Winter Blues - Pike and Barbel Fishing

I only had time to get out fishing once between Christmas and new year.  I'd had a pike fishing itch to scratch for a while and despite conditions which were far from ideal after the bout of mild weather and heavy rain, I decided to pike fish on the Dove, which is a spate river and therefore it's notorious for the speed at which the level rises and colour increases.  So it was to my dismay, but no surprise, that I arrived to find the river coloured and rising!  I should have been barbel fishing but my heart was set on piking, so I had taken my barbel rods out of the van before I left home!

I sat it out regardless and fished to the conditions as best I could, but I only got a single dropped run all day.  A run I didn't even notice at the time because my float, cast to the far bank, would only stay in the slack water if I let out a big bow of line.  However, It was an extremely blustery day and the combination of wind and the flow meant my float was constantly dancing around all over the place, the drop-off was forever rising and falling and my alarm was sounding every few seconds.  That was frustrating enough, but when I reeled in and found my decent-sized roach was badly slashed but the teeth marks were all between the hooks, needless to say I was gutted!  From the size of the marks on the bait, the pike was probably a good one.  It must have picked the bait up sideways but failed to turn it around head-first before it moved off.  Maybe the movement of the line going down from the float spooked it or something.  I'm 99% sure that if I'd had a proper take I would have known straight away because the drop-off did ping off in the wind the odd time, just not on that cast!  Regardless of that, I decided to try and find somewhere more sheltered where I could fish without fear of unwittingly deep-hooking a fish.

I gambled on a move to the Pride of Derby complex, to try on one of the lakes there for the last couple of hours.  However, when I arrived at the gates, this was the sight that greeted me:

The heavy rain had pushed so much water into the Trent that it had flooded the entire adjacent lake complex.  This seemed like a bad thing until I considered that the floodwater would probably mean I was the only angler there.  I was in a van, and thought I might have the height to drive through the water to get to some high ground that I could fish from.  So, not one to be put off from a fishing trip easily, I unlocked the gates and gingerly inched the van into the water, hanging my head out of the window to both monitor the depth and spot the edge of the track; one place I definitely didn't want to end up was on the surrounding underwater grass, or I'd be stuck there until the waters receded!  Unfortunately my pluckiness didn't pay off, the water got so deep that I feared I might damage my van, so I had to slowly reverse back out of the venue.  Had I had my thigh waders with me I could have walked to a peg, but they aren't part of my usual winter kit so they were at home!  I thought about driving back to the Dove, but the combination of the poor piking conditions and by now, falling light, meant I decided to call it a day.  Sometimes you have to know when it's time to quit.

I did bump into James Gould and Stu Walker (who's been filming "Caught In The Act" and previously "Barbel Days & Ways" with Bob Roberts) during the day.  They were barbel fishing and I conceded that this was where the smart money was on such a day.  Why the hell had I taken those barbel rods out!  Both chaps were really friendly and I even got a flattering "It's Andrew, isn't it?  I've read some of your stuff..." from Stu, but I then felt pretty stupid because I recognised him too, but I couldn't quite remember where from, or what his name was.  D'oh!

Despite my feeling that the conditions had been ideal for barbel, I got in touch with Stu & James later and found that they had just the one fish between them all day, which didn't show until after dark.

Before that mild & wet spell ended, I got in an after-work session myself and this time set my stall out for barbel.  I'd soaked some boilies in a spicy, fishy mix and done similar with some luncheon meat in preparation.  There wasn't a fish within a mile that could have avoided smelling my baits!  It was pleasant to sit out in, despite not casting out until 8pm, and despite seeing the odd fish rolling and conditions seemingly perfect, I didn't get as much as a twitch on the rod tip.  So, maybe there just wasn't a fish within a mile!

Finishing with a flurry?

Well, the end of the traditional close season (which, in it's current form, I agree with 100%) is almost upon us.  I had the rare chance to go fishing twice last week and for the first trip I decided to follow my own yearning for a return to the Lincs drains (they can be frustrating at times and I hear many reports of fish thefts and that they're not what they once were, but I just love fishing them!) for a final try for a pike before the rivers & drains close on the 14th.  I made the 70 mile trip East and checked a few of my favourite places out, before settling on a very shallow drain, carrying only 18 inches of water down the centre.  The weather had turned and was much sunnier than we've experienced for months.  This wasn't ideal because bright weather can put fish off the feed, but on the other hand, the water was in need of warming up, so surely the sun couldn't do too much harm for my day fishing.  Plus, there were clouds dotted around and I have noticed pike and perch launch attacks on sunny days, just seconds after the sun goes behind a cloud, as if they have been patiently poised, waiting for anything which swung the odds slightly in their favour.

