| MARK WINTLE |
| Mark Wintle, an angler for thirty-five years, is on a quest to discover and bring to you the magic of fishing. Previously heavily involved with match fishing he now fishes for the sheer fun of it. With an open and enquiring mind, each week Mark will bring to you articles on fishing different rivers, different methods and what makes rivers, and occasionally stillwaters, tick. Add to this a mixed bag of articles on catching big fish, tackle design, angling politics and a few surprises. Are you stuck in a rut fishing the same swim every week? Do you dare to try something different and see a whole new world of angling open up? Yes? Then read Mark Wintle’s regular weekly column. |
A QUEST FOR A BIG AVON PIKE Just before the cold snap of late January, I arranged to go fishing with John Searl on a private stretch of the Hampshire Avon. On the Saturday we knew that the river conditions should be good but a hard frost was predicted. In view of this, we agreed to check out conditions late morning on the Sunday. The frost turned out to be slightly crisp, no more, and so we set off for the Avon at lunchtime in pleasant fishing conditions as it wasn’t especially cold and there was no wind. Although it was bright in the morning by early afternoon a thin veil of cloud was starting to make the sun hazy. Our plan was to fish a side-stream for dace, and possibly big chub and roach. If things went to plan, we would stick with this for the rest of the afternoon. But otherwise, we would take a few small dace as livebaits to try for a big pike on the nearby main river. Having made our way onto the estate, it became apparent the water level on the side stream was not as high as we had hoped. As we walked up the stream, John pointed out some likely swims and put me on one to try for dace and roach. The stream was about six yards wide and up to two feet deep, and not quite gin clear. Along both banks, massive oak and beech trees were spaced at intervals, whilst the far bank was a marshy willow swamp. I tackled up a small goose quill Avon, bunching the 3 BB shot about a foot from the hook, with a number 6 as dropper. A size 16 Carbon Chub hook completed the set-up. John described where I would most likely find dace in the swim along the edge of a pocket of slack water on the far bank whilst by carefully trotting down the near bank I might find a big roach. Meanwhile, he headed upstream to where a fallen tree harboured some big chub. Unfortunately, things did not work out quite like that for the swim was paved with small dace from five to seven inches long. I had hoped for much better sized dace for this stretch has produced dace to a pound, plus big roach and chub. But no matter where I trotted my double maggot bait I quickly had a bite from yet another small dace. Now there are times when such sport is fine but we had come for bigger prey. Half an hour after I started, John re-appeared. The fallen tree had been partly cleared from the stream, and as a result, there was no sign of chub. Further down a couple of small pools looked promising, and we moved down to try these.
Where the better fish were hiding was far from apparent for we continued the onslaught on the small dace in the brisk shallow water. I winkled out a pair of tiny roach from a slack to go with the dace. With plenty of dace about it didn’t take long to obtain enough for a go for pike. Walking across to the main river didn’t take long. Just above the point where the side stream left the main river there was a wide fast glide about three feet deep. John reckoned that I would stand a chance of a grayling or two by trotting here. A hundred yards further upstream there was a long shallow slack, mostly about eight to ten yards wide and sixty yards long. The slack had a fringe of weed and reeds with one or two channels into the bank. It had previously produced good pike and John was confident of getting a run. He tacked up an old glass Bruce & Walker S/U Carp rod with a Mitchell 300 loaded with 18lb line. His rig was a Drennan pike float cocked with drilled bullets and simple snap tackle. I began to fish the glide, feeding twenty maggots each trot. Though I cast out about ten yards the curve of the river and the direction of the flow meant that the float came in towards my own bank. Whilst John concentrated on working the livebait around the slack, I got stuck into my trotting. Feed, cast, control, retrieve, and repeat. It sounds boring yet in the magnificent Avon valley it is a pleasure to be out in the fresh air. It has been said before that a river valley is like a bird motorway, and this day was no exception as flights of duck, heron and other birds followed the river. An egret dabbled some swampy ground alongside a carrier across the valley and a flock of long tailed tits twittered in the willows. After half an hour of steady trotting, the float stabbed under. My rod took a healthy bend as something lively pulled back in the swift current. Unsure what I had hooked I worked it slowly upstream. As it came up in the water under my rod tip, I found myself attached to a lively out of season brown trout that promptly shed the hook.
As I rebaited, I glanced upstream to see John dangling his livebait on the surface in one of the little channels in the weed. There was an almighty splash as the pike hit the dace, and then a cry from John when he found the pike had neatly taken the bait from the hooks without touching them. He did get a brief and tantalising look at the fish, and estimated it as a potential twenty pounder. Would it stick around for another go? Twenty minutes later, he had his answer when the pike took another dace yet let that one go too. The dace was marked lightly. It appeared that the pike had taken the dace in the front part of his mouth, as the killer teeth further back had not marked the bait. This was a crafty big old pike. Another twenty minutes passed; I landed a trout and nothing more stirred in the slack. John suggested a move to a couple of swims upstream so that the big pike could be left undisturbed for a while. We only had an hour and half left before dark so we would be back for the last half an hour of daylight. Upstream we found another angler pike fishing one likely slack. He landed a jack as we approached. John tried another slack but to no avail and I trotted a couple of glides for a while. It was soon time to return. Previously I had trotted the glide from just above a willow bush but with the light failing, I was struggling to see my float. I moved below the tree to trot the same water with a much shorter trot. At least I could see the float now. It wasn’t long before I hit another fish that came off shortly after I hooked it. By now the temperature was plunging as the sun weakened in the increasing murk. Ten minutes later, I struck another lively fish. This one stayed on, and I was pleased to land a fine plump grayling of about  When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission, which supports our community.
|
