26/09/2025 - Plagued by pike

Had another few days over in Lithuania last week to see the lad and his girlfriend. For a change we rented an apartment on the Coronian Spit, which if legends are to be believed, was created by the giantess Neringa to protect the Lithuanian coast from storms sent by the evil dragon, Naglis. 

A UNESCO World Heritage Site and national park, the narrow strip of land has a freshwater lagoon on one side and the Baltic Sea on the other and is covered in forest, a lot of it historically planted to stabilise the sandy soil and stop the settlements being swallowed up by sand dunes. Did lots of walking and had some great food, including fish and chips to rival anything I've had in the UK. The chef's secret? Curry powder in the batter! The lad is doing a PhD on birds of prey and we managed to see spotted eagles and a juvenile white-tailed eagle while we were there, along with cranes and great white egrets. Also saw deer tracks and lots of signs of wild boar where they had rooted up the road verges right into town. 

Was indeed a stunning location and one we'll hopefully visit again soon. However, came back to earth with a bump with a sh*t week at work, so decided to have some time to de-stress. Finished up at 3 o'clock, quickly popped in to Stapleford Angling for the usual "pint of mixed" and then headed to the River Soar near Kegworth. Walked up to my usual spot up by the weir and was soon up to my knees in the river and happily running the stickfloat downstream through the swim. Had a few dace and chub from the off and was bringing another fish in when a spotty, green torpedo appeared from nowhere and snatched it clean off the hook! Seemed one wasn't enough for him as I then had to contend with his attention for the rest of the session as he managed to take me by surprise at least another half a dozen times.

Unfortunately, on each occasion the ensuing tug of war either ended in a bite-off or the unfortunate dace or chub being spat out (twice on one occasion!) before I could trick him into the net. At one stage he sat lazily finning about six feet in front of me like a dog waiting for a treat! He must have sneaked in even closer a bit later, because when I dropped a chub back in by my side the surface of the water suddenly erupted scaring me witless. Despite this I built up a decent mixed bag of fish, adding roach, bleak, perch and gudgeon to the tally. After a couple of hours I got the Drennan medium quiver rod out and tied on a "dink dink" rig again, casting it to the tail of the swim in the hope of a better fish. However, by the time I'd finished off the maggots in my bait pouch I'd only managed to add another dozen modest dace and a single chub, so swapped the dink dink for a perch paternoster. 

I was a bit cautious about putting this out given all the pike activity but as I'd not seen him for a while I put on a small bleak and cast it out away from the "hot zone". After a while the quiver tip registered some interest - a couple of quick taps before hooping over. Picked up the rod to find the bait had indeed been taken by the target species, but not of the calibre that I'd seen on a previous session. Put another small bleak out onto the same spot. Again it wasn't long before rod tip was being pulled over. However, this time there was a more weight on the end of the line and after a dogged fight a jack slid into the net. 

Wasn't sure if was the one that had been hounding me earlier, but he was certainly fat enough. The light was going by this stage, so packed up and headed home after another eventful session. I'll have to see if I can get another in while the going's good.