Fished Blagdon on Thursday and nearly got blown away. A strong easterly wind was blowing down the lake and made boat fishing (without an electric motor!) almost impossible save for the closest bays to the lodge. JonT and Pete tucked themsleves in Long Bay and winkled out 3 trout and as many pike on a mix of croxia, buzzers and lures and TonyR, myself and Mark ditched the boat after lunch and headed up to Pegs Point where the regulars were catching and bagged a few trout on buzzers, GRHE's and lures. I also had a pike which meant more in the party caught pike than didn't and they went up to at least 3.5lbs. Sadly, I would imagine they will be impossible to get rid of now...

The fishing was hard work but worth it.

Yes, for better or for worse they are in there for good now. I personally like fly fishing for pike with the correct gear but I know only too well how frustrating it can be to keep hooking pike when you are after trout, and how 'bite-offs' can rapidly deplete your fly box. I had that experience myself at Chew on opening day this year.

Bristol Water has banned fly fishing for pike at Blagdon (no wire traces or flies longer than 4 inches etc) and I can't help but feel that they are cutting off their noses to spite their face. After all, Pike thrive on neglect!

Allrounder

I fished Chew for only the second time yesterday, knowing that there were pike in there, but not thinking that I would catch one with the 12s and 14s I was using.

I hooked what I thought was a big trout on a small damsel nymph and was very pleased with myself, until I got it in and found it was a 6lb + pike.

I didn't know whether to be happy or sad, so I settled on annoyed because it maimed the damsel nymph that I had lovingly tied the night before. I then got another fly bitten off before I moved places and changed to buzzers.

I was fishing from the wooded area between the lodge and Village bay - does anyone know if this is a pike hotspot, or are they pretty evenly distributed across the lake?

Thanks.

You are likely to pick up pike anywhere from the bank at Chew in the spring but they tend to move into deeper water from May onwards in my experience.

Despite your understandable disappointment I trust the pike was returned unharmed.

Allrounder

Yep - with a kiss, a cuddle, and a promise to write.... :-)

It actually did me a favour because I finally caught a couple of trout on the buzzer.

Excellent! Hope you have a great season!

Allrounder

Blagdon PIKE. I lived in Blagdon during the Early 1980's and fished the lake twice a week and never heard the mention of Pike.
Is this a new "Bristol Waters" stocking policy? Or is it the results of some mindless moron wanting to ruin what was one of the finest TROUT lakes in this country?

Mindless moron I believe.

Sadly it seems to be the latter.

Pike were unheard of at Blagdon until a couple of seasons ago and the word on the grapevine is that they were stocked deliberately by rogue pike fishermen in an attempt to force Bristol Waters hand into opening it up for pike fishing like Chew. However that is unlikely to work. I have hear Bob Handford himself say there will NEVER be pike fishing allowed at Blagdon while he is in charge.

If the rumours are true then I have every sympathy and understand his anger. I utterly condemn without reservation anyone who illegally stocked pike into Blagdon. mad:

However we are where we are and in my view there is no point in stopping people fly fishing for them. They are in there now and they aren't going away so they may as well make the most of them.

Allrounder

I'm glad I don't fish there anymore. I would think most of the Trout that are stocked, feed the b****y Pike.

What a crazy world we live in!

Alan.