| TROUT WATER PIKING |
| A couple of years ago I wrote a series of articles for FISHINGmagic entitled ‘Lured into Lure Fishing’. Although principally concerned with my sortie into the world of artificials it also coincided with my love affair with trout water piking. An affair that has gotten stronger with each passing season. These are my diaries of this season’s trout water piking. |
| Wednesday 15th October CHEW VALLEY LAKE – BRISTOL Chew Valley Lake burst onto the scene last year with multiple catches of 20lb fish and was soon heralded as the best of all the trout water pike venues. Since then the catches have declined somewhat but good fish have still been taken. I for one am not totally happy with the number of days piking allowed each year and the fact that deadbaits are allowed, also increase the risk of pike deaths from inexperienced anglers. Coupled with the fact that it has been quite heavily pike fished on fly tackle throughout the summer rumours were rife amongst the pike fishing world that Chew was finished.
Despite these rumours and that it meant a 360 mile round trip for a day’s fishing I applied for several days on this 1200 acre water and was fortunate enough to receive four days. Unfortunately three of these clashed with other commitments and was forced to accept just one, although it was the much sought after opening day ! The organisation at Chew is not the best and past experience told me that upon arrival the boats would not be ready and that a queue would develop as bags were checked for illegal bait (only sea deads allowed). With this in mind we were on the road for 3.30am and were the first anglers to arrive, we put our bags under the noses of the nearest bailiffs and insisted they check our gear first and allocate our boat number so we could get ready for the off. 9.00am and we set off; yes its been light since 7.00am and it is now nearly six hours since we set off but were only allowed to go out two hours after we arrived. Personally I think this is a disgrace but that’s the way pike anglers are treated on some trout waters, it’s a take it or leave it attitude. Obviously we take it! At first we head for the famous ‘Roman Shallows’ but with the lake some 8ft below normal levels the shallows are no more than 3-4ft deep and a cold easterly will have chilled the surface layers so after a couple of hours without a sign of any fish we move off in search of some deeper water. Soon after dropping anchor I take a lovely fish of around 14lb on half mackerel before a fish, certainly over 20lb again shows how narrow the fine line between success and failure is when it slashed at my Sprindawg, removing the rubber tail no more than two feet from my rod tip and no more than two inches from the hook which would have seen it gracing our boat. My luck didn’t change shortly after when I hooked another good fish on a deadbait, the pike tailwalked close to the boat and in the process wrapped the line around its gill plate. I knew I was in trouble and I tried to force the issue attempting to ease the fish over the net but she was having none of it and next time she cleared the water (yes plastic pike tailwalk!) the 15lb mainline parted leaving an explosion of water in her wake.
By continually upping anchor and moving around we took a few more fish but none matched the size of those two close encounters. Ste, my boat partner, had a brace of seventeen’s and a smaller fish whilst I took a further two good doubles and a couple of fish around the 8-9lb bracket. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and it was great to see immaculate fish being boated throughout the day. As we were the last boat to return I remained unsure exactly what had been caught but the rumours were of a couple of twenties being caught with one an upper twenty. Chew finished ?….I think not! Total number days fishing 3 Total day ticket money spent£ 109.00 |
