An Early Morning Pike
6.30AM at the lake
The sun was up but it had failed to reach the water’s edge.
The surface of the lake was perfectly still even the ducks seemed to have hushed
themselves into corners. Despite the hour I was not alone, a carp angler had
two rods out and further down on the opposite bank another fisherman was
waiting on a float.
I began casting my minnow enjoying the light fwap as it
touched down. After months of neglect I had finally cleaned and greased my
fishing reel which was behaving almost as well as it had done straight out the
box. With no wind to fight, a free running
reel and a new lure I was looking for fish to complete the picture.
The lure behaved beautifully, the extra weight from the pine
rather than balsa construction gave it a little more direction and purpose on
the cast. Having opted for a less than stable cylinder shape in the design the
lure had a much more pronounced wobble. I covered the short section of bank available
to me quite quickly with little if any response apart from snagging a range of
old carp rigs.
As the sun began to dapple the lakes margins I headed over
to the island to cast around the overhanging branches and shrubs. With the
glare in my eyes and hemmed by the greenery I lost it for a bit and began
firing off casts in random directions. When I finally settled down I managed to
send the lure out parallel to the shore and in a few short turns of the handle I
was into a small pike. It sailed in to the shallows breaking the surface
monetarily before ploughing on towards
my feet.
My unhooking mat was already open thanks to its amazing
ability to fall from my rucksack at any opportunity. With a little minor encouragement
the pike unhooked itself and I quickly took some photographs before returning
it to the water.
So this was to be the start of another day's work, I spent
the rest of the day airbrushing lures and putting together the opening page of
my new website.
Image Below: New photo for opening page of website
