Rough Rewards

Strange and often grim weather has been the challenge of recent fishing. Sure, you can stay in and just look out of the window with dread when the winds hit home and rivers rise. But quite often, braving rough conditions seems to result in good fishing.


To be brutally honest, I think I’ve got it wrong on quite a few days this season. I’ve chickened out in the gales and sat it out with baits. But the weather has been so mild this winter, you get the feeling that the pike are often still more willing to chase than pick up a static bait.

On slow pike fishing days, I start to think Exeter Ship Canal should be renamed Exeter Shit Canal. The rumours start to spread, about cormorants and poachers and tackle shy pike. I fished for two blanks on the trot with bait, before I got restless and tried a spot of fly fishing.

The weather looked absolutely foul that morning, as I hit the water I for first light. I could just about make the fly out as it returned to my feet. I snuck into a cramped little spot and tried the margin, just a few yards along the bank. Even the margins on these ship canals can be quite deep, so it’s important to let the fly sink and not retrieve too fast.

On this occasion, I tried a nine-weight set up and the monstrous pink fly my mate Dave West Beale calls The Gay Assassin. I’ve said it before, but pink is so underrated for pike and predator flies. It really stands out in almost any conditions. In this case I also add an obscene dose of flash too, with a generous pinch of UV tinsel such as Multiflash:



Encouraged by reasonable clarity, I had only made a couple of casts when something whacked the fly. A rush and then gone. Perhaps it hadn’t felt the hook or had some sort of prejudice against pink though, because the next take was even more savage.



Four or five pounds of lean, fit pike. And so it continued for about an hour, with four other, similar sized and smaller jacks providing plenty of hits. Pete Wilkins also joined me, putting a flatwing pike streamer through the margins and getting followed by the best we saw on the day, of perhaps seven or eight pounds, that watched with a beady eye but just wouldn’t open wide.

When the weather got really foul, Pete’s camper van also came in very handy to drink coffee, have a catch up and and discuss Exeter’s FA Cup tie with Liverpool. I think you could survive the apocalypse in this vehicle, which also provides an ideal den for Rocky, a giant, hairy and delightfully dopey Alsatian.

I’ve spent too many weeks fishing solo, if at all, of late though. Writing for a living can do that to you. So it was also pleasure to speak to the Somerset Pike Anglers’ Club lads at their January meeting and catch up with so many familiar faces. That said, I had spent Monday morning feeling a bit like a pike myself, after a hospital procedure involving a camera on a long tube and my throat. They were sporting enough to release me afterwards, but it wasn’t pleasant.

Among other topics were my use of single hooks for pike, whether it comes to fly, lure or bait fishing these days. The deadbait rig has been working a treat in fact, ideally with nice soft baits such as sardine. A lot of the drains and canals in both Devon and Somerset are muddy at present, so I do also tend to groundbait. Yes, it is a little extra bother, but I think it’s worthwhile. Rather than just getting a quick run, you can almost build the swim. This is especially worthwhile where you find spots with a lot of small fish topping, and you fancy there might be several pike. I use nothing fancy- just brown crumb and chopped fish. Works for me anyway; this was the best of three fish, at just over sixteen pounds.



Of course, pike aren't the only fish to target at this time of the year. Trout fishing continues right through the roughest weeks of winter. For any of you who enjoy fly fishing, my recent Turrall blogs are worth a look: www.turrall.com/blog/
Whatever you fish for in 2016, I wish you crooked lines and happy hunting.

A Flood of Pike

What a less than appetising start it has been to 2014. Downright odd. Today felt like a wet weekend in April, hardly a typical January day for fishing. Bits of the Westcountry are already resembling a war zone, with sandbags piled at villagers' doors and police tape aimed at keeping the public from treacherous flooding. And in the midst of it all, some idiots still want to go fishing. I am one of them.
Why do I do it? I'm reminded of my old head teacher, the late Trevor Green, whose passion was his motorbike. He enjoyed the worst of weathers because secretly, he found it bracing. He liked to take on the wind and rain. Perhaps it scarcely mattered when he was doing that thing he loved. This is the mark of what might politely be described as an "enthusiast". We come in many guises. Whether it's fishing or motorcycles, we need that experience, even if it flies in the face of sensible advice. Perhaps utterly sensible people are to be pitied; they have no strong passions.

But I digress. Flooding is not all bad news, at least for an angler. One benefit is that if you can locate the fish, they're often stacked up in relatively small areas. Sheltered urban spots were the focus today. More and more often in my predator fishing these days, I also like to pay attention to the smaller fish present on any water. It makes perfect sense to establish where these are concentrated and draw them in. Furthermore, a spot of light float fishing also makes a slow day much more entertaining. Within no time, my pal Russ Hilton had silver fish queuing up on the bread. Nor were they all small- as you can see from this chunky rudd:

It's staggering just how quickly pike or perch will take take advantage of silver fish distracted by free food. It was barely light before the first attackers arrived. My approach was as simple as it gets: a fresh bait on a single treble hook, tossed nearby. Route one fishing, and the first of several pike:

We played it by ear, moving spots roughly every couple of hours as bites dried up or we fancied a change of scenery. It was a drizzly day and I was grateful for the company. Russ is the sort of angler who never rants about his own ability, but quite often out fishes me, so I must have done something right to take the most pike today. Most bizarrely of all, I caught an afternoon fish of around eight pounds that looked really uncannily familiar. By an unmistakable scar on one side, we identified it as a fish I had already landed three hours earlier, a hundred yards away. One hungry -if slightly daft- pike.
Perhaps the only slight surprise was a lack of perch today. I say this, but bizarrely Russ landed two on bread when a small moving bait had been flatly ignored! Lots of silver bream and roach kept coming to bread too, which also explained why I kept pinching Russ's whip while he wasn't looking, to catch another fish or two.
By early evening it felt weirdly mild, in spite of darkening skies, so we stayed on for a little while. As it happens I'm glad we did, because the last bite of the day was something rather special in the form of this 11lb 12oz pike, which was as beautiful and athletic as any I've caught this season:

For those curious about technical stuff, you'll also see some of my pike notes in this week's Angling Times. These days I seem to be using fewer hooks in my fishing and also like to present my dead baits well off the bottom. I also much prefer just one rod and like to give it my full attention. A single barbless treble and an instant strike is so much better for the pike: all six of mine today were simplicity itself to unhook and release unharmed and only one fish came adrift all day. It should also go without saying that if you fish anywhere around concrete, you must never fish without an unhooking mat- it isn't rocket science and I really wish I didn't have to shake my head at the lack of fish care shown so often in urban locations.


Finally, I'm also pleased to say that we'll soon have the final results for the 2013 "Fly For Coarse" competition. It as been quite a surreal experience discussing entries with Matt Hayes and John Bailey this week, two of my all time heroes in fishing! While the judging panel have hardly been unanimous in their verdicts, they've certainly been so in their great enthusiasm. And what all three of us have agreed on is that fishing should be about fun and skill, not just what you catch, but how you catch it. in truth we were given a hard task by the entries: how do you pick between some huge pike, cunningly tricked carp, some phenomenal chub and even a fly caught bream?!! All will be revealed soon. Let's hope the foul weather abates so we can return to some more favourable fly fishing conditions sooner rather than later!