First time spinning

mithrandir · #1 03-21-2008, 08:18 PM

A testing day.

Today Twiddler, and I went to a local lake with a friend to try out the waters. It was the first time both twiddler and I had tried using lures for pike. Weather conditions were not ideal, it was blowing a gale and there was a fair chop on the water. Undeterred we set up the spinning rods and start casting a selection of lures into the wind and watched them fly to the left in the breeze.

We were both using braid and a short wire leader, with light lures, the braid is ideal for lure fishing as you feel the contact immediately and if the lure does snag, you have enough strength in the line to retrieve the lure by straightening the hook.

We practiced the casting and discovered the joys of wind knots in braid, I found these less trouble if the braid was wet, but we still had to be careful not to let the braid over run in the wind as that would guarantee an air knot.

After a couple of hours of fruitless casting, and a break for a ginormous pasty supplied by Kay we moved toward the reed bed roots we had been warned were snag ally, and whilst casting about 20 feet in front of them I felt a little twitch on the retrieve and tightened up to a fish, after a short fight, and calling over to the girls as I had left the net up by them, we managed to land this small Jack pike, my first ever.

I had just changed to this lure, a very traditional spoon with red wool trim

Not long after the weather began to turn, and we decided to call it a day, which was fine by me as I had caught, but one of the party was not too happy at having to leave without catching, as you can see from this picture

Thanks to Kay for taking us to this lake and spending so much time with us and helping me to pop my pike cherry.