Piking in the fog

The mid day sun through the fog

Today's plan of attack was to head to a local club water with my friend Steve with the piking gear and see if we could net ourselves a toothy old esox. The conditions looked good, being quite mild for the last day of November, and very foggy. We arrived at about 8am and quickly got set up in the thick fog. We were each fishing 2 deadbait rods for the pike and zander, and a maggot feeder in case we wanted to catch some live baits. Steve had a take within the first 20 minutes, but got a bit excited and snatched the bait from the fishes mouth. I suggested to let them run for a couple of seconds just to make sure they have a good hold of the bait before striking, and it wasn't long before his rod was off again and he got the chance to put my advice into practise. This time the hooks were set and the fish was on, and it looked to be a good sized fish. It was at this point Steve informed me that the reel he had chosen for today's predator session was loaded with 6lb line... Muppet! Thankfully the water is deep and the only real snags are on the far bank, which we couldn't see due to the fog, so were fishing about half way across, and he had plenty of room to let the fish run. After a few minutes we got our first glimpse of the fish, and it looked to be a good sized zander. As soon as it saw us it made a dash back down into the depths, but it was soon beaten and with an expert swish of the net by me, Steve had smashed his zander PB with a chunky 7lb fish!

Steve's new PB zander at 7

The business end of a zander

After a few photos the fish was returned and the rod re-cast. I had decided to break the feeder rod out and try and catch some bait fish, but it wasn't really happening. Steve offered me some of his bright red groundbait he'd brought (which is why we have red hands in all the pictures) which I accepted and put 3 balls in the area where I was fishing. It seemed to do the trick and it wasn't long before the tip was twitching giving away the presence of some feeding fish. A few casts later and the twitches finally turned into a bite, but it wasn't the small prey fish I was expecting, having a much heavier "breamy" feeling to it as I reeled it in. A few moments later and my suspicions were confirmed as a bream of around 4lb was slipped into the net. It was a bit of an old warrior and looked as though it had been grabbed a couple of times during its life by some form of toothy predator. It was far too big to become bait, but it meant I wasn't blanking so I was happy!

A battered old bream covered with old puncture wounds and scars

I had a few more skimmers, still too big to be used as bait, and was starting to get the swim going pretty good, when the high pitched beep of my right hand alarm alerted me to some interest in my popped up roach deadbait. I watched the rod tip intently for 10-15 seconds as it twitched ever so slightly as something mouthed my bait. Thankfully it decided it was good to eat, and tried to make off with the roach causing the line to peel off the spool. I wound down and set the hooks and a short battle ensued. At first I thought it was going to be a good zander as although quite heavy it seemed to come in pretty easy. As always with this water though, once I got it up near the surface it woke up and went on a screaming run back down to the depths and I was sure it was actually a pike. A couple of minutes later I managed to regain the line that it had taken, and sure enough a big mottled green shadow appeared from the depths. I could see it was only lightly hooked in the scissors, and thought I'd lost it as it viciously shook its head as I guided it towards the net. Thankfully the hook hold held just long enough to get it in the net, and I had myself a new PB pike of 13lb, and as a bonus it shed the hooks so I didn't have to unhook it either!

My new PB pike at 13lb

The business end of a pike

After a few photos and resting the fish up for a few minutes in the net to recover its strength I released it and watched it slowly drift of into the depths like a green submarine. The rig was a bit battered but it was good enough for another fish, so I re-baited with another roach and cast back to the same spot. It usually takes about 15 seconds for the lead to hit the deck in the deep water and a few turns of the reel handle to take up the slack line. I felt the knock of the lead hitting the bottom after only around 12 seconds this time, and after 5 or 6 turns of the handle the line still wasn't even remotely tight. I was just saying to Steve that something wasn't quite right when the line did go tight, even though I'd stopped reeling! Turns out the donk I felt wasn't the lead hitting the bottom, but was actually a take on the drop, and the fish had swam towards me which is why I had so much slack line! Sadly it must have felt the resistance and dropped the bait when the line pulled on the rod tip, but it was still only mid morning and it was looking like we could be in for a good day.