There were a few sporadic strikes up and down the drain, and the fish seemed to be striking in pairs.  There would be two strikes almost instantaneously, within feet of each other, then nothing for maybe half an hour.  That's the thing with fishing a shallow water; when a pike strikes, it has to create a bow-wave or break the surface.  In a deep water, the fish could be striking mid-depth and showing no signs on the surface that they're feeding at all.  So now it was my turn to be poised.  And frustrated.  The strikes would happen and each time I would have to sit on my hands to stop myself picking up the rods and charging upstream to cast there, because chances were that the next strike would be right in front of me!  I ended up mixing things up.  I fished two static rods and cast them either side of where I'd seen fish strike, give them half an hour, then move.  Other times I travelled up & down the drain with a roving float set-up, trotting a bait in the steady flow.  This turned out to be the winning method when, after several hours trying with no joy, my float darted under at speed.  With such a positive take I wasted no time in winding down to the fish and immediately caught sight of it, as it turned in the shallow water.  I could see the fish was easily into double figures so I took my time, but the fish put up little resistance and was soon in the net.  Then the battle began!  The battle between me and the muddy banks.  The banks on this particular drain are akin to a WWI trench and despite wearing boots with some serious grips, I found myself on my back, sliding towards the water, trying not to snap my rod, hurt the pike or let it jump back into the drain!  I eventually managed to claw my way out and found a slightly less precarious part of the bank to lower the net into the water to let the fish recover while I tried to pull myself together and sort out my forceps, camera & scales.

Often drains fish have taken some hammer from previous captures, but I was pleasantly surprised by the condition of my fish.  She had no wounds from hooks or lesions on her sides and all fins seemed in good nick too.  Either I'd done well to outwit this master of bait evasion or she'd recently moved in for a feast, from a more remote area.  Despite the time of year, this fish didn't appear to be carrying any spawn, and wasn't particularly bloated with food either, but she was thick set, with a large head and a broad back.  The scales told me she weighed 16lb 3oz so this fish was by far my largest of an altogether disappointing winter pike campaign, which had started with so much promise.  Still, a 16 is a very good pike and I'm really happy with it as a way to finish! 

I think the toll which the "unorthodox" pre-photo procedures had taken on me, showed on my face!...

I did go on to catch another fish of around 7lb using the same tactics, but when the action slowed I ventured off to find other drains with pike in feeding frenzies, but I'd have probably been better off staying put!  Except for seeing two Barn Owls, at two different drains a few miles apart.  I just managed a snap of one of them before it flew off...

A friend of mine tipped me off that after a lean winter, the tidal Trent barbel were on the feed and people were catching up to 4 fish during the day.  I've never targetted barbel in the winter - other species have always taken my fancy a bit more - but knowing where the fish were feeding was half the battle won, so I fancied getting myself amongst this late-season barbel action!  So, the following day I dug out my barbel kit and headed to the area these fish were reported from.  I spent a whole day doing... well, pretty much nothing!  I didn't have anything resembling a bite and nor did the chap on the next peg upstream, who specialised in winter barbel fishing.  So somehow in two days of the weather not changing much, the fish had either gone right off the feed or buggered off elsewhere to get their fill!  Roll on the summer, that's my kind of barbel fishing...

This week I've got two perch fishing sessions planned, on two different rivers in two different counties, in two days!  If I could land a decent perch on each session I will end this season smiling like you wouldn't believe!  I'll post the, no doubt disappointing results on here next week!

I've uploaded a new pike fishing article to my website.  It originally appeared as the front page feature article in December 2009 issue of Angling Star magazine.  I discuss the merits of chumming up when pike fishing and describe how to make a cheap and effective chum feeder to deposit the fishy mush near your hookbait.  Either visit the homepage or click on the link from the Article Archive or go Straight to it