It's Not Getting Any Better

Back on the pike hunt I headed to a stretch well above the city and one I've not fished for years. It's one of those stretches that contains some big pike, allegedly, but they rarely get caught.  Unless you talk to the match anglers, who claim to have lost every other fish to a huge pike. I spent 30-40 minutes in half a dozen swims in the morning for not a lot. The most excitement was when laziness in the last swim had me check the depth with out removing the trace. I'd cast straight into snags. Pulling the rig hoping to bend the hooks resulted in the swivel breaking. First failure have had in a swivel for a long time. I spent the afternoon in the same swim hoping to intercept a passing pike. This didn't work either.

Just after lunch I talked to a local who'd fished the stretch a dozen times this year for two small jack. He reckoned it was the worst he'd known it. He normally only blanked ever other session. previous years. At the car park at the end of the day two other pike anglers were there and had blanked as well and were equally baffled by the lack of pike.