run resulted in a slightly marked sardine which went out again. The sixth run had me latched into something a bit bigger. After a a bit of a struggle it was safely in the net. Estimated by another angler and myself at 7-8lb it turned out to be exactly 10lbs. A quick photo and release, it sat in the leaves in the margins for a couple of minutes before swimming away. As it was now about to get dark I packed up on a high and a bit miffed with the missed runs.
Having commented on Crazy Hooks Youtube channel about the problem of missed runs and how the 'experts' rarely mention it, couldn't believe this was how I was starting my pike campaign. Still it all turned out well in the end with my first double of the season. Lets hope there's more to come.
Driving through the torrential drizzle, having looked at the dire forecast, I was beginning to wonder weather Friday's fishing trip was a good idea. Especially when I stopped for a bacon butty and it tipped it down. Still I had a sneaking suspicion that the weather wasn't going to be as bad as the forecast and so it turned out. By the time I got to the river the rain had all but stopped and with in an hour it had stopped completely and didn't return until driving home. So there I sat by the river on a grey dank day. A large piece of luncheon meat in a crease half way across and a worm upstream by an overhanging tree. There they sat for the rest of the day untouched apart from recasting when the build up of debris started to drag the baits downstream. The wildlife was sadly lacking as well. A raptor flow along the hedge again. The odd sedge fluttered past and a shield bug wandered across the tub of worms. The sheep stopped by to have a look at me and a Heron flow past just before I left.
A short natter with the bailiff confirmed my worst suspicions, very little had come out of the river in the last few days. The freezer is now full of dead fish and I've rooted out the hooks, wire and swivels for making up pike traces and will be giving the rest of the kit a bit of a polish ready for next week.
