Pike 1993-94 Overview

The 1993-94 season produced a dire return on the hours put in. The pike fishing in general had tailed off in the lakes, and also my personal gods appeared to be against me as well, as you will see.

4th Dec. 1993: I went spinning for pike on the TAA pits. I managed a 1lb pike caught on a "buzzer" for the whole day. Well, I have mentioned my spinning expertise.

5th Dec. 1993: See this entry.

12th Dec. 1993: Cold day, wind was S/SW, raining. I started at 11am with 1.5 hours on the Pike Pit in the corner by the East end, using a floated kipper and a popped up sardine. Without a run by 1pm, I moved to the NW corner of Jubilee, and swapped the sardine for a sprat, to fish the water out on the retreive.The rain had eased off though. After no run except a careless crayfish, I moved to Long Lake by the feeder drain from Jubilee. Same baits, no run for an hour. I moved to the NE corner of Long Lake until the light went at 5pm. Nothing. And back to reality.

19th December 1993: I elected to fish out the swims at the back of Jubilee, to see if there were productive swims around there. I pooped up sardine and sprat, as the water is shallow. I Has one fast take around mid-day, which not only yielded no fish, but left the sprat curiously unmarked. Not convinced a pike did that. I spent the last hour in the corner of Pike Pit, where at 4:15pm I had a tentative nibble on the sardine, which was a crayfish.

26th December 1993: The traditional Boxing day thing. Temperature around 0C, wind W/NW. Water gin clear. Some fringes of ice on the water. Myself and brother fished around the entire Pike Pit during the day. Tried sprats, sardines, mackerel, kipper, floated, popped up, ledgered, all with the same result.

27th December 1993: Hard frost, no wind, some sun shine. Water still clear. Started out on the back of Jubilee, moved on to Long Lake mid was up the North Bank, and finished on the East end of Pike pit. As previously every combination of the 4 baits we had were tried, with no runs. I noted the pattern of the ice on Jubilee, in case it indicated depth variations to try at a later date.

28th December 1993. Weather as for the 27th. We fished Pike Pit for a couple of hours, and with the breeze I floated a deadbait with a swim feeder of sardine oil (foam filled), pretty much the whole length of the pits, at different depths. No results except for a big oil slick. We moved to Long Lake, where the water was gin coloured, ad spent our second half of the day, trying various swims on the North Bank. One crayfish was caught in the NE corner, and a tentative run resulted in a mid afternoon, which may have been a fish, and may not.

30th December 1993: Brother and self went to Theale Lagoon for the day. It rained pretty much all day, and faced with a vast water and pretty well no knowledge, we went for the tree covered area on the North side, beyond the yacht club. In very heavily weeded water my bother had a single pike about 3lb. We saw several others, but could not entice a take. We retreat tot he west bank where there is acutting (mention previously) but had nothing further to add to our day. Still raining as well.

15th January 1994: I spent the day trudging around Theale Lagoon and one of the adjoining pits in the rain. Suffice to say that despite many changes in baits and techniques I succeeded in not getting one run.

16th January 1994: I spent the day dead baiting right around Long Lake. I had one 3lb pike on a popped up sprat by the feeder drain. At least it wasn't raining.

22nd January 1994: Spent the whole day dead baiting on the back of Jubilee and the South bank of Long Lake, with no results. I am varying baits and methods, and fishing each swim out for an hour. Monday and Tuesday produced a 12lb and 20lb fish for "Zen".

29th January 1994: Spent the day with my brother on Pike Pit. He caught 4 fish up to 6lb on sprat. I didn't get a run (see what I mean about my gods deserting me?)

30th January 1994: I spent the day on Jubilee and Long Lake and again got not a run. I gave up with the weather and some details at this point, it's amazing I persisted really. "Zen" had a 9lb fish form the NE corner of Long Lake (a good swim).

5th February 1994: I had a single 6lb fish from the NE corner of Long Lake on a float fished gudgeon. Yippee.

To summarise, I caught 5 pike this season. OK so I had a great double, but phew. I elected to try other waters next year. I also went back to reading, and as a result made a few changes, but not many. It worked.