Autumn River Pike Brace

On another kind invite from Clearwater's Ollie Johnson, I could not resist paying another visit to his local waterway after some river pike. After the one that got away last time being easily an upper double, the taste was in my mouth to try and catch a personal best river pike.

We arrived and bumped into Andy Little again, who was catching plentiful quality perch. He informed us that there was a big pike in the top swim, therefore Ollie and I went upstream to investigate. Pike were seen patrolling near a wall settling in the streamer weed close in from time to time. After one missed take, where a small jack dropped Ollie's bait, he very kindly let me have a cast. I flicked the bait very close to the wall and waited. Action was instant with the float bobbing down aggressively before starting to whizz across the water's surface. Just after Ollie informed me the pike was turning the bait in its mouth, I wound down and struck. From this moment the drag started screaming as I tried to cup the spool and slow the surging run, but with the agility and muscle of river pike, this was like a steam train and unable to be slowed easily. This intense battle became nerve racking as the fish swum close to the wall, trying to cut me off on the concrete. I eventually managed to turn the fish's head with some firm pressure and then guide it into the waiting net. I was a very happy angler as this fish was likely to be my personal best river pike. At 11lb 10oz, it was a new PB, which I felt was an overwhelming start to the day as quite frankly, I haven't had too many fights like this!

A welcome double on the first swim!

After this, Ollie and I rotated pike fishing and trotting but nothing more was to be managed apart from the inevitable game fish on this certain river. After photographing a pretty perch for Andy downstream before he had to go, he informed Ollie and I that there were some big pike showing in his swim. After Andy had packed his gear away, he pointed exactly at the crease where I had lost the big pike last time and had the scraper double from.

I flicked my paternoster rig out and waited. It was not long until I received my first take, but my nerves got the better of me this time and I struck early, meaning that the hook pulled out on this fish. After casting a few more times to get it perfect, I again waited and tried not to let my nerves get the better of me this time. I was holding the rod with the line in my fingers, and suddenly felt a bang through the whole of my arm, like an electric shock! This was followed by the float moving slowly before picking up pace and starting to dip under the surface. I gave this fish a few seconds and then wound down. On contact with the fish, the rod absolutely arched over, and all hell broke loose. I knew I was into a better fish with it absolutely rocketing off into the pacy current setting the reel's drag to absolute meltdown! With my adrenaline at critical level, I was shaking and at times losing concentration. With the weight of the fish and this current, the strain I had to put on was a lot more than I'd usually dream of. After one very hairy moment where the fish almost buried me into a nasty snag, I managed to steer the fish and it eventually managed to slide into the waiting net held by Ollie. Ollie and Andy recognised this fish and knew it would easily smash my personal best river pike and give my actual personal best pike a run for its money. After a quick unhooking, we zeroed the sling and weighed the fish. At 18lb 8oz it had equalled my personal best and smashed my river best. Andy kindly did the honours with some really nice photos and we watched the pike swim off resiliently which was very encouraging!

Nice big girl and personal best river pike!

Big thanks goes to Ollie for inviting me again on this beautiful stretch and his photography, as well as Andy with his advice and the nice shots!

Tight Lines,

Tom

Testing my new Ultralight: Two Trotting Trips

After not fishing on the previous weekend due to workload for college, I thought the best call for getting out was to try for some of the larger roach on my local river, the Itchen. With various walks after college on the way home past the river, I found a few areas holding some good roach and even spotted a few skimmer bream amongst them!

With my birthday money, I picked up a Drennan 14ft Matchpro Ultralight float rod and was absolutely dying to test it out, along with the Clearwater floats I have been kindly given. I started on a deeper, slower stretch where I had spotted several roach to what I personally reckon are over 2lbs. Unfortunately though, there was still a lot of weed and presenting a bait was not particularly straight forward so I decided to move on downstream.

Lovely rod and my favourite Clearwater Float!

After a few minutes walking I arrived and spotted a good shoal of roach. I fed some mashed bread upstream, and watched as I saw some nice roach taking bits as they crumpled off. After missing one bite, it wasn't long until I was into a fish. The rod was absolutely beautiful with a nice action in it and was feeling in very good contact with the fish. With the right tackle I've come to realise that roach are actually decent fighting fish. This was a lovely fish to christen the rod at around a pound or so in weight I would expect, what I would see as a quality roach. After a few more runs through, as the roach had backed off from this spot, I long trotted the breadflake and picked up a nice grayling coming onto a pound and a half. I moved swim and connected with a very nice roach shortly after feeding another nice pocket of fish. It gave another lovely scrap, flashing its beautiful silver bar as I gently guided it towards my waiting net. After putting this pretty roach on the scales it went 1lb 6oz, which is my second biggest of the river season and a nice result. After this, it was time to go, so I packed up and headed for home.

Can never knock a River Roach!

