|
Shortly
after Christmas I found myself really eager to
locate a Personal Best Pike. Most of my Piking in
the past had taken place on one River, and
unfortunately it was a River that really didn't
offer me the greatest chance of toppling my 21lb PB.
I knew straight away that I wasn't aiming at the
right waters, so it was soon time to do a bit of
exploring. Along with good friends Chris and Winky,
I set out to find some new waters that we thought
may stand a good chance of producing some bigger
fish. Chris had done a lot of searching for Large
Pike in the past and had been very successful, so he
was secretly hoping that his 30lb
target would also be achievable from where ever we
may find. For myself, a new PB was the target, but I also wanted to break the
25lb barrier. Wink on the other hand had yet to
break the 20, so this was his target.
In the
end we decided on four new waters, all of which were
not local to us, but we all agreed that they held
extremely good potential for beating our current
personal bests. The majority of the two months
missing in my catch reports were taken up with many
exploratory sessions, some of which probably saw us
fishing waters without a single Pike present.
Although some definitely held Pike as I was soon to
find out.
During our first session to one new water, I hit the
jackpot near enough instantly. We arrived at the
venue in question not knowing whether Pike were at
all present, we left however with me having a new PB
under my belt at 24lb 9oz, plus a couple of back up
upper doubles for Chris and myself. I was well and truly over the moon
and I really felt like we had been rewarded for some
serious effort that had gone into finding the fish.
The mad thing was that my seasons Piking wasn't to
end there, and I ended up finishing my Pike season
with another PB of 25lb 1oz, not to mention many
other decent backup fish.
Without a doubt I have never had a Pike season like
it, but it really all boils down to the fact that I,
along with Chris and Winky, have put in some serious
time to find fish that have been left in peace by
other anglers. There appears to be a lot of doom and
gloom being spoken about with regards to Pike
fishing at the moment, for me personally however, I
really think my Pike fishing has just taken a major
step forward. Chris has been Pike fishing the Fens
for a long time, and he knows exactly what to look
for in a Pike water, luckily his knowledge has
started to rub off on myself and Wink. Next season I
think there will be some very large Pike gracing the
banks, time will tell....
Another thing I have learnt from Chris, is just how
important it is too stay tight lipped with regards
to your own Piking, this being the main reason I
have not been keeping the site up-to-date. Here are
a few of my catch pictures from the season just
past.
2006 Pike Season |