Fancied dusting off the pike rods, so when I saw that the wind was due to ease on Thursday, accompanied by relatively mild temperatures, I booked the morning off and made the necessary preparations. Was up nice and early and made the short trip down the motorway, the moon setting to my right and the first glimmers of orange appearing to my left.
Bumped my way down the track to find an empty car park and the river running at a prefect level with just a tinge of colour. As usual, I'd chopped up any old bait left in the freezer and as I walked upstream I flicked a couple of bits into any likely looking spots in the nearside margin. Don't know if this actually makes any difference, but I'd like to think that it puts a bit of scent in the water and stimulates the Esox tastebuds for when the main course arrives a bit later. Got to my starting point around the bend and soon had the rods out - a smelt flicked upstream next to a dead reedbed and a headless joey over against the far bank. Unfortunately the baits had only been in the water five minutes when a double scull crewed by a middle-aged couple came steaming towards me. Had been sat concentrating on the floats, so just had time to jump up to reel the far bank rod in as fast as possible, losing the bait in the process.
In total they came passed six times that morning, which had me constantly on edge, as I not only had to watch the floats but also had to keep glancing upstream and downstream for their next appearance. I was therefore relieved when they finally disappeared back upstream from where they came. With nothing doing after half an hour I moved downstream, again putting one bait in the nearside next to a clump of reeds, whilst the other bait I alternated between the far bank and mid-channel. It was the nearside float that eventually bobbed a couple of times and then lay flat on the surface. When I picked up the rod I thought the bait had been dropped. However, after a few seconds the float started to turn slowly on its axis, so wound down and hit it. Met token resistance before winding what turned out to be a small jack upstream towards me. Could see that he was only lightly hooked and as I went to land him the hooks pinged out and he swam into the net!
Moved again and as I came around the bend and looked down the long straight I could see that two anglers had set up camp right in the middle of the section and had at least five rods spread out between them, which meant that they effectively monopolised all of the swims that I had pre-baited and had intended to fish. Was cursing my luck as I hardly ever see another angler mid-week, but flicked the baits out again, one down the side and the other over to the boats. Wasn't long before I was spotted by my fellow anglers and one soon got up and started walking upstream towards me. Couldn't believe it when he stopped and leant over to peer at my float in the margin! When he eventually ambled over we had the usual exchange starting with "You had owt?. They'd arrived about an hour after me and were yet to have anything. As we talked his mate came over, stomping past my marginal bait again.
Chatted a bit longer before they both ambled back to their base of operations. As my near-side swim had been well and truly compromised I lifted the rod to wind it in and found that it was in a snag anyway. Bent the hooks hooks with a straight pull, losing another half mackerel in the process. By now it had turned into a bright, sunny day and I had contemplated packing up, but went back to my starting point instead. The jack I'd caught had been covered in leeches, so I decided to be a bit more active and move the baits every fifteen minutes or so in the hope of dropping one on the nose of a fish.
However, my strike met no resistance and the bait came back with hardly a mark on it. That seemed to mark the end of the actionas I failed to elicit any further response. Packed up and made my way back to the car, stopping to chat to my angling companions who were still sat in base camp, where they'd had one jack each. One of them showed me a bait that had been down the throat of one of their fish - a very familiar, undigested half mackerel! Oh well, at least I'd had some fish, but I do ask myself sometimes why I keep going back there given recent results. Perhaps time to try somewhere else.
Some people do make you wonder
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