A couple of days later after a kind invite from a good friend, Simon Daley, we headed to the Dorset Stour with a decent chub or two on our mind. After sorting out tickets etcetera, we headed to one of Simon's favourite chub swims with some cracking features for chub to dart and skulk around. After feeding for a good few minutes, catapulting maggots, Simon ran through and at the bottom of the run, he was into a chub straight away. After a few seconds the hook pulled out, but we were both not feeling disheartened as this was so early on in the day. After sorting out an appropriate float rig for the job for the shallow water on this particular swim, I ran through a few times before the float buried and was into a nice chub. The ultralight had a lovely forgiving action and despite the chub digging away on the end of the line, I managed to slow its run and slowly guide it to the waiting net. This was a nice solid fish of 4lbs or so which was a lovely result and was nice as the first chub on the new rod.

Nice way to put the new rod to some test!

Simon and I continued to feed, and as I was watching Simon's float moving beautifully through the swim, I knew it his float was going to bury at any second and sure enough it did. After what seemed like a very enjoyable battle as I catapulted another dozen or so maggots, another quality chub was in the net. This fish was at least an upper 4 pounder, so another great result.

Another for Simon's impressive album!

After one more hook pull and a few missed bites, the swim was suddenly dominated by minnows as the morning mist cleared. It was rather frustrating though as despite the chub were still coming in and out of the over-hanging tree, it was impossible to wade through the minnows. We decided therefore to venture downstream and try and find some 'virgin' fish.

It wasn't long until Simon spotted a lovely group of fish in the shallows downstream and in no time we had them going on our offerings of maggots. After patience of watching this nail-biting scenario of 5lb plus chub feeding on our maggots and eating a few snacks to try and make time go faster, I had my first run through. Continuing with the feeding pattern, on my third or so run through my float buried. I struck and felt another good chub digging on the end. "Get downstream of it mush" Simon urged, as I ran up the bank trying to keep in good contact. Unfortunately there must have been a weakness in my hook link and therefore it unfortunately parted. Much as I will beat myself up about it sitting on my desk now, it is easily done at the time. After giving the swim a few minutes to rest I fired some more maggots in and it was Simon's turn to run through. After a bit of steady feed and a few runs through, Simon's float buried followed by a firm strike. Not hesitating like me, Simon hurriedly ran down the bank and managed to guide the feisty chub out of the thick weed and after what seemed to be an enjoyable battle of the chub digging away on the end, another nice fish of 4lbs or so was in the net. What I enjoyed about this scenario was it was opportunist fishing and in difficult conditions like what we were met with, it is a very rewarding endeavour.

After going downstream where the next section seemed somewhat even weedier, after getting electrocuted a few times by the electric fence, and sorting out our gear we found a good point to wade in and fish this beautiful run. The sun also came out glistening beautifully on the river, and it certainly was enjoyable to run the float through and we managed a few nice chub between us. After doing some roving around and not finding many more 'trottable' runs, we moved on upstream. It was not long until we saw some big chub, some of which we both reckoned were over 6lbs! After feeding these fish for over 40 minutes they unfortunately disappeared to our sheer disappointment and disapproval as someone waded in on the opposite side right near where they were. We were very disappointed as we refrained from fishing for these fish for a while and it was sabotaged within seconds.

Not feeling disheartened we moved upstream and fished a weirpool where Simon had had some good chub action in the past. We decided, to begin with, to try and catch some perch on minnow livebaits. After catching a few, we let the minnows whirl about on the weir pool and it wasn't long until we started getting takes catching plenty of lovely conditioned little perch.

Pretty Little Perch

Whilst I continued catching a few perch on the live baits, Simon decided to get to work with the maggot feeder. After baiting his swim up effectively, he was starting to get bites instantly from dace and managed many hooking themselves on his feeder rig. After doing lots of chopping and changing with bait variations using imitation and real maggots, his perseverance really showed when he hooked his first chub after battling through MANY dace. After a good fight, although it wasn't the biggest chub in the Stour, it was a very pretty chub, scale and fin perfect. After more dace, Simon's tip walloped round and he was into a much better fish. After getting upstream and guiding it out of the snags downstream, it unfortunately managed to find the concrete of the bridge upstream and cut Simon's hook link off which was certainly wounding for him in the circumstances. We fished into dark on the tip and after missing a couple of bites we decided to head for home as we were both getting tired from the roving about and the early start. Thanks for a great day Simon, look forward to sorting another trip soon!

Tight Lines,

Tom Aldous

Clearwater Chubber Floats and Opportunistic Piking!

My friend Ollie Johnson has just launched a new company called 'Clearwater' and has brought out some very good quality, robust floats. He has also kindly given me some to try out and have tested them on my local river with my favourite float so far has been the wire stemmed avon style float which is perfect in the larger sizes for controlling a bait in a turbulent swim.

Nice visible tip for fishing at some distance

On this particular session Ollie kindly invited me to one of his local bits of river and in the first swim he had located some nice chub up in the water skulking about, as well as some good specimen-sized roach gliding on the clean gravel run. We also noticed some nice dace about. The swim was a steady glide formed by a snag with a confluence coming in at the rear end. As Ollie was fishing at distance he chose one of the Clearwater Chubber Floats and opted to fish maggots on a size 18. After spraying maggots for a good 15-20 minutes Ollie casted out, but by this point we noticed some dark shapes emerging that were not there before which were some good-sized pike.

