Twig Fish Heaven

'Twas  a rather warm and sunny day today and rather nice to be sat by a river. Probably not the best conditions for pike fishing, but still. I headed for a well known pike hotspot. The problem with these places is that everybody tells me how great they are but I never seem to do well at them. Another couple of anglers were there when I arrived. They were chucking feeders about. I settled in the middle of three likely looking spots. As I setup I noticed a couple of otter prints in the mud, but more worryingly the freshly sprouted seedling of the Himalayan Balsam.

A ledgered roach was cast to the far bank and a float paternostered trout dropped alongside the dying vegetation on the nearside. The feeder chuckers seemed to be catching bits regularly. I moved the baits about every three quarters of an hour or so. After three moves I had a cuppa which did the magic. The float trundled away and I was in. Nothing big then everything went solid. Then it started moving slowly towards me, something very heavy.  Eventually a large waterlogged branch and a little jack surfaced. I managed to grab the end of the branch and pull it in. Strangely the little jack didn't move in the same direction as the branch. It had clearly come adrift and slowly sank away. Oh well, at least they were feeding. Out went another trout while I finished my cuppa.

After my cuppa I moved the paternostered trout into the slack caused by the over hanging tree. The ledgered roach was tossed out to a far bank feature. I didn't have long to wait before the dropback clunked onto the bankstick. This felt a lot bigger than the first fish and moved steadily upstream hugging the far bank. A bit more pressure and it gave up and came in like a dead weight. As it got closer to me I tried lifting it off the bottom which seemed to wake it up. It plummeted to the river bed causing a huge cloud of bubbles to rise. Everything went very heavy again. A good heave created even more bubbles. I was snagged again. Bigger and heavier then the previous branch I eventually got the seven foot monster to the surface sans fish. A bit more heave and it was on the bank.

I tried the float rig in the entrance to the side stream but only seemed to snag more, considerably smaller twigs. By lunch time I'd had enough of this and moved back to the original swim and decided to sit it out in there. Despite moving the baits about and trying others like a sardine and eel section nothing much more happened. I tried flinging a few lures about for an hour or so but this achieved nothing apart from a few more twigs. The magic hour at dusk produced nothing either. Hooked two lost two isn't the best result but it does show I must have been doing something right.