Marston Lake 8/09/06 All the Jacks....

[Greenheart]

I'd been intending to try a bit of lure fishing on the river Frome in Somerset. But after taking a look I decided that the river was a bit low & looked around for another venue. My Frome club season ticket has an arrangement where members can fish a local estate lake for £5 a day. Although it’s only 10 minutes from my house, I'd never seen Marston Lake as it's surrounded by a big private shooting estate & woodland. I'd heard it had a good head of pike, so I decided to take a chance & give it a go. Bought a ticket from a local farm & set off through the woods with my ordanance survey map, spinning rod & lure box in hand.
Found the lake & was surprised at the size of it, 25 Acres & I had it all to myself. No Carp fishers with their bivvys & bite alarms, no mobile phones, no dogs & no kids.... Beautiful, just loads of ducks. But these were wild ducks & didn’t mob you to pinch your bait!!!

[center]

The water was very coloured with a lot of blue - green algae, so I set up with a bright orange 4" rapala Shad Rap plug. Started fishing at the shallow end of the lake & second cast I hooked a hard fighting little Jack Pike.

Good start!! Continued moving around the lake covering all the swims & gaps between the trees. I was getting loads of swirls & follows, but not getting any takes. I tried a few other plugs from my lure box, but with the same result.
Time for a rethink.... I had a rummage through my tackle box & in the bottom found some soft plastic Shads that I normally use for Bass fishing. Tied one on, cast out, slow steady retrieve & bang, Another jack.

Continued fishing the plastic Shad & was getting loads of vicious pulls, but no hook ups. Bloody pike kept biting the tails off my lures too... & I was picking up loads of weed.

Tried varying the speed & depth that I fished at, but still the same. Then I remembered a Rex Hunt fishing programe form Australia, where he had been using these lures & fishing them sink & draw for Barramundi.
Tried that & immediately started hooking fish. I also stopped picking up weed.
A lot of the fish came off at the net, including a couple of double figure fish, but it was still excellent sport. I was hitting fish almost every cast & lost count of how many I had. Nothing big, but all hard fighting with lots of tail walking.

Six hours fantastic fishing & I did'nt see another person all day. My own private Paradise.....

[pingu]

what a cracking session sounds great
well done ian

[fishypaul]

well done ian,nice to see a few pike,
my turn soon

[Fishing Forum Admin]

You just cannot bet a day like that this time of year mate. Wnder how a bit of dead / live baiting would do as there must be mummy and daddy in there

Great read and pics

[Rob M]

Cracking report, well done on the pike

Rob

[baitmaster]

nice one ian
you had a few pike nice looking place i would had had atendancy to put a stiger hook on some how with all them tale bite offs

tightlines
kevin

[Twiddler]

Well done Ian, as usual cracking report/pics......nice Pike, my day will come to go piking, gonna make sure I got enough lures than

Claudia

[Greenheart]

Originally Posted by Fishing Forum Admin

You just cannot bet a day like that this time of year mate. Wnder how a bit of dead / live baiting would do as there must be mummy and daddy in there

Great read and pics

A couple of the Jack Pike that I caught had some nice sets of teeth marks on them where a bigger cannibal pike had tried to take a bite. The larger fish that I lost looked to be about 12 - 15lb. The small ones were great fun on light spinning gear though & tended to fight better than the bigger ones.

[BaggieRich]

Wow, what a great day Ian. Love the photos' too mate.

When you say "sink & draw" how long do you draw for and how long do you allow the lure to sink?

I really must get down to the Exeter canal again soon. Should really buy a net though first instead of stealing my mates... Any suggestions for a good net? Something big enough for a good fish, but still allow you to be mobile?

Cheers,

Rich.

[Norfolkboy]

Great session, report and pics Ian. Well done!