The Alternative Angler – Eleven Plus?

Eleven Plus?

Well, I have to hold my hands up to being a ‘chaser’ in the past. Having caught my first pike (a 7lb specimen, no less) I wanted more, and bigger straight away. More and more hours were spent at more and more venues as I convinced myself that I would eventually strike lucky and land the 25 pounder that was my Holy Grail.

Pictures in the angling press of beaming 11 year olds struggling with armfuls of twenty-pound plus pike that they had caught on their first trip out using daddies’ borrowed gear should have alerted me to the incontrovertible truth that pike fishing just ain’t fair, but they didn’t.

I spent almost the entire winter on one particular venue chasing a mythical leviathan reported by members of a local sub-aqua club. Such was the alleged size of this beast that young children and dogs were advised to keep well away from the water’s edge for fear of being dragged into its rapacious maw.

Indeed, several model boats mysteriously disappeared into the depths, (although looking back that might have more to do with the quality of the glue that the owners were using to stick them together). And to bolster the unseen monster myth, the local dog walkers reported that the resident wildfowl had all but vanished (but don’t they all fly south for the winter anyway…).

Armed with all this positive evidence of the presence of a monster pike it was a little disappointing that a concerted effort brought nothing more than an 12 pounder to the bank. Said fish was returned with disdain and a message that I was ready to do meet with its bigger brothers/sisters or better still, send its mum to do battle, but nothing was forthcoming.

Were the sub aqua crowd fibbing, or do fish appear a lot bigger underwater, and had I really landed the biggest fish in that water? After a few more fishless sessions at that venue it was off to pastures new, papers were scanned for likely venues (pictures of beaming 11 year olds with armfuls of pike were cut out and stuck on the dartboard) and at the merest suggestion of the chance of a big un’ I was off.

Then the doubts start to creep it. Is it best to camp out on a water for months until you get to know it inside out, or is it better to increase your chances by hitting somewhere new every week until you have fished every possible venue within striking distance. Both lines of approach were tried over the next few seasons, and despite some moderate success, the 25lb fish never materialised. (22lb was, and still is, my biggest).

I tried more baits and methods than a carp angler, and short of borrowing an 11 year old to take fishing and then wrenching the rod off him as soon as he got a run, I was running out of ideas. And then, one day, an epiphany! Reading through Fred Buller’s ‘Doomsday Book’ I saw an entry for Knipton Reservoir, about an hour’s drive away, and once home to a 39lb pike, I was off like a shot!

I had all the bait, all the tackle and the place held monsters, couldn’t fail to get a PB this time. And catch a pike I did, of such a size that I couldn’t get it on my 32lb Avon scales. How much did it weigh? I don’t know, all I can tell you is that it was about 12” long. The absurdity of the fact that it had taken a liking to a 9″ long triple section plug amused me. And as the day wore on, I came to realise that catching wasn’t really the thing, just being there was somehow a lot more important.

Indeed, if I was still in ‘Holy Grail’ mode, that little jack would have been seen as a perfect livebait and would have gone straight back out under a float, but I wasn’t, and it didn’t. I’ve done a fair bit of pike fishing since, although these days it tends to be more in the way of lure fishing than days camped out behind the deadbait rods. Truth be told, I don’t specifically set out to catch pike, anything will do. Perch and chub are always a welcome sight and hand on heart I would rather catch a 2lb perch than a 20lb pike, although it would be close run thing.

Personally, I don’t see pike fishing as a challenge to catch the biggest there is, not even the biggest in that particular water, and I reckon that once you’ve got past 11 years old, you’re chances of landing a whopper are all but over…..!