It wasn't long before Steve's rod was off again, but he somehow managed to miss the bite. It didn't matter though as almost as soon as the fish dropped that bait, his other rod was screaming off! He wound down and the rod hooped over as he felt the weight of the fish. Obviously it had to be the rod with the 6lb line again, and this fish seemed to be going a LOT better than the first, giving him a right merry run around for a good 7 minutes or so. Eventually he managed to get it up to the surface, and a big toothy grin appeared a few feet from the bank. It was a good fish, and I only just managed to fit it in my fox specimen pan net! I helped Steve with the unhooking which was pretty straight forward and took a few photos and weighed the fish. It weighed in at 17lb 4oz, smashing Steve's pike PB! We made sure it was well rested by holding it in the waters edge before it lurked off back into the deep with a slow kick of the tail.

Steve's new PB pike at 17lb 4oz

My swim had been quiet for a couple of hours, and I'd managed to lose the interest from the shoal of bream while helping Steve with his pike, so I decided to up sticks and leapfrog Steve into the next peg. No sooner had I moved all my gear and Steve was in again! This time it was a smaller zander of around 3 or 4lb that came in with little fuss. A couple of passers by stopped to let their children have a look, but decided not to let them stroke it when they saw its teeth! I finally managed to get my rods back in the water in my new spot, and it only took 10 to 15 minutes before I had a take on a popped up mackerel on my right hand rod. It felt a fairly decent fish, possibly another double, but sadly it managed to shake the hooks free about a minute into the fight. Shortly after, as if by magic all the fog just vanished to reveal a bright blue sky with the sun blazing down right in my face. I put up with it for about 15 minutes while I hoped the lost fish would come back for some dessert, but alas it didn't, so I decided to move back to my original peg which offered some refuge from the bright sun. 

Everything stayed pretty dead while the sun was out, bream had been topping across the water for most of the day but even they stopped showing in the bright day light. There was only about an hour left until sunset though, so we decided to stick it out and give it until it got dark hoping the fish would be back on the feed when the bright day light faded into night time. Sure enough, as the sun was setting Steve's rod was off again, and going by the bend it looked to be another good fish. Again it came in fairly easy at first, and then took off as soon as it got remotely close to the surface, showing all the signs of being another double figure pike. A few minutes later and it was under control and it was just a matter of reeling it up from the depths and into the net. As it broke the surface it became clear it was in fact another big zander, possibly even bigger than the first one! It was pretty much beaten so there wasn't any drama on the way to the net, and Steve had smashed his PB again, with a 9lb 6oz fish!

Steve's even newer PB zander at 9lb 6oz!

We gave it another half an hour as it got dark without any more action, and decided to call it a day. As usual I packed everything up leaving my rods till last, and as I was almost done packing away everything else, I heard the buzz of a spinning spool. It was dark by now and by the time I'd located my reels in the light from my head torch it had stopped, and I had no idea which one it was. It clicked a few more turns about 30 seconds later, and the rod tip started to bounce, but not with enough force to take any more line, despite the bait runners being set so light that a gust of wind is enough to take line. I decided to wind down and strike anyway, and it felt like I bumped something off. Feeling rather annoyed with myself I reeled in, but it didn't feel quite right. Turns out the culprit was a small eel of no more than half a pound that had somehow managed to devour the whole roach deadbait and then tie itself up in the wire trace. I felt quite sorry for the poor little fella as he'd gotten himself into a right mess and I didn't hold out much hope of being able to remove a set of trebles from such a small fish. By some miracle though while I was trying to calm him down, he managed to shed the hooks himself, untangle himself from the trace and "swim" across the soft damp grass into my landing net ready to be put back into his watery home!

The sun sets after a good days fishing

All in all it was a brilliant days fishing, breaking 4 PB's between us, and to top it off Steve was so happy he even offered to pay for the kebabs from Dave's kebab van on the way home, amazing! Oh and just in case anyone was wondering, the reason why I have I ridiculous moustache is because I take part in movember, where men grow awesome moustaches for the month of November to help raise money and awareness for male cancers. This year I decided to model my effort on the "Zyg Gregorek" look. If you'd like to donate something you can do so HERE.