29th Sept Lacock again

The forecast was for rain in the morning followed by a sunny pm. Well the sunny afternoon didn’t appear until 6pm.I was after a stunning pike that had taken a chub about 4 weeks ago. I had been guiding a young man (Jason) to catch a pb chub. We had the chub feeding on the hemp and there were a couple of small barbel to keep them company. After we had left the swim for 30mins we returned to see the silt bellowing like clouds. The chub rigs were my normal short hair rig boilies.

Well within 10 minutes of casting in he was into a good chub and whilst playing this, an impressive large pike shot out from the nearside bank to grab it mid-drift. I saw the whole thing happen but Jason the young man didn’t straight away, and was astounded by the power, when I told him that he was playing probably two pb’s you could see the look of shock on his face. The pike just didn’t want to let go. He played the both of them very well and just as we got them to the waiting net the pike let go. The lucky chub came into the net for sanctuary. It weighed 4lbs 2oz a pb. I don’t know who was more shocked the chub or Jason.

So you could see I was after the pike because it was certainly a very big double and more. One month had passed and I only had a 2 hr window of opportunity to see if it was home. But alas the river level started to rise due to the rain and colour, my chances