Trotting into the slack to begin with

The roach, chub and dace were now nowhere to be seen, therefore Ollie wandered downstream, just below the crease and fished at some distance on a quite shallow, gravelly run and instantly was catching some nice dace. The float was standing out beautifully and you could clearly see that Ollie had good control due to its buoyancy. After giving it a good forty five minutes, Ollie managed a few more dace and grayling but the larger fish that were located had clearly cruised off and noticing some nice pike in the swim, Ollie kindly offered me a shot in catching one. As we were sorting out the gear, Andy Little, who is a good friend of Ollie's, came over and had a chat with us before he headed upstream to target some perch, which was certainly a nice surprise!

Hooked a dace!

After catching a small dace livebait, I flicked it out into the crease on a paternoster, on Ollie's instruction, and waited. Within 10 minutes, if that, I saw a pike come and seize my bait. I didn't decide to give it too long and wound down to the fish, it was nice Jack pike but on one of the first head shakes he managed to slip the hook. Amazed by the instant action, and with a bait still on the hook, I made the same cast again. The second take came very quickly and this time I let the fish run a bit as it was only on a single treble trace.

About to wind down into the pike!

After a few seconds as the fish moved to the back end of the crease to the shallow water, I wound down and was into a better fish. Although it wasn't fighting particularly hard it was a big dead weight and after pulling it through the weeds and seeing it emerge, it was certainly an upper double and at one final thrash by the net it managed to shake the hook out, I could not believe it. I was rather disappointed as this was certainly a much better fish and would have smashed my personal best river pike, but not feeling disheartened we got the float rod out to try and catch another livebait.

The one that got away!

The first chuck resulted in a minnow which was certainly a good size for a perch livebait and certainly one we couldn't waste. After chucking the bait and letting it settle under the in the near bank slacker area, the float was gone in seconds and Ollie struck into a lovely little vividly coloured perch. Although the fish was not going to break any records, it gave a great little scrap.

Hooked a perch!

After this Ollie had a phone call from Andy. He was telling us of a big pike (around mid-20) upstream which had been attacking the perch he'd been hooking. Without hesitating we headed straight up there! On arrival at the swim Ollie sticked on another small livebait, exactly where Andy had said the pike was attacking the perch he hooked. We were hoping the pike was going to make another appearance at some point but we were slightly unsure as it had certainly taken a fair few perch off Andy's line.

Whilst we waited for a take, Ollie got his float rod out again and attempted to catch some roach, but all that could tempted was large trout which not only caused a disturbance, but were much more obliging than the roach we were after, therefore probably driving them away. After watching Andy continuously bagging beautifully conditioned perch, Ollie and I opted to also give it a go and after catching a few livebaits we trotted them to likely looking areas and where we could see the perch and takes were instantaneous!

One of a number of quality perch for Andy

The chubber floats were fantastic for this, as they are not dragged by the minnow livebait on the end so the takes would be easy to detect. Another advantage is that you could literally let the float control the livebait by casting out and letting the current sweep the bait wherever it would and the it would perfectly settle in the slacks on this particular swim where a number of perch are lurking and patrolling, leading to savage takes!

Beautiful vividly coloured perch for Ollie

After a few more thoroughly enjoyable hours catching plenty of perch and having a nice social with both Andy and Ollie, we decided to head back to the swim where I had lost the pike. Unfortunately the bigger pike in this swim did not make an appearance but I'm sure that's one of a number of pike on this stretch which has either Ollie or Andy's name on it!

The light's starting to go, prime roach time!

Ollie brought down his trotting gear and fished below me and managed a few nice quality little roach, dace and grayling, but the question was where had the bigger ones disappeared off to. After catching another livebait, I flicked the paternoster to the same place. After 15 minutes or so, I had another take where this time the pike sat on the bait, but after giving it a bit of time, I wound down and struck into another nice fish which certainly gave me quite a battle - managing to successfully weed me a couple of times and shake its head like mad when it came towards the bank, we thankfully managed to get the this one in the back of the net. Although it wasn't massive, it was a nice result as I had managed to lose quite a few, and the markings were absolutely stunning on this fish.

After a quick photograph and release it wasn't long until another livebait was caught which I quickly hooked up as a last ditch effort, and flicked it back into the same spot - this one was on the money. The float absolutely sailed away instantly. I gave the fish a few moments to spin the bait in its mouth and run with it, then I wound down and set the hook. This fish stayed nice and deep and taking it steady I slowly guided it to the bank, by which time the fish had really woken up and starting thrashing in the shallows and charging off at speed tearing line off the reel. Hoping the hook would stay proud, I gave the fish some stick and Ollie kindly netted it for me. A quick unhooking was to follow and it weighed in at just a double at 10lbs on the nose - not massive for many's books, but my second river double which I was really made up about. It was also in good shape and again, had stunning colouration.

By the time I got the fish back, I realised it was time to pack up as my mum had arrived, but it was a fantastic session and a big thanks goes to Ollie for taking me to the stretch and showing me a spot with a few nice pike lurking about!

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Tight Lines,

Tom Aldous