a nice afternoon

[fishypaul]

Had a spur of the moment idea to do a bit of piking ,did all my chores,got the nod from the FPO and with the river possibly being high after all the rain decided to give my local gravel pit a thrashing.

Its a big gravel pit (250 acres or so)so decided to travel light,just one rod,rucksack and net,just took my lure box and e few frozen smelts,The lake was quite busy so i walked past everyone and headed for the small bays on the far side,quite a walk for an old fatty like me, got a jack almost straight away on smelt but it went quiet after that,i decided to go for a small area on an island you can only get to across some rather slippery railway sleepers,well you can guess what's coming,i somehow mannaged to fall in,good job it wasn't too cold.

eventually got fishing and noticed a commotion on the surface about 20 yards up the bank,crept up as close as i could and it looked like a shoal of small roach had been herded into a corner by some pike.

out came the rapala,and i had 3 jacks in about 10 minutes,me catching these fish seemed to have no effect at all,they were so pre-occupied with these fry,they didn't seem to notice little old (soggy) me casting at them,then i nearly fell in again as a perch which must have been all of 5lb followed the lure all the way in,it just drifted out of sight when it saw me,
needless to say,i stayed at this spot all afternoon,the shoal of roach all disappeared(or had been eaten)and i saw no signs.

just before dark i had a thumping take and it was obviously a good fish,i started shaking,i was thinking of near record perch when a pike all of a sudden surfaced,in all my exitement about this perch,i convinced that was the fish on the end,It was a truly lovely pike of about 14lb,it really made my day.but i could'nt help feeling a bit diisappointed as well,come the colder weather when the weed has died back ,i'll be back there armed with cart loads of lobs and all the gear.

this story hasn't finished yet,i hope !

[Norfolkboy]

nice report paul. Maybe getting some minnows might be a good idea and using them for the monster perch? Lobs like you say will be good too, sounds a good predatory place!

Some nice fish, did you get any pictures at all mate?

Well done

[Ben]

well done mate, keep tryna perswade my dad he wants to take me piking again soon, always to busy with work is his excuse
nice pike

[fishypaul]

i had something similar happen quite a few years ago ben,that time i caught some fry with my landing net and put half a dozen on a size 8 hook,the float went down ten minutes later but when i struck i forgot i had opened the bail-arm in case i had a take while i wasn't looking.what a balls up !
needless to say i didn't catch

[mikey-1001]

Its days like that, thats the reason we all fish !!