We have had a busy few days aboard the Galloper with plenty of fish, great company and some glorious weather. I will update you on this later but for now I will take a brief look back at a piece I wrote covering some of our pike fishing from the winter of 202/21. I wrote this last year but decided not to share it. this was in the hope we could get away with having some of these waters to our selves a little longer. Unfortunately the word was out by this year and the main water we have fished over the last few years had a lot more piking pressure on it. it was also becoming more carp orientated and there was talk of removing pike and silver fish. we will give it a rest now but have enjoyed some great fishing from there over the years. my biggest pike this year was 22lb so still a good size. Sadly It will be on to pastures new next winter but all good things come top an end.
It’s not often I have so much time on my hands but other than a few trips over a couple of weeks in December when we could briefly operate I havnt been allowed to take trips since the start of November. I am lucky enough to have a trade and have been busy on site banging nails in Monday to Friday. Although we have done a lot of work to the boat in this time, we tried to get most of this done in evenings during the week so we could have weekends free to got fresh water fishing. it was somewhat of a novelty to me to be honest. it wasn’t until a few weeks ago I realised lockdown was the first time since school that I have had weekends to my self! this may not have been the best time to pursue the course fishing discipline with travel restrictions at times as well as an increase in sport participation. Happily we made the most of our time off and were able to fish several waters locally and while trying to stick to the relevant covid guidelines.
We fished several different waters locally depending on location and conditions. Often our efforts were concentrated on pike fishing but most of the time I also fish a light outfit just to see a bend in the rod.
Up until Christmas we had seen lots of pike from various waters but most were jacks. This wasn’t an issue as the waters we had been fishing were general waters with plenty of other fish to keep us busy too. However over the Christmas period temperatures dropped and shortly after travel restrictions came into force so this limited our options somewhat to a few club waters and private lakes locally. Thankfully they hold some decent pike even which is handy as most of the other fish had now stopped feeding.
My brother Lee had joined us for most trips, Lee is a keen angler him self. Like myself he was bought up surrounded by angling and boats. After a few years where life got in the way he has been gradually getting back into lots more angling over the last couple of years. Lee joined us on new years day when we fished a private lake for pike. I know the water fairly well and as Lee had only been there a couple of times before. With this in mind we decided to work around the lake leapfrogging each other fishing alternate swims. We started with one or two small jacks from the first couple of swims. As we continued around the lake I had moved swims faster than Lee so he thought I was bypassing a swim. I told him to head back and cast upwind from his swim aiming at my float which was at the end of its drift. I couldn’t cover the swim properly due to an annoying breeze which had picked up and new he could cover it better from where he was. As I know the depths there I had told him how deep to set his float which promptly shot under soon after landing 3-4ft from mine! His fresh bait had clearly been more attractive than mine was! Stacey was soon called to help net it as he had a better fish on. From the next swim I could see it was a solid fish but was now too busy trying to hide my envy to be of any use. The fish was netted and after my scales and weigh sling had been borrowed I was summonsed to take additional pictures as well as witness a magnificent fish. After seeing several 20’s this was the first 30lb plus pike any of us had seen alive. I say alive as Lee and my self had seen a stuffed one of over 50lbs in Mick Toomer’s living room as kids. To say Lee was pleased with his new PB of 32.6lbs would be an understatement. I on the other hand wished I had cast 4ft to the left! Still it wasn’t a bad way to start the year!
Over the next few weeks we fished several waters catching good numbers of pike. These ranged from small jacks up to fish in the 20’s. we had a lot of double figure fish and both of us had numerus high teens and 2olb plus fish. I never managed that 30lb+ fish but I did manage to improve my personnel best with a fish of 24.8lbs. As things warmed up and some waters became a little more busy we decided to concentrate on a quieter water with less pike in but a chance of some other specimen fish. As it happened I still had plenty of pike, which surprised me. The stamp was a lot smaller but I did manage the odd double in there too. To be honest I got almost as much satisfaction catching unexpected numbers of fish from a new water as I did catching big fish from a water I know well. Although I am not against pike fishing through the spring I have hung my pike rods up until autumn. I am very busy taking charters on the boat now and any time I get to fresh water fish will be spent chasing a different quarry. I am looking forwards to next winter though and I hope to find my first 30lber.
For regular updates from my charter boat or puddle chucking adventures please visit www.essexseafishing.co.uk or like our facebook page
