Weekend on the Navigation

 Originally I'd planned on a spot of floodwater barbel fishing over the weekend, but I had my family taxi duties on Saturday then I was reminded by a friend we were going to chuck some pike lures around in the navigation. The barbel would have to wait. As I had a bit of time between taxi duties I took a lure rod with me for a bit of a fling about. The canal was pushing through with a lot of rubbish and the likes been pushed along as well. The river was just under the top of the flood banks which would have had the locals worrying as three years ago it overtopped them and made a right mess of houses and businesses.

 

I had a couple of hours flinging lures about on the navigation which looked in remarkably good order considering. I'd expected water from the river to be pushed into it to provide a bit of relief to the flood banks. Despite my best efforts I only managed to attract one pike which followed the lure to within three foot of the bank then sat there seeming hypnotised as I pulled the lure back and forth in front of it. As I lifted the lure from the water it shot away never to be seen again. One angler had had a pike on fly and another a decent perch but that seemed to be it.

Sunday the navigation had dropped six inches and was pushing through a bit. There was also a tad more colour to the water. This time I took two rods. I was going to concentrate on perch but had the pike rod with me in case they decided to feed. My mate just had his pike rod. While I managed some dozen or so little perch on our two mile wander my mate had nothing. Not even a follow. Back at the car he managed to winkle out a couple of little perch on my rod to avoid a blank. We moved spots to a section where we'd both had pike in the past but we again failed to elicit any response. By now there navigation was pulling through again. A couple of other lure anglers we spoke to had had no luck either. My mate and I decided that the pub may be a good idea.

 
I had been thinking that my lure chucking skills, especially for pike, had deserted me, but as nearly everybody else seems to be failing at the moment I feel a bit better about them. Still plenty of season left to prove they're still with me.