The whole pike season thing is most odd. Back in my youth , I'd come across the odd reference to the pike season starting in October, with the first frosts .It wasn't a season in a prescribed legal sense, but seemed to be accepted custom and practice - and can't have been for pike welfare as it was common to knock them on the head - for the pot (ghastly ) or , more commonly , in the mistaken belief that removal of predators improved 'proper' sport .
It was only since 2000 I came across this piking fundamentalism that it was an act of Satan to even think of of fishing for them before October - but as Steve says , how come the same folk are happy enough to target the big girls (as it is now compulsory to call them ) in February and March , when they are full of spawn ? 'Oh , it's fish welfare innit, nothing more important ' , they'll say - a bit rich from somebody who is happy to stick a treble in a living fish's back to catch a pike....
Like all extremism , it can verge on the ridiculous - and tales of mandating float and alarm use , enforcement of unhooking mats , prescription of hook sizes, prescribing seasonal restrictions way beyond what EA byelaws provide and so on can be absurd . I realise the PAC will now issue a fatwa on me about my remark about mats but context is all . Most of my pike are caught on single hook lures and are unhooked in the water. Most of my venues have soft , grassy or mossy banks where pike come to no harm on the rare occasion I need to spend more than seconds unhooking them or if I need a picture. If I need to take a mat because , say I'm fishing somewhere with concrete , stone or gravel banks I will .
It's come to a pretty pass when a mate of mind, who was playing a modest sized pike , was threatened by passing anglers on a fen drain that they'd kick his f***ing head in if , in their expert view, he didn't unhook the fish properly . "We're PAC mate , and we're watching you " . Words fail me ....
