Biggest Not Always The Best

Rob Sidell

Many people have a soft spot for certain waters and they are usually the ones that they first cast a line into on the start of their angling journey with whatever species they fish for and I'm no different. Being brought up in Norfolk with our multitude of waterways, it was a certainty that at somepoint I would try angling as this was what my brother did. I used to be a bit of a pest to him by sitting and watching him for hours on end in the boat dykes at Wroxham near where we lived. I would always be begging him to let me have a go whilst he was catching small Roach,Gudgeon, Cocky Ruffe and if he was really lucky a decent sized Perch that were ever eager to engulf his double maggot that was presented on crude tackle.

It was in one of the boat dykes that I first came face to face with a species that has captivated me more than any other during my angling career. I remember I was about six at the time and whilst rumaging through my brothers old wicker fishing kreel while he was out I found a small spinner and some sea fishing line (must of been about 20lb BS). I don't know what possessed me to do this but I thought that I would try some sort of jigging method with the spinner.It was only when I had dropped the spinner between a moored boat and the key heading and jerked it up and down(ooh eer) that I felt something pulling at the other end and it turned out to be a tiny jack of about 8 oz. From there on in a pike angler was born.

It wasn't until about 6-7 years later that I tried piking properly and this was during the school holidays when myself and a mate used a rowing dinghy to troll livebaits through the stretch of the Bure at Wroxham. We caught mostly jacks with the odd double thrown in which seemed an absolute monster to me at the time. It was from this time onwards that I used to go piking regularly and steadily my pb's got bigger until eventually I managed to surpass the magical 20lb barrier one late November day with a 22lb fish whilst fishing the river at Horning.

Since that day the Bure system with its many miles of river and broads has produced stacks of doubles and several 20's for me, by fishing on average two and sometimes three sessions a week, over 100 doubles for the season (Oct to March) was not too difficult to achieve. However in recent years I think this has become a little harder to achieve due to various reasons that include increased angling pressure, Otters and salt tides. One thing the system never used to produce were many fish over 25 lb and a 30lb fish came up once in a blue moon!.So for many years my pb on the system stood at 24 lb and whilst this is a very good fish I felt that if I was to improve my pb I would need to search some of the other Broadland systems to achieve this.With this in mind I left the Bure system alone for a while and did in fact manage to improve my pb half a dozen times topped by a cracking 30.4 from another one of the Broadland rivers.

It was then brought to my attention that a certain part of the Bure system which had been left alone for quite a while was indeed worth a look again.With my pb now increased I decided to give it another whirl to try and catch one of the specimens that the Bure rarely throws up.... a 25 plusser!.

It was one late November day that I found myself going up the river with the outboard at full tilt due to the fact that the area I intended to fish took the best part of half an hour to get to. Once the area was reached I was full of optimism as there was a lovely light to moderate south westerly blowing with recent night time temperature not dropping below 9 degrees. I was feeling confident and after a couple of swim moves my confidence had been well founded as I caught eight fish up to fifteen pounds and all in fantastic condition. After that initial session I began fishing the area fairly regularly and caught plenty of fish with several of my early sessions on there producing over twenty to just under 20lb and at times keeping all the rods in the water at once was a bit of a feat in itself!.

Over the next couple of years I continued to fish the area with decent catches being made with a few low 20's thrown in and with my best from this particular part of the Bure being upped to just over 23lb. The one thing about these particular fish that kept me going back there were their stunning markings,bluey grey with very vivid grey spots quite unlike anything that I had seen before. I can remember one particular fish that I'd caught in 2005 that weighed 18.8 and was a truly stunning looking fish that had obviously never seen a hook before and having the aforementioned gorgeous markings. She was a fish that was always going to stay etched in my mind to some degree. After this capture the thought of catching a real big one with these stunning markings really did give me increased drive to fish the water more often even if it did mean possibly missing out on potential big fish from other areas of Broadland.

