The promise of a fine, sunny day persuaded Lizard and myself to return to the river bank. Recent heavy rains had added a touch of colour to the river and there was the worry that the Pike may not feed in earnest until the water cleared. This slight concern was more than compensated for however, by warm sunshine and the tangible feeling that spring was just around the corner, heralded by massed banks of snow drops.
For once the winds were kind to us as we went about introducing sparrow sized flies to all likely looking nooks and crannies. Our flies remained unmolested for several hours until the brown trout population of the river suddenly switched on. These were large, powerful fish in the 5 to 7lb range which struck the pike flies with real aggression, often taking ten minutes to reach the net.



These jaws swallowed a 7 inch fly with ease.



Gradually the Pike came into play with a few swirling follows and fish lost as quickly as they were hooked before Simon was rewarded with a fine specimen which wrestled and jumped like a mangrove Tarpon. The fish weighed in at 19lbs. The magical twenty mark is drawing ever closer.

Simply fantastic... fishing does not get any better than days like that...
tight lines
Graylinghunter

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well done to you both, where were you fishing looks pretty good and nice scenery

It was indeed another great day out with excellent weather.
I feel we were blessed 3 weeks ago catching a lot of Pike and you cant help but feel that optimism when you return that a bumper catch is around the corner.
One thing though is that my 'ol mate has neglected to mention the 2 Perch that i caught within 5 minutes of each other.Beautiful fish and a first for me.
Cheers
Simon

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I'd rather have the bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

Excellent fish, the both. Hampshire/Dorset chalk stream by the look of it - I hope that doesn't mean you had to knock the pike on the head. Plenty of river keepers down that way who only see them as vermin and go round killing every pike they can....the ironic thing is, that big girl is one of their pike control measures, keeping the small jack numbers down. Remove the middle sized and large pike and th epopulation of small pike will explode!

Well done on a great fish though. I hope you can help to educate the riparian owners/river keepers down your way.

They say the pike population in the trout rivers has exploded....only in keeping with the food source available. Fill a river with introduced trout and nature will provide the control measure to try and put everything back into balance. Those rivers were never naturally meant to have hordes of 5lb - 7lb trout in them. 40 years ago a 4lber would have made th eheadlines, because it was a rarity. The natural feeding limits the size of the fish. It is only since city gents want to catch huge fish for big money that the artificial fish have been stocked - for heavens sake there are even rainbows in the Test. THEY ARE THE VERMIN, introduced alien species. The pike have been there since the ice age.

I wonder when fishery managers/bailiffs etc will ever learn. Financial greed is at the heart of it again.

This sounds like I am having a go at the two anglers...please, I am not. The system is my gripe.

They all went back safely to be caught another day.I dont want to cull a beautiful fish like that.
I kept one Bass last year for supper and a handful of Mackerel,the Karma police cant catch me.
Cheers
Simon

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I'd rather have the bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

cracking fishing guys well done thats a lovely brownie

Great fish .... Stunning looking brownie guys.

Keep going till you can't stop.


Wilkie

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" TRUE CHAMPION'S DO NOT GET JUDGED ON HOW THEY FALL......... BUT HOW THEY RISE".

Good to know some of the chalk stream pike are safe! I hope the approach spreads to other, less tolerant water.

If I had to kill any of these beautiful fish once caught, I simply would not fish for them in the first place