Not A Bad Day On The Derwent

After last week's blank on The Derwent, when everybody else seemed to have caught before I got to the water, I got there at first light on Friday. The weather forecast on Thursday was for a foggy morning and overcast day. Foggy I don't like, but overcast is supposedly good piking weather. Both these had altered by the time I awoke in the morning. The fog was non-existent which was a boon as the drive involves little used single track lanes, of the type with vegetation along the middle.  The light was just beginning to show when I got there, which made wandering along the muddy track to the river a tad easier. My plan had been to wander up o he farthest swim and work my my way back towards he car. Saving a long walk at the end of the day. This fell apart a I past the swim where he jack attacked the float last time. As I approached a few small fish scattered and the stripey tail of a pike beckoned me.

 

You can't really ignore an actively feeding fish, so I rigged up a small roach head first and stopped the float around three foot. With just a 2SSG on the line it would allow the fish to flutter about in the current with the float held back. With a cuppa in hand I sat back and waited. After waiting twenty minutes with no action I set up the lure rod with a River Roach lure. This failed as well. Just as I started to get ready to move fish scattered again. I gave the lure rod another go. Second cast a jack with an oversized tail grabbed the lure under the rod tip, somersaulted into the air and spat the hooks out. Oh well, on with the original plan.

I spent the next couple of hours avoiding electric fences and dropping roach or sardine deadbaits into likely looking spots. I successfully avoided both the electric fence and the pike. Most of the swims were the classic slacks behind trees type, but thinking back most of the pike of any size I've had from The Derwent have come from pacey water, often mid-river. The next swim I stopped at had a bit of pace and was alongside some nice vegetation. The roach was dropped into a gap just upstream and the sardine dropped alongside the vegetation down stream. I'd just got elevenses sorted when the down stream float bobbed about and a little jack, of 61cm, had attached itself to the hooks.

Having completed my elevenses I had a chuck round with a few lures, in this swim and two adjacent ones. Personally I prefer jerk baits and crank baits to swim baits and shads, but I'd only brought the later two with me. Mainly to force me to use them and get used to them. The one thing that had me lacking confidence was that I'd not put any rattles in them and nor were there any in the lure box. After 45 minutes of thrashing the water  to a foam with nothing to show I returned to my original swim and dropped the sardine in upstream near the vegetation, but out in he current. About the only lure I'd not tried was a Fox shad, in a glittery silver. Not only that but it had a rattle in it's tail that I'd not noticed. As I brought it back along the edge of the vegetation it felt like it had snagged so I gave it a bit of a heave. Definitely lots of weed on the hooks, or maybe not as the snag continued upstream. After a brief but intense fight The beast was in the net. Given the size of the ish I thought I'd finally cracked to 20lb mark for a pike on lure. Despite being 113cm long the fish weighed in at 18lb 15oz, a typical long lean river fish. Three or four more meals an it'll be over the twenty mark, so I'll have to pop down again later and catch it.

By now it felt like lunch time so I put the two bait rods back out while I prepared and ate lunch. The pike were considerate enough not to disturb me.  My intention was to start moving back towards the car after lunch, but the sun was out and it was a rather pleasant day in an open swim, so I decided to give it a bit longer. I gave it another half hour before having another chuck with the lure rod. With the same lure and in the same place I got a similar mushy take. This time though I struck, just as the action cam gave a couple of bleeps to tell me the battery was flat and it was shutting down. This was a pity as the fight was rather spectacular with lots of acrobatics. A fish of  just over a metre, weighing in at 16lb 9oz. It had one rather blood shot eye which I think it did when it crashed into the bankside vegetation after a rather high somersault. It got it's revenge though. As I was unhooking it one of the trebles got stuck in the end of a finger. I had to push my hand in through the gill cover further than I liked to reach the hook. Just as I got the hook out it writhed about, shredding the sides of two of my fingers. It got me back again this morning when I went to the shops and put some alcohol gel on my hands. If you want to find cuts in your hands alcohol gel so finds them 

Two good doubles from the same swim made me feel I was pushing my look, so I made the decision to move once the fish was rested.  While I waited I swapped the camera battery out. As I completed this the upstream float, which I'd left in while lure fishing, shot away and I was in to another good fish. The fish in the net was remarkably docile while I netted the other, thankfully. Nearly the same weight as the first double at 18ln 7oz, but shorter at 105cm. Three good doubles from the same swim was definitely pushing my luck, but I put both dead bait rods out again. I gave it 15mins before heading back towards the car.

There were two swims I really wanted to try on the way back. If only to see how snaggy they were. Neither looked to be fished and were possibly only visible in winter when the leaves have come off the trees. They were both behind fallen trees and may well be good perch swims. A plumb round showed them to be clear of snags in the slack water. Sometimes these sort of swims end up with large amounts of flood debris in them which is the reason they don't get fished. Neither produced anything in the fading light, but have been noted for further exploration, maybe with dropshot or worms for perch.

