1994-95 Pike season

The 1994-95 season, saw me re-vitalised which given the dire previous season, can only be put down to the eternal optimism of the angler. I only kept a diary for the first few weeks of the season and then for some reason stopped. I think that having conquered the demons of the revious season, I was happy to take things less seriously. Or something.

This season I put 2 baits in the water, one was "popped up" off the bottom (using balsa wood sticks stuck inside the fish) and the other was float fished about 3 feet down. I still used sprats on occasion, but my favourite (and most productive) baits were gudgeon and trout, neither native to the water I fished. I bought the trout and caught the gudgeon myself. Both baits were injected with oils and I used salmon, sardine and tuna oils.

As I never took a fish on bottom fished baits on Hambridge Lake, I switched to float fishing 2 baits at different depths.

27th September 1994: Have got a membership of RDAA I went to Hambridge Lake - and took a 9½lb pike on a flat fished gudgeon, with salmon oil injected into it. I got distracted by a commotion in the NW corner, which used up the rest of my session.

2nd October 1994: 1 x 2lb fish on the corner of Pike Pit on a float fished smelt. I also missed a take on a sprat while it was being retrieved. This was popped up of the bottom on a ledger rig (a couple of swan shot on the top of the trace).

3rd October 1994: 1x 6lb fish on Long Lake on a float fished sprat from the SE corner. The bait was drifted up against the reed bed there. I also missed a take on the swim where the feeder stream runs into the lake.

9th October 1994: 1 x 5lb fish on Hambridge Lake, on a float fished trout, which has sardine attractor oil injected. Missed a take on the same set up an hour later.

16th October 1994: Returning to Hambridge Lake I banked a 7½lb and a 10½lb fish (the latter with one eye), both taken on a float fished sprat with sardine oil. I think I abandoned smelt at this point.

22nd October 1994: Back on the Thatcham Pits, I took a single 6¼lb fished at the SW corner of Long Lake on a bottom fished popped up trout, anointed with sardine oil.

2rd October 1994: On the back arm of Hambridge Lake I had a 2lb and a 10½lb fish both on float fished trout and sardine oil and a further 4lb fish on a float fished sprat with sardine oil. The double was the same fish as caught on 16th I imagine, going by the same missing eye.

I stopped recording at this point, having spent 5 weeks with a change of venue and some method changes I had banked twice as many fish (10) as the previous year already. I certainly went to Hambridge several more times and caught at least a fish a session, but none bigger than 10½lb, despite covering most of the lake at one time or another looking for an alleged larger fish. About ¾ of the fish caught in this lake came from a small arm of the water on the South bank.

December(?)1994 Grantham gravel pit: I spent the week end with the brother and we went for a day's fishing at a gravel pit over near Grantham, I forget the name. The water was large, the weather was clear and bright and fairly cold, to point of ice forming on the lines. We went around the back of the lake on the basis that we would have some shelter from the wind, which was slight. As we knew nothing else about the water, that was as good a reason as any.

The water was gin clear, so I opted to pole fish as far out as I could and put out a popped up sprat for pike around about 30 yards out and even then I reckoned I could see the bait on the bottom. I rigged a slider float for the dead bait - the water was deeper than a rod length.

Stap me if only half an hour later away went the float and after a lively tussle I banked a nice pike of around 12lb, in nice condition. Boded well. Not. That was it for us both all day - I don't think either of us even had a bite after that, on regular tackle or dead baits. With hindsight we should have roved and dead baited, we'd have been warmer...

Slightly flukey, but think how far away a popped up bait could be seen in water that clear.