*with added spoon hurling
A couple of weeks ago myself and Stu managed to squeeze in a session at our perennial banker down in Northamptonshire. Pitsford is about 2 and a half hours down the motorway so it was a very early start, on the road by about 5:30 am which meant getting up at 04:30 which mean fuck all sleep – maybe 3 hours. The journey down flew past, they often do…it’s the return leg in silence that gets me 😂. We pulled into Pitsford for about 08:00 andof course the car park was already very busy full of people already tackled up and raring to go (I got the 2nd to last boat). We each put up 2 x fly and 1 x spinning rod to maximise our chances and once I’d checked in at the lodge and got our life jackets we clambered aboard our boat for the day.
Motoring out loaded for bear is peak fishing excitement but we straight away got the early morning piss and vinegar knocked out of us as we saw the colour of the water – it was solid green. Not the familiar algae you get at Pitsford that hasn’t previously ruined our fishing there, no, this was different and it meant visibility was about 8 inches.
We went under the road bridge hoping to find more clarity on the other side but it was just as bad and also our ‘banker bay’ had a bait angler anchored up bogarting the the whole fucking thing – how dare they 😁? Feeling somewhat deflated but still optimistic we went up to the sailing club area and spent an hour or so chucking flies for no return. I was once again using 2 x Airflo Blutooth Nano rods. One was an Xmas present a few years ago, the other I bought off my friend Andy who had to pack in fishing as he bravely battled illness. The same Andy who donated some coarse tackle to my little boy, I would say I hope he was watching his rod getting some use from up above but frankly I imagine he would have much more exciting things to do
Eventually we gave up and motored back down towards the road. We saw that our favourite bay was free so did several drifts through it but although the water seemed a little bit clearer here we still connected with nothing. Back through to the other side and out comes the spinning rod, my trusty Daiwa Whisker which is I believe a salmon rod but it’s been catching me pike for about 20 years. Success, a cluster of mussels!
After a couple more drifts I eventually felt a bit of a whack on the same Abu lure then spent some time wondering if it was in fact a fish or a big clump of weed until my mystery object woke up next to the boat and had a bit of a run. Stu kindly used my as yet un-Christened Savage Gear net (unless you count his pissing on it 😒) to bring a very welcome pike into the boat.
Not a whopper, not on the fly but man was I happy to catch this fish.
This was our only fish of the day and, unusually for us, we were off the water well before they called time. It sounded like the trout fishing guys had done ok and indeed we’d seen quite a few rising but didn’t hear much pike chatter. As we unloaded the boat I took a photo of all the paraphernalia we’d brought. Absolutely unreal!
Between us the day cost £90 in diesel, £100 on the boat and tickets, and 5 hours of driving. That’s a big day out for 1 diminutive pike!