Late season piking on the Grand Western Canal

[count zero]

Having had quite a bit of success recently on the canal (four doubles to 12.5lb in an afternoon session) I decided to go up there again on Sunday after I had closed up the tackle shop and see if get a couple of late season pike on baits. A friend has recently broken his leg in a motorbike accident and is missing his fishing so I arranged to pick him up and we agreed to fish near to one of the access points so he didnt have to hobble far on his crutches. I was carrying all the tackle so we only took one rod each plus a mat, landing net, tackle bag and just one seat for my mate. We were fishing a very pikey looking bay that I have had some success in before but the trouble is that it gets a lot of pressure because it is so close to the access. We tackled up and cast a couple of Jumbo smelt toward the tree line at the back of the bay, my mate settled himself in my chair and I sat on the unhooking mat, we didnt have to wait very long, after about 10 minutes my mates float went and he struck into what turned out to be a nice solid 7lb fish. Quckly unhooked and returned to the water it was soon followed by a fish of about 3lbs, again to his rod. The afternoon wore on and no more fish came to either of us so we sat in the pleasant sunshine chatting, after about an hour and a half I stood up to recast my bait as I did so I noticed my float bobbing around it didnt move off or go under so I decided to strike as I thought it was a jack playing around and I didnt want it to swallow the bait. I wound down and struck and as soon as I did I could tell that this was no jack, slow hard head shakes and then it tried to bury itself in the trees that hang down into the water at the back of the bay, by exerting quite a bit of pressure I managed to turn the fish but then it took off the other way up the canal, all the time thrashing and shaking its head trying to shed the hooks. After a few minutes I managed to get the fish by the bank and tried to steer it towards the net but it wasnt having it and turned tail and went taking line on the clutch it did this 3 or 4 more times making some fantastic surging runs and at one point I thought the fish was going to jump or tailwalk as it was going so vigorously eventually my mate slipped the net under it and I could relax a bit. I knew it was a big fish but my hands were shaking so much that I had to leave it in the net in the margins for a couple of minutes while I calmed down enough to unhook it.
As I lifted the net out I was thinking to myself that she looked like a 20, which is a great acheivment for this canal as although there are a few in there they dont come out very often. I laid the fish on the mat and removed the hooks which were nicely positioned in the roof of the mouth, placed the fish in the weigh sling and now for the moment of truth looped the sling onto the hook of the scales, 19lb 9oz what a fish! We dropped her back into the margins to get a breath before we took some photos. As I was holding the fish for the photos I could see that she had recently spawned and feel that the belly was empty, you can see the spawning marks on her in the photo. How much would she have weighed a week before?
Anyway after I had returned her, holding her upright in the margins until she was ready to go we decided to call it a day my mates leg was playing him up a bit and I wasnt going to beat the fish I had just released so time for the pub and a celebratory pint. The bait rods will go away now until october, I may have a few sessions on lures but really that is my pike season pretty much over for the year. But what a way to finish!

[king01]

nice write upmate, i am yet to hunt for pike. they are stunning looking fish, well done

[PikeHunter]

Brilliant fish mate.

[MRG2000]

Stonking fish ,well done that man.....

[Maddison_Twatter]

well done mate , great way to end the season

[blackwater]

Well done mate, looks a nice slender pike, no doubt with the spawn in her it'd be about 3lbs heavier!

[pingu]

cracking fish there
nice one

dave

[Baz T]

Well done Ian - I knew I should have gone up to try Grand Western when you mentioned it before - lol. That is a cracking fish - and a real good size for that canal too, as I havent heard of any pike that size coming from there for some time.

[Fishing Forum Admin]

grest read mate

[Mark78]

well done, thats a cracking fish and great report.