Had a great day's fishing at Carsington with my girlfriend's dad, Mr D, yesterday taking plenty of fish at various spots around the reservoir including a 20lb+ pike from the dam wall!

The lurking monster fell to Mr D's size 10 black and green cormorant on 8lb leader at about 10:30am but wasn't seen for at least 1/2hr.
At first we thought he was into a very large trout but it just seemed to be sitting there with occaisional lunges into the depths.
When it eventually came closer to the surface it was obvious that this was a very big fish (and unfortunately not the leviathon trout we thought it was!)and we started to wonder how we were going to get it into the boat as we both only had McLlean folding tri-nets!
After another 10 or 15mins Mr D finally got the pike on the surface and after a bit of messing about, into the boat.

It was massive! The fish was 4 -6" wider than the boat itself, about 9 - 11" deep and 7 - 9" wide with a mouth that looked like it could swallow a rugby ball!

As soon as the fish was in it started to thrash and roll about, getting itself wrapped up in both fly fine and leader despite out best efforts to hold it still.
Unfortunately neither of us have handled a pike before and with a very angry fish looking like it was about to eat us, we sped back to the jetty for some assistance.

With a couple of the watersports centre staff helping, a few wet cloths and some careful handling the fish was freed and released back into the water close to the jetty (and about 10 young kids having windsurfing lessons! )
It was last seen swimming about under the moored boats before disaappearing under the jetty.

We're not sure exactly how big the fish was but 20lb is probably conservative.
Still not sure how we managed to land it on 8lb mono and with a tiny net!

It certainly made the rest of the fish caught that day look like tiddlers!

I've got a photo on my phone which i'll try to upload at lunch. Unfortunately i only got the front 1/3 of the fish for some reason!

by the sound of it i would say its more to 30lb than 20 ,its one hell of a fish though and probably one of a lifetime

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WHEN YOU LEAVE THE RIVER, TAKE NOTHING, AND LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINT'S!!!

THA CAN TELL A YORKSHIREMAN ,BUT THA CAN'T TELL HIM MUCH !!

20lb? .. if she was 4ft you can probably double that!

Weight for Length Scales

Thats one big beautiful girl and I hope she is none the worse for her ordeal

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Nigel

"Rods are like women... we love them all...but the ones that do what we want are the ones we love most" (Adam Vigil)

And all entirely due to the activities of those gentry crazy enough about pike to introduce the damned things into Trout Fisheries - so that's Ladybower , Blithfield , Carsington etc etc .

We really ought to hunt these scoundrels down and introduce them into somewhere sensible - like the Baltic !

I've been angry about these crackpots for years ! A cheap way to make big pike at no expense to the perpetrators !

Steve Parton

Mr D is going to measure the boat this week so we 'll have a better idea of its length.
It was all a bit of a panic when we landed it as we weren't prepared for anything like that!

Not knowing how much pike weigh we thought we'd be conservative in case we got a 1000 replies saying it was nowhere near that, etc, etc.

---------- Post added at 09:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:46 AM ----------

If it helps with the anger management Steve, it was caught whilst drifting on one of your drogues!
An extra beefy one you made for me with heavy duty straps and rings after I lost two (albit after using them incorrectly!)

This link

Montana PikeMasters -- northern pike weight calculator

Gives a 4 foot 1 inch pike as well over 30lb, which would be my minimum guess for a pike this size. trout reservoir pike tend to be stockier than usual too, so your guess is as good as mine, but he'd be way bigger than 20 given your discription.

A guy called Richard Oldfield had a pike of 20lb off the Dam Wall about four years ago. Last year I witnessed Richard lose one around the anchor rope after a long battle from the same spot. Its tail was like a shovel and it would of easily gone 25lb+ possibly the same fish? Photo of the fight is attached.

Well done on getting it in your boat especially on 8lb mono, I'm looking forward to the pictures.

Got to agree there.... You need to learn a little bit more 'being' a 'fisherman'.... Remember the anglers prayer?? Well done anyway

---------- Post added at 11:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:08 AM ----------

Behave yourself Mr P...

---------- Post added at 11:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:09 AM ----------

If only someone had pulled the anchor rope in .. as you do with a drogue if a fish looks like getting wrapped around it while scrapping... I bet there were a few expletives

Where's the pics!! Can't wait to see the Monster!!

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My JustGiving fundraising page for Marie Curie cancer research: http://www.justgiving.com/Lucy-Nigel
"Audere est Facere"

Likewise. let's see 'em!