A couple of jobs that needed to be done for her in doors kept me from an early start from fishing this morning. Although secretly I knew that if I didn't do the job today I'd have to do it tomorrow (And there maybe fishing to be done) so given that the water would probably be frozen over this morning I figured that if perhaps if I waited until early afternoon it may of thawed a little - it had, but it decided to snow just as I was making my merry down the bank.
I've decided to do away with a chair on these cold days, there's no real need for one if you're going to be leapfrogging every twenty minutes or so, it's less to carry and I seem to feel the cold a lot more if I'm sat down.
It was around an hour before I was into my first fish, it had just started to snow pretty hard and I was wondering if I was mental stood in the snow with not so much as a brolly to shelter from, when I caught sight of one of my floats bob, by the time I'd bent down to pick my net up the float was off and away and at some pace, good job I had the bait runner on as I'm sure my rod would have gone in the drink otherwise. The culprit of this violent take was a Pike punching above it's weight of only 6lb or so.
The next fish came just as JP arrived, I'd spoken to him earlier about my catch and within an hour or so he was on the bank chasing the dream. One whiff of a fish and the snaggler won't be too far away. This fish was only around 2lb's - still I wasn't complaining as catching any fish at all in these conditions would do me just fine. Some of the area I was fishing was still iced over, and at times I was casting through a thin membrane of ice to reach the spots I wanted to fish.
I had two more takes, the first one shook the hooks and the second one right at the end of the session was another Jack of 2lb's or so, none of the fish were really worth photographing but I took the pictures for the hell of it, gives me something to look at I suppose.
Pike in the snow
Jack One
Jack Two