 

Four pike from the same swim all caught in bright sunshine in the middle of the day. Pike, like all fish, just don't read the rule book. Last week they seemed to feed early morning. I think the thing with pike is that you really need to be there all day and just can't rely on what happened last time. I have a few days off next week so a bit more river piking will be the order of the day. Can I get a twenty on lure?

 

Can I Lick Your Float

Due to family illnesses, of the non COVID variety,  I haven't been able to fish as often lately. With Saturday of, though, I was able to get out. Following a conversation on Friday I decide to head to where they'd been fishing. They'd had some nice catches of roach on Wednesday. One lad had 17lb and the other two had bags of 12lb of roach. All three had also had attention from pike as well.

Standard float ledger rigs were used. One rigged with a sardine and one a roach. I fished six classic pike swims, nice slow water behind trees, for about 30-40 minutes each with nothing to show. In the seventh swim I changed the sorry looking sardine for a piece of lamprey. After half an hour a small jack swam in close to the bank. In an attempt to have a blank saver I moved the roach into the area.

It sat there for quite a while being ignored by the jack. I wound it in slowly so as to have it suspended in the water. The jack had other ideas and attacked the float instead. I took the weight off and lowered the stop knot so the bait was about two foot deep and allowed it to drift about in the little eddy.  Again the jack floated up to have a look at the float, before a considerably large pike shot in and nearly hit the bank. Neither fish showed any interest in the roach though.

 

The pike had been feeding elsewhere. A couple of anglers that came past reported a 15, 12 and a jack. They showed me pictures and the 15 was a big fish with a large head that looked like it could easily make 20. The 12 was a more normal looking long thin river type pike.

First Cast Jinx

With the local river fining down and not too many leafs drifting down it I decided to give it a go with light lures. Despite the fact this little river is only 15 minutes walk from the house I haven't fished it much in recent years.  Armed with the minimum of kit I was soon sliding about on the very muddy bank.

 

I clipped on a small Fire Tiger 4Play that seems quite popular with both perch and jack pike.I tossed it out just to check it was running properly as I'd replaced the hooks on it. All looked good so I sped it up a bit and was shocked when a reasonable looking perch hit it right under the rod tip. A bit big for swinging out I had to knock the anti-reverse off to give some line in order to net it. I nice looking fish of 0.97lb. Not bad considering I'd really started fishing as such.

 

I slowly headed downstream towards the city centre with out much success apart from the odd branch and bits of weed. As I got further down the leafs started to become a problem. As it was a bit deeper here I changed to a noisier little crank bait that I've no idea what it's called. It did however, attract the attention of a jack around the 3-4lb mark. Again, it was taken right under the rod tip. With only the wire trace beyond the rod tip and standing on a bank three foot up there was some serious thrashing about before the hooks were spat out.  I continued down to the next bridge by which time it was dark. There's no dusk now, it's either light or dark.

I'd covered one mile of river for the two fish. I'll give it another go later when there are less leafs about as they made it hard work.

First Dropped Run Of The PIke Season

With the rivers still a tad high, though running off, I decided to head to a local gravel pit for a spot of pike fishing. As the pike normally feed there around lunch time and again in the evening I headed out into the fog mid-morning. The number of cars with no lights on was somewhat frightening with visibility lees than 100 yards and occasionally down to 50 yards. I arrived at the pit, with out any mishaps, to find the place empty. Despite the amount of rain recently the level was very low, a good 18" to 2' down on what would be expected to be it's normal winter level. This meant a couple of the better swims wouldn't be worth fishing as they don't produce when it's this low. I opted for a corner swim where there are two drop offs that the pike generally patrol.

Tidying fishing tackle bags is always a mistake, something always goes missing in the process. This time it was rod rest heads. A couple of appropriate sticks were pressed in to service. After a bit of plumbing about a float fished trout was  cast to the right hand drop of. I then dropped a float fished roach over the nearer left hand drop off. I thought at first I hadn't cast it far enough as the float didn't settle properly, but then it moved towards me.  A rather scruffy and skinny 67cm jack was soon to hand having put up precious little in the way of a fight. It looked like it had been rather badly handled recently. Just after I released it another angler came down. He went on to take a couple of dozen roach to a pound with out any been attacked by pike, which is most unusual.

 

Early in the afternoon the sun had burnt through the fog and made to place look quite pleasant. The float fished roach moved off, but I contacted with noting. Just as I returned it the trout moved off at quite a rate, This time I contacted with something quite solid that put up quite a fight for it's size. A nice tidy fish of 8lb 10oz. Just after this another angler dropped in who appeared to catch a few in the short time he was here.

 

That was it for the day. The expected evening feeding session failed to materialise. Taking with somebody the next day it seems that the pike have taken to feeding early morning and lunch time now. Not a bad start to the pike season. The rivers are back within their banks now and should be fishable next week.

 

Music while typing provided by: Downtown Soulville with Mr. Fine Wine