Another Big Girl Makes My Day!
Fishing an area of the lake that hadn’t been fished since
November, I set up the rods at varied depths from 12ft just off the shelf to a
deeper channel of the lake which I estimated to be around 15/16ft. Instantly
there was interest with the leger rod in the deeper channel screaming off to
the left hand side of the swim, a fish of around 10lb was soon landed and
returned. This morning feeding spell was very short and soon slowed as late
morning arrived. The wind had been pushing from left to right in the swim for
the majority of the morning, though without warning it switched to blow
straight into the swim. This seemed to slow the feeding dramatically. The next
interest I received was from the middle rod, the 20g bob float ducked under and
started to move away, due to the runs being finiky early on I allowed the run
to last a couple more seconds than I usually would. Typically this backfired
and as I wound down and struck…I felt nothing, the fish had spat the hooks!
Casting the rods out to the same areas the only change I had
made was to inject herring oil into either the sardine or herring that was
mounted on size 4 trebles. The aim of this was to create an instant reaction
from nearby fish that would be attracted to the oozing of natural oils. The
reaction I had hoped for was soon proven and once again the leger rod in the
deeper channel received the take. A fish slightly smaller than the first was
soon landed, unhooked and returned.
Sitting back under the brolley, I left the baits for a
good 2 hours 30min, twitching them around 1ft every 45min. At around 3:45pm the
bob float slowly moved away out of sight, I instantly picked up the rod and set
the hooks into a heavy fish, after an initial run the fish was under control
and came to the surface very quickly. The weight of the fish was soon evident as i tried to turn her to guide her over the net. Eventually netting the fish, she was placed on the mat at this point
I realised that despite not being a long fish her width was huge! Whilst
unhooking her she made several gaping ‘yawns’ which revealed the enormous size
of her mouth. (After seeing this I don’t think I will worry about size 4
trebles being too large again…a whole herring could have easily fitted in her
mouth sideways!) After a few quick photographs, she tipped the scales to 26.01
and another new PB (my second pike PB this season and my third ‘predator’ PB
this season).
I recovered her in the edge, admiring her colourful back markings and she soon glided back along the lake bed disappearing into the deeper water.
As the sun dropped the light levels decreased though the
full moon deceived and slowed this process.
There were no more indications of
another feeding spell and I called it a day!
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