River Piking

I have been an angler now for over thirty years, and in all that time I have never attempted to catch river pike. I decided to put that right and spend a day on a day ticket stretch of my local River Nene.

My plan was simple, to fish a single rod and spend twenty minutes in each likely looking swim. Hugh Tempest Sheringham wrote "A float is pleasing in appearance, and even more pleasing in it's disappearance".  Like Sheringham I like to use a float wherever possible, so I fished my deadbait well over depth with the sliding float lying flat on the surface.

During the course of the morning, the appearance of my float was indeed most pleasing and three times I became even more pleased as it slid downstream submerging as it went. None of the pike were leviathans, the largest being perhaps eight pounds.

Like many rivers nowadays I had the stretch to myself and the wildlife. This part of Northamptonshire is a stronghold of the Red Kite.  I watched one of these magnificent birds soaring up and down the valley in the strong winds. It wasn't hunting but seemed to be just out enjoying the windy conditions.

Unfortunately my day was cut short mid afternoon when my landing net broke, the metal thread connecting it to the landing net pole had sheared. As the banks were not suited to chinning a fish out I called it a day.

Although I have spent many days in the past piking on stillwaters, and been lucky enough to catch a sprinkling of twenties, frankly I find it all a bit boring! For me, winter fishing is all about rivers and after 30 years I think I have finally found a way to enjoy catching pike. Next winter I will target a twenty pound pike from the Nene.

I just don't understand pike!

I have a confession to make, for some reason I can't seem to get into pike fishing. This is despite the fact that my first big fish was a pike , surely I should be a pike nut!

It's not that I don't appreciate pike, they truly are magnificent creatures, the apex predator in freshwater. Maybe it's because I don't understand pike, and so my pike sessions are usually either pikeless or I fluke out a single fish. Although I have caught a handful of twenty pound plus pike, I somehow don't feel that I deserved to catch them. Maybe it's because I have only fished for them on stillwaters with static deadbaits, perhaps if I fished for them on rivers or employed active techniques such as lure or fly fishing I would finally catch the pike bug?

I tend to pike fish only when the rivers are out of sorts and today was one of those occasions. With the rivers high with snow melt I decided to revisit one of my old haunts, a shallow gravel pit in the Nene valley.

I arrived just before first light and cast a sardine into a marginal spot, or should I say onto a marginal spot , blast it the lake was still frozen. The daylight seemed to take an age to arrive but eventually I could clearly make out a large ice free area to my left so both deadbaits would have to be fished in the same area.  Just after 9am the rod carrying a half herring was away, I hit it and felt the fish for a few seconds before it was off. I recast another half herring to the same spot and that was taken almost immediately, I didn't even have time to attach the drop off indicator. Only around seven pounds, but in my eyes any session that produces a pike is a success. An hour later I had another slightly smaller fish to the same rod and that was it for the day.  I still don't understand pike!

(To make me feel better I have included a photo of a twenty pound plus pike from a couple of years back to inspire both you the reader and me the incompetent piker.)