Men with Red Faces!!!!!

It was Mick Brown who penned this as a chapter title in his book the Practice and the Passion, describing the winter pike fisherman, obsessive or mad!!!

The lads who attended the Salford Friendly Anglers working party at Irlam Old course on Sunday were definately a bit of both, with red faces initially caused by all the hard work breaking down the masses of bushes to clear pegs,

then those that fished afterwards would have started to get the winter burn after a few hours on the bank, it was freezing!!!

For me i arrived with dad at 10.30am due to grandkids duties, helped make a swim fishable for one hour hard graft then it was time to think about fishing for a few hours

The water was iced over so first it was off to tesco to buy a tow rope where i attached my car jack and started to break the ice to make a swim for me and dad, the rope was only about 3m long to we had to fish near in....

dad had a few bites on pinky and got a couple of roach, me i had a prawn on one rod and a deadbait on the other,

it was about 1 hour in when dad got a me livebait, now i have no problem using lives... but i do hook them carefully, if i do not get a pike i aim to put the baitfish back alive,

So 10mins with the roach on and i was in, a nice 5lb+ graced the net, i retained the live bait so it went back out and within 15mins and other run and a 4lber was the culprit,

but i lost the baitfish, it didnt float so hopefully it had a lucky escape, so i put on a dead and waited only 10mins, and another run, i was into another jack but it must have had the roach side on and the hooks not held firm cos after 5 seconds of it showing it was off.

I would normally take a strike after 5-10 secs of seeing the float move in winter and no more the 5 in the summer, if /when i have pike fished,(but i dont usually fish for pike in the summer),

so with only 1metre from my float to the ice it really was strike straight away and hold on, then nothing for 2 hours on sardines, dad got me another roach so on it went then within 10mins a run which saw me catch a branch under the water and i could see it tangled and it aided the pike to throw the hooks.
Then for another 15minutes it was mental, 3 more runs, was it the same pike? i guess maybe, but each take was very shy, just moving off with the  baitfish and not turning it, cos each strike and the fish was on for 5 second or more where i could see it near the surface, if not the same fish they were jacks for sure,

So on the 7th run of the session i let it go the full 10 seconds right to the edge of the ice, then i hit it and this time a 4lber was in the net, and guess what it was so lightly hooked they came out in the net.

It definately was live outfishing the deads.............

A thoroughly enjoyable day!!!! no pics as the batteries were dead after a long period in my garage!!!