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After
landing my winters targets of a 6lb+ Chub and a
personal best Pike before Christmas, I was already
over the moon and I had yet to really get the
deadbait rods out. With the really cold weather
making it's way in however, deadbaits now seemed
like a seriously good idea. After careful
persuasion, I managed to blag my Girlfriend Emma to
come fishing with me for the first time. I had
decided on a small drain and thought that I would be
able to show her a proper pike or two; i certainly
wasn't expecting what happened next!
On
arrival to the drain, it became apparent that the
cold weather we had been having had got even colder
over night. The temperature was the coldest it had
been in the day all Winter, with the thermometer
reading -4. For me, this was ideal, proper Piking
conditions, and about time! On the other hand
though, with it being Emma's first time out with me,
I did wonder whether she would last out. On arriving
to my chosen area of the drain, I cast two float
ledgered deadbaits, one a smelt and the other a
whole herring. Straight away the Smelt was away with
a small Jack of about 3lb. Small, but still a good
introduction to the species for Emma I thought.
After
recasting the smelt to the same spot, I sat back and
noticed frost already forming on the unhooking mate;
it certainly was cold! On turning to check the
herring baited setup, I caught the float supporting
the smelt lift in the corner of my eye. I walked
over and wound down to what felt like a good fish.
Straight away it was very blatant that I was
connected to a much better fish, and after a good
fight, I was unfolding the nets mesh to reveal a
cracker of a Pike which weighed in a 20lb 1oz. I was
over the moon, and after Emma took some cracking
photo's I sat back just in time to notice the
Herring baited float slide away. I walked over and
hit into another fish, but this one felt in a
different league! After a few seconds a huge
alligator like head appeared on the surface and
slowly but surely began to take line off the tightly
set clutch. After what seemed like an eternity, I
slid the net under a proper looking Drain Beastie.
Straight away I knew I had just landed my first
brace of 20lb Pike, but I wasn't sure whether i had
beaten my PB. On the however scales, it appeared
that I had done just that. The 26lb Pike from
Blithfield a few weeks back had now been topped by a
cracking 26lb 5oz drain Pike; I had brought my PB
home.
Even
though I did not do a great deal more deadbaiting, I
did go on to land another few good fish to deadbaits,
with the best going 25lb 15oz. As well as catching
my own, I also watched on as Winky landed his first
20, and Chris also got in with a stunning 20lb 12oz
fish from a gravel pit. All in all, the Winter of
2007 had been a huge success. I'll certainly be
looking to land a monster during the 2008 Winter;
perhaps even the holy grail; a fenland 30! |