FAS - Irlam Old Course....again.

Second session piking on this water, just 2 hours again on Sunday....

I have never been a regular pike angler, not because i prefer other types of fishing but because of a little bit of fear, of course i have taken a few pike before but i have always been wary of the big girls....

This is such an exhilarating type of fishing that i cant believe i do not do more fishing for them around this time of year....

Today was no different from last weeks session, same duration, 2hrs, same venue and swim, same tatics, even same number of silvers and bites....

But no pike, i had one quick drag and upon inspection the roach had scale redness as if something without sharp teeth had grabbed it, maybe a perch...

Then at 10am as i was just about to pack up after the swim had been dead for 30mins or so and then action!!!!    i had dropped the depth to be just touching bottom, so the float was cocking and weight on the bottom, the bait was a small perch which had only been in the water 20mins... drag drag and then under.   I struck early,

A great fight persued, the fish was very active, it even tried to tail walk but i kept it in the water and within a few mins it was in the net. I was shaking, first pike of the campaign and it looked 17lb plus....  my dad said a 20...... but after weighing on two sets of scales it was just a few onces short of 14lb, it was a big fish to those roach and perch but in pike terms i do not think it was as that long.

Just shows you how you can quite easily over eastimate a fishes size, especially if you do not see the size and type regurlarly.
I had been doing research on how to unhook pike and well while the pike did try its best to thrash on the mat i followed what the experts said..... put it on his back, kneel down and with my legs straddle it to stop it moving, left hand take hold of right hand side of pike under the gills, move head forward to open the mouth and there was the treble. just inside the middle of the mouth.

The strange thing was the single hook which was in the perch mouth did not take hold..... its was the back trable that had.The perch and single size 4 was outside the mouth of the pike.

Was this because the hook potential of the single is less, it would have gone down the pikes mouth first so you would have thought this hook would be the deeper one, that exactly why i set up the rig that way....

well i need to catch more to find out!!!

and maybe get a better camera so dad can get all of the fish....