More winter sessions...

We have had a few outings to a local stillwater that we know is not heavily pressured on the pike fishing front.

Myself and Martin had a great day at the end of January with Martin taking four fish to 9lbs and myself just a small jack - all to deadbaits.

Martin caught a fish of around 3lb with a very unusual eye abnormality - I have never seen anything like this on a pike before:

My friend Dave had a cracking session last week taking four nice pike and our first double from the water weighing in at 12lb 4oz although we were both convinced it would go more like 14-15lb, it had a very large head (and belly) for a fish of this weight!

Earlier in the day Dave was playing in a small pike and, as I was lowering the landing net to help land the fish, a double-figure pike entered the scene which sent the the smaller fish diving for cover.

The following picture shows the result of the attack on the hapless fish, the gash on the upper left was from a previous attack as it had started to heal, the one towards the tail had just happened as Dave was landing the fish:

My only run came via a small jack which was promptly assaulted by a much bigger pike causing my baitrunner drag to scream as the jack dived for the cover of the reed beds. The jack had not had a chance to properly take my bait so the hooks came flying out moments after the event.

So it looks like there could be some sizable pike in this water, there are certainly some very hungry ones at least. All we need now are some jack-pike deadbaits!!

Anyway, although I blanked on this session I still got to enjoy the local cuisine :)