The Final Count Down - Final Session

 For my final session of the river season I went down to a local river which was at a very nice height for pike fishing. Plenty of slacks to fish. I fished four of them with float-fished deadbaits. Herring, sardine, and roach were used. None of which were attractive to the pike. Like most last sessions it was a bit of an anticlimax.

Not the best of pike seasons at all. All jacks not even a double. The stats are as follows.   Venue Technique Number of Fish River Deadbait 0 Stillwater Deadbait 0 Stillwater Deadbait 3 River Deadbait 2 Canal Lure 0 River Deadbait 2 Canal Lure 1 Stillwater Deadbait 0 Canal Lure 1 Canal Lure 0 Canal Deadbait 0 Stillwater Deadbait 2 Canal Lure 0 River Deadbait 0 Canal Lure 1 Stillwater Deadbait 0 Stillwater Deadbait 1 River Deadbait 0 River Deadbait 3 River Deadbait 1 River Deadbait 1 Canal Lure 2 Stillwater Deadbait 1 Stillwater Deadbait 0 Stillwater Deadbait 2 Stillwater Deadbait 1 Stillwater Deadbait 0 River Lure 5 River Deadbait 0 Number of Trips 29 Number of Fish 29 Average Per Session 1.00

The Final Count Down - Penultimate Session

For the penultimate session of the season I went down to a local canalised river with a chap that had been getting a few jacks out on lures. Being rather shallow we thought the bright, but welcome, sunshine may cause problems. I didn't get off to a great start when a bit of clumsiness saw me break the heavier of my rods just below the tip ring. The lighter of the two would have to cope. We weren't chucking big lures about anyway and it had managed pike to double figures in the past. I'd also forgotten to put a larger landing net head in the car so would have to struggle with the perch sized head.

 

 

My mate was into a little jack second cast. A lively little beast that took a bit of time to land on his light gear. My first take resulted in the tail going missing from my lure. I replaced it with the first rigged lure I found in the box and had another take as the lure dropped to the bottom. Again the tail was bitten off. A rather frustrating start. Meanwhile my mate had taken a trout, his first from this little river.

We then had a rather quiet spell as we made our way up river. A change from more natural colours to a rather garish yellow/green lure seemed to wake them up. With two coming in quick succession.  The little net coped perfectly well with them. My mate had three of similar size on a firetiger pattern.All around the 50-60cm mark and very lively. 

We then had another quiet spell before I latched on to another very close to the bank which managed to get under a sunken branch. By walking upstream I was able to get it out form underneath and into the net. While it had been stuck under the branch it had chewed the lure to death. What was left was replaced with a blue/silver pulse tail that fell out of the box as I opened it. This proved just as effective as it produced another jack a few yards further on. 

We were now four all on the pike front. Again things went quiet for me but my mate had two more before I latched on to my fifth of the day. Which had a well healed scar in one side.

That proved to be it for the day. Six Five to my mate, plus a trout. One surprising thing was the lack of chub. It was his first lure session on here with out one. The five jacks I caught meant that for the first time this pike season I had an average of more than one pike per session, just. One more session to go before the end of the season.

The Final Count Down

 Despite there been very few days left of the river season and the rivers at a reasonable height I didn't fancy battling the very muddy riverbanks. I therefore took myself down to the local estate lake. I was not best pleased to find little poked into the brambles by my chosen peg. Especially as I'd recently done a littler pick around the lake. 

The first baits out of the bag were a herring and a roach. Out they went under the usual float rigs. Twenty minutes later the roach was grabbed and the float moved away. Like the previous occasions I'd been here the fish came adrift half way back. I wasn't too bothered as on the previous occasions it was the third run that produced a fish, so two more to go. 

The replacement bait was a smelt. I also chopped the head of the herring to get more scent into the water. Baits were moved, drifted, popped up, etc, but nowt else took a fancy to them. This didn't do my average for the season any good. Still I had could fit in two more trips before the end of the season.