Good Things Come To Those That Wait

Thursday a weather warning had been issued for fog on Friday. As it was it wasn't too bad, more like mist. The temperature, though, had plummeted overnight and the track to the parking spot was full of frozen puddles. The grass in the field was white and crispy. The riverbank was nice and solid making the swims easily accessible. The temperature made my cunning plan of tossing a lure into some likely looking swims, as I wandered up to the swims I intended to deadbait in, rather unpleasant. The spray off the wet braid on the baitcaster quickly made my fingers a tad numb. I abandoned the idea after three swims and headed to the swims I intended to fish.

After a bit of plumbing about I tossed a paternostered sardine over the firsts shelf behind an overhanging willow. The float failed to settle properly, assuming I'd landed on a snag I started to wind in. Sure enough there was a dead weight on the end. This changed into a small jack as it came to the surface. Just before  it broke surface it let go of the bait and hung, seemingly confused, just under the surface. As I went to swing the bait back in it fell off spooking the jack. Whether the jack got the sardine as it fell through the slightly mucky water I don't know.

By now the day was starting to warm up. The sun had appeared above the horizon causing it to be warm enough to remove the big coat. I gave each swim forty five minutes to an hour. The sardine paternoster just over the shelf and a float ledgered lamprey section a quarter to a third of the way across the river. Before I moved from each swim I had a few casts about with a lure. This resulted in one follow from a very small jack just after lunch with no sign of anything else. Come three o'clock the sun had disappeared below the horizon and it was back on with the big coat.  I decided to have a go in one last swim while I had a cuppa and KitKat. just as I settled back expecting a blank the lamprey float was away. The ground had started to defrost so was now rather greasy which meant I got down to the rod rather quickly, but had to take care moving along the bank. The fight was a short dour affair with one bit of acrobatics at the end. A rather nice pike of 17lb 14oz and 97cm in length. The short fight meant my cuppa hadn't got cold.

I gave it another thirty minutes before calling it a day. This was not a swim for wandering about by torch light. Besides a high double from a river isn't a bad fish at all and made up for the last few blanks. I'm actually surprised I got a video of the action as this action cam isn't to fond of the cold and I'd also knocked the camera so it wasn't pointing quite where I'd intended.

 

I've off sixteen days off over Christmas, so should get a few sessions in between dealing with the usual family Christmassy stuff.