Looking back over time I've found an attitude to move on in several other instances of my piking where if I've had a decent run of good fish from a certain place,I'll go somewhere different. Even though the chances of a big fish are very slim,I do this just to get away from the crowds.I do get a buzz from catching a 20 from a water that struggles to produce such fish as much as I would catching say a 25lb fish from an area that does quite a few if you get my drift. I have seen myself do this several times by fishing the lesser fashionable areas of Broadland. Now to maximise my chances of catching a 25 plusser from this part of the Bure I thought that I would only fish the area at the back end of the season or at least from January onwards and only if the conditions were also conductive to good fishing.

After having a chat with a mate it became apparent that the area had produced a fish in excess of 30lb about 15 years previous which didn't surprise me, due to the fact that the area was mostly left alone and had a healthy population of overwintering preyfish.These obviously being two of the main ingredients needed to produce a really big fish. Then in the Autumn of 2006 came a real hammer blow when we had a big salt surge after a couple of days of strong north westerly winds, these two factors combined pushed salt water through the broads system and killed thousands of fish on most parts of the Broads. This really did put a big dent into my fishing plans. Luckily a mate of mine had managed to get me on to a Trout fishery in Suffolk that was very rarely pike fished, so with the fishing on the Broads looking a bit bleak it was there I did most of my piking in the late autumn of 2006. By the turn of the year I had managed to catch quite a few fish from the Trout lake including a sprinkling of 20 pounders to 26.8 so things hadn't actually worked out to badly with the change of scenery too.

On a late January morning when I was due to fish the Trout lake I awoke only to discover that the weather was different to what had been forecast the night before.The conditions were still and overcast and not ideal for the fish in the Trout lake to feed well in my limited experience of fishing there. Thoughts of what to do were spinning through my head, then it struck me that I had said to myself I would,when the conditions were right go and troll the part of the Bure that I had been doing well prior to the salt tides. I would then find out if anything had survived the salt incursions. Armed with some decent livebaits I thought I would have a good chance of tempting anything that had survived with the methods and baits that I was going to use.With the weather conditions as they were it would be easier to attain the right trolling speed which I do find important especially when trying to tempt the bigger fish using this method.In my experience going to quick while trolling will cause the bait to rise up in the water too much and out of the strike zone, this may not be so important when the water temperatures are a bit warmer, but when they are really cold I feel that you need to have the bait presented just at the right speed to keep the bait at the right depth to tempt them.

Once I had made my decision not to fish the Trout lake,I had to quickly load the boat with the relative tackle and sort my baits out. I was soon on my way and by about 7.00am I was making my way up river in the half light, negating the 25 minute run up to the area that I wanted to fish. On reaching the area I found I could see the prop on my outboard motor quite easily which I use as a bit of an indicator as to whether the water colour is ideal for livebaiting. Coupling that with the previous night time temperature not dropping too low things were looking promising. I hooked up a Roach of around 8 oz on the first rod ,then on the second went a Bream off around a pound and I managed to get a decent spread on the baits which can be a bit tricky when using baits of this size. After trolling for about 50 yards with the baits working well I noticed one of them getting extremely agitated !.This is always a sure bet that there is a pike in the vicinity, although there were no takes forthcoming it still made me fairly confident that something had survived the salt water. I'd moved about another 30 yards when a take came without warning, as the rod with the roach was seized. Line was leaving the reel at a fair pace and I was fairly confident that a small fish would be responsible.I wound down and leaned into the fish I found this to be the case as a chunky fish of around six pounds was soon unhooked and released.

With the optimism gained from the first fish I soon hooked up another bait of around the same size and I had hardly repositioned the oars in the rollocks when I had another take on the same rod which turned out to be another chunky fat fish of around thirteen pounds. The fish had a similar build to the fish that I'd been catching at the trout lake, which at the time I didn't think too much about, but it was however a bit unusual for these fish to be like this, but more on this later....

I carried on trolling over the area but no other takes were forthcoming so other areas were tried but to no avail, which after such a good start this was a bit of a blow especially as through the day the sonar it had shown quite large concentrations of prey fish. With only about two hours of fishing time left I decided to go back over the area where I had started and after a short while the Bream was taken in a large vortex. Anyone that has had this happen it makes you tremble slightly when winding down !.When I wound down to set the hooks I found a reasonable resistance and was optimistic that I had in fact hooked a decent fish, but as with most Broadland fish the fight was fairly unspectacular with the fish making a few short runs when it neared the boat. When I first caught a glimpse of it I didn't think it would weigh any more than 18-19 lb and my view had not changed when it went over the draw cord of my landing net. It wasn't until I lifted the net that the fish revealed the depth to its flanks that I realised I had a good 20 on the boat. It was also an absolutely stunning looking fish and totally unblemished.

I rowed over to a piece of bank to do the weighing and photography and after safely unhooking the fish I popped it into the weigh sling to reveal the needle on the Reubens spun around to 26.14. I'd finally accomplished what I had set out to do several years ago, to catch one of the Bures rarer fish a 25 plusser. As I laid the fish on the unhooking mat I was in total awe of the condition of the fish as it looked like it had a totally undisturbed life. It had even more girth than the two fish that I had caught earlier, this got me thinking as to why? The only reason I could come up with was the salt tides that had came in the Autumn two years before had perhaps littered the bottom with dead fish which would make easy pickings for the pike that had evaded and survived the salt water. Alternatively as the sonar had suggested the salt surges had squeezed alot of prey fish into a small area which again would end up making catching food for the pike relatively easy, resulting in the build and weight of the fish caught.

There was one other surprise in store for me as I was comparing this particular fish to some of the photos of the other 20's that I'd caught from that part of the Bure. I noticed she was not actually any of them. It was only when I looked a the 18.8 that I had caught two years previous that I recognised it as the same fish and amazingly it had gained over 8lbs in weight, for a wild fish to do this in such a short period of time I found remarkable!

I now have a A4 size picture of this fish on my garage wall to remind me when going through a lean spell of what can be achieved with a little bit of persistence,drive and without doubt a little bit of luck.This still remains my most cherished capture to date, even though I have managed to catch bigger fish from various other places.

Be Lucky

Rob

The Benefit of Bait Boats

Neilson Baxter 

Back a few years ago now, I had an alloy 12 foot Sea Nymph and I found that I’d only used it once. I thought it was time to sell the boat or swap it for a bait boat which I had in the past thought were for the tackle tarts of the fishing world, how wrong I was!

I stuck the Sea Nymph up for sale on the old Pike and Predators forum and after a few days I got a message from Grant telling me “Hi Neilson, I have a new micro cat with all the toys if you would like to swap” Grant kindly sent me pictures of the Micro Cat. The deal was made and I set off the following day and met up with Grant “half way” from our homes. We had a coffee and a chat, Grant is a very nice chap. So it was back up the road North with my new toy to go straight to a water and try my new baby out!

I was truly amazed at how good the fish finder was on this bait boat. It would detail the depths the fish were at, the weed on the bottom the drop off's, everything was there in detail for me, I was truly amazed with what I was seeing. Also I was pleasantly surprised just how far the boat could go out and back. When I got home and I can remember sending Grant a message telling him just how happy I was with his Micro Cat.

My intentions and plans were to use the boat only for pre-baiting and I did so for many weeks. Time moved on and with two days off work I thought 'right' it is now time to try this boat out on big wild water. So off I went at 6am and got to my water at about 7.20am. It was a very, very cold morning and the water was flat calm. Getting the boat out I delivered the first bait out about 90 yards right on a distinctive drop off about 5 feet in 25 feet of water then the other rod followed with another bait on the same drop off. The third rod I took out around 70 yards with a fresh sardine that you would never cast that distance without it coming off the hooks, I put the sardine in a little spot beside a huge big stone within a pile of stones.

As I was putting the bobbin in the last rod my first rod was away with a cracking looking pike of about 15lb netted, unhooked and returned. I was very happy with myself after thinking that I just knew that the first rod would go! I remember I had a few fish that day nothing huge but it opened my eyes to bait boats.

I then started to take the boat out on all my trips and would not go without her. Of course I got better at using the boat and the fish finder, all new experience and learning. Sadly me and the Good Lady (well at that time not so Good Lady) had a bit of time apart. I moved into my caravan which I loved. I was fishing a lot but unfortunately at the same time I found myself running low on cash.Sadly, needs must and the bait boat just had to go ! 

So about a year or so later with life sorted I really wanted another bait boat but didn’t want to spend crazy money on one. Again I saw one for sale on the old forum, a Viper Icon that Kev Berry was selling. I got the ball rolling and purchased the boat for a very good price from Kev. When the Viper landed on my door step I could not believe the condition of the boat as it was brand new (cheers Kev). So, I now thought that I must get a fish finder for this new wee baby of mine! To cut a long story short I got one for £120 which had a 400 meter range, to be honest I would never try and go out that far, the finder also had lots of other interesting stuff it could use too.

I remember taking it on its first trip and being over the moon with how good this wee boat was and the finder was giving me the details I wanted. The water I was fishing was a bit rough that day but that did not stop this wee boat at all, it surprised me. Once again with this boat I found exactly what I was looking for, a drop off at 70 yards out, in 14 feet of water and a sexy five foot shelf.

 

 With this discovery, I ran the boat back in,put my macky tail inside attached to my hooks it and dropped the bait right on the shelf. I was not long before I got a run struck into what felt like a very good pike, how right I was when looking at 32.04 of mint pike, it was in great condition, fin perfect and to top a great day I also caught a 25lb fish later on in the day.

So as you can imagine, that was me “buzzing” and it was in no small part thanks to the help of the bait boat and finder. I still thought in the back of my mind is the boat helping me or is it just luck? Only one way to find out! I set of with her again and found other shelf's, features and drop off's and caught a 24.08 a 27 and a fat as hell 31. These fish all came from the baits that were taken out at range with the bait boat. The boy I was fishing with blanked! That was when I said to myself this is NOT just luck, as it was my reading of the water combined with the help of the bait boat that was helping me catch.

After using the Viper for some time I thought could do with a bigger boat. When I say bigger I mean one that would hold more bait and bigger baits so I then purchased The Angling Tecknics standard bait boat, once again second hand off the forum. This I found an OK boat but the one I bought was letting in water and my fish finder did not fit on it very well.

 Anyway, I got to work and split the boat in half and re-sealed it and put it all back together and all seemed fine. A few days later I set off for a few days piking with the AT boat . I got the boat out the bag and put my bait in her ready to go out to my hot spot and the boat started to go round in circles! I was raging and felt like smashing the thing up! I fished all day and only had a few jacks as I could not get to where I wanted!

........................................................Again I took the boat to bits and found that one off the pumps had packed in. So I’d had enough with this boat and sold it and went home in a foul mood! The wife said to me “What’s wrong with you”! I told her that I should never had of sold my Viper Icon and that the AT boat was a pig in a poke and it was effecting my fishing!

On the 9th of December I walked in to the kitchen and there was a huge box sitting there. I said to the Good Lady (very good lady) “What’s in the box”? The Good Lady replied “It’s your Xmas present”. So I opened the big box it and I could not believe what she had given me! Oh Yes, a brand new Micro Cat. I was indeed like a cat with two tongues. I said to her “Is this a wind up” .She said “No, it’s yours a Xmas pressie from me and Lennon “. I was over the moon and I said to her how did you know I wanted a Micro Cat?. My Good Lady told me that she had looked up all my last listings on EBay and she had seen they were all Micro Cat Bait boat viewings! I was now looking at my best X-mas  ever.

As you can imagine I was bursting to get out and at the pike and have a go with my new baby, so off I went to give her a test drive. I was very impressed with it how fast the new boat was and the life in the batteries is great and I have still yet to run them flat. It’s the same old story as you get what you pay for. This is by far the best boat I have ever used. These days I would not be without a bait boat as they are great for new waters, for finding fish holding areas, depths and features. In the last two months all the pike I have caught are all down to no little help of this bait boat.

Tight lines to you all.

N.Baxter.

The Love of Learning

Andrew Nagel

My first visit to waters is usually in the summer. There are people around and I can usually get a bit of a lead on how to get permission to fish. After moving to Denmark from England, I learned most of my Danish by speaking with farmers about fishing rights.

The standard of roach fishing can be as good as it gets. The fishing is straightforward feeder fishing in the evenings. I’d found a good-sized water, and found it at the point in its cycle when the roach population was booming. The average fish was around a pound and three quarters.  On the first evening I fished it I quickly came to the conclusion that I’d be spending more time here. Fishing corn over a silty area gave me about 50lb of roach. I was hoping to get some smaller ones for baits.

I nipped back to van and got a couple of rigged pike rods out and a few bits. I put 2 baits out and stood by the rods enjoying roach after roach. A bobbin clanked against the bank stick and the float was moving off. Two hours in and so far I knew the food supply was good, and that there were pike. A summer double charged around a bit and looked awesome. The fish was in great condition. It looked young and muscular. So began the learning of a new water.

................................( The first clue while roaching. The markings were enough to make me want more)

 

I hadn’t managed to find permission, and opted for fish and find out etiquette. This wasn’t me pulling a stroke. I’ve found over the years that if you are upfront when approached, show a willingness to pay without question, then most folk understand. My first bollocking came from a red-faced butcher; the keeper of the fishing rights. Geordie charm exports well. I got a year’s worth of permission plus some info, and he got a bottle of fine whisky. He told me other people who fished it caught very few pike, ate them, and that the lake occasionally produced fish to low 20’s with a one time exceptional fish of 26lb being the long standing biggest. It also had zander as he caught fry in his eel nets each year. The picture was filling out, learning with every opportunity.

I started off with a live, dead and a jig in the autumn. The jig set up was a perching outfit and I got a few belters while using jigs to feel around. There was a lot of soft silt, with very defined areas of firm stone and sand. These were not only isolated to the marginal drop, but also featured randomly further out in areas. Pike came from all areas, and the Butcher’s ‘very’ few turn out to be ‘quite’ a few. By late November the scattered fish had converged, seeming to be coming off the stony bottom areas. Lives did little, it was deads that were being taken mostly, and there was a distinct lack of jacks. There was also little cover, so maybe the better pike thinned the jacks out? Or maybe the others who fished for dinner were clearing a lot of jacks out?

By December I’d lost one big fish and caught a lot of doubles up to 16lb. This wasn’t a water that had my full attention, but the variety of good roach, perch and pike was pleasing between tougher projects. Zander didn’t show and I wondered if he was getting ruffe in his eel nets instead of zander fry? I was very pleased with the numbers of doubles I was catching, and I decided to take a shot of their right flank. I fancied studying the photos to build up knowledge of the population. The 16lb fish appeared an old fish fading out. It was definitely the odd one out in appearance. Although I only caught it once, it was long and lean and I thought it’s skin didn’t have the radiance of the better-conditioned fish. I took a good mate there for a day and on his first cast as he set his bobbin it was pulled from his hand. He caught a 17 before his bait had sunk, and it looked fit! The plump fish made me hopeful of getting something big, and the fish that I’d lost was in my mind.

 

(The 16lb December fish was far longer and leaner than it’s sisters at that point of the year).

I didn’t expect it at the time but my study is still on going after 8 years. As I looked back on photos I noticed that I’d had the same pair of fish on 3 occasions, yet never one without catching the other. A bit odd! I also noticed that I’d caught lot in the dark. It became apparent that I was not the only person studying the pike population and movements. As a fish was landed I noticed a bit of silver wire running along its flank. A little lower was a single stitch. The wire was an antenna from a biologists tracking device. I’ve had a couple of fish with these to date. I’ve not found the biologist, or any data though. The fish tend to be real beauties, the majority displaying big bold spots, clean flanks and full fins.

(The stitch and antenna clearly visible. Although I didn’t and wouldn't, I’ve never fancied trans-locating a fish more than this one. Just for laughs you understand).

 

(A typically marked and proportioned fish – like a new pin).

Over the years I’ve given the lake short spells of concentrated effort. As I fished around the water I found an area with a few interesting stony features. There were other features dotted around, but this area was an exception with the amount of large stones. I would love to tell you I found them with the jig-n-feel approach, but the truth is I fell in tripping over one while wading before I’d had a chance to cast! Fishing this area quickly delivered results. The number of fish seemed to rocket. I remember one day where I went down from 3 rods to 1, as I couldn’t keep up. That particular day I caught another odd-one-out. A darker fish that was long and lean. It had a flesh wound on its flank and pale gills that made me doubt its health.  By now, with loads of photos of fish flanks to study, there were only two in this condition and I’d never caught either of them a second time. After this attentions went elsewhere again.

(In comparison to other fish, this mid double appeared weak and skinny). 

A couple of years later I returned. The same area quickly produced the first 20+er. It took a roach on an inside bend of a stony feature. The next session I had a brace of 20’s and a 19. The 19 had a trace in its throat. That winter I found a washed up herring. One advantage that bank fishing has over boat fishing is the learning you can read from signs of other anglers in the margins and on the banks. Knowing the other anglers would be eating the fish it created a new factor in my study. Fish would be disappearing not just dying off.

(I’ll not deny it – I do like good-looking fat lass! It's a deer hunting syndicate water and getting shot is even less appealing than my head-ware).

(A slimmer built 19 after ‘surgery’ to unstitch its stomach from some knacker’s trace. I’m no photographer as you can see).
 

(Nightmare on trace-street! Nylon trace of barbed trebles from the gut of an otherwise healthy fish).

New fish were showing regularly, which made me wonder if I was simply not finding or tempting the better fish in previous years? Or was it that these were grown-on and that the glut of mid doubles were now bigger? I’d developed my presentation, fishing a slow sinking bait that allowed me to retrieve a link-rigged lead along the bottom immediately after the cast. I did this until I got that distinct knocking feeling of the lead dragging on stones then let the rig settle and clipped up, knowing it was in a prime spot on the lake bed.

Seemingly out of the blue came a 27-12. A well made fish, which was very powerful. Again it came in darkness, and again to a dead fished on a stony inside bend of a feature. I’d now beaten the long-standing lake ‘record’ of 26, which made me wonder if the lake could do better again. It also kicked my ‘going down’ 16lber observation into touch, as to my surprise it was the same fish four years on. This gave me a growth rate figure for the mid doubles. This fish had avoided recapture by me, and more importantly by others who would eat it. The growth rate is not particularly fast, but it put my mates fish in my mind. I’d not caught the fish he’d had at 17, and at the time the 27 was a 16, his was a bigger fish. So was it still here, or was it served up as fish cakes at some local farmhouse?

(I’ve had this one twice. Once at 16 and once at 27-12. Both times to the same bait, and both times in darkness).

Satisfied that I’d beaten what I expected to catch, and having learned a presentation trick that paid off several times, I was happy with my lot. The water is an enjoyable place to be, but I felt I’d found the key area and the learning curve would only level off to allow boredom to set in. If I'm not learning something, I tend to find the fishing dull. I’ve kept loosely in touch with it over the last few years while roaching in the summers, but that was taking a down turn and I’d since found a water where 2s-3s are an average fish! I moved on.

As a sufferer from a mind that never shuts up, whenever I thought of the water, my mate’s 17 would tease me. The fact that one of the two odd-ones-out that I thought were going down, grew on to be my prize made me accept that I certainly didn’t know it all!  A few years past and to my horror I got a letter from the owner, informing me that three lads had been poaching it hard for a year and removed all the pike for the pot. Initially I read this as terrible news, but a lesson learned from another water told me it might just be the opposite.

A return was on the cards, even if only a couple of sessions to confirm the decline. Another water was giving me a steep learning curve and big fish, so I didn’t want to get distracted. I fished to two features from one spot on the bank. A good bit of prebait went in over 4 weeks, as I abstained. The first session was disappointing. Deciding to stop the prebait and go back a week later worked. With a sudden cold snap moving in fast I got some action. The first fish of the day revealed the deep action of a DLST Bait Blaster. A telling sign. She charged around without showing. I love it when you still don’t know what you’ve got! I bullied her home and jiggled her length down over the net cord. Unsettled in the sling, she was bouncing the scales around. On steadying I laughed out loud – a new best for the water. During her brief visit to the bank, it only half registered that she was unusual looking. I was too happy to compute!

A comparison of right flanks showed the other ‘odd-one-out’ six years on. You can see the scale-less flank wound has healed and she’s filled out. The two fish my instinct had written off years earlier proved me wrong, and turned out to be the cherries on top of the pie. The love of learning.

(Andrew Nagel © Copyright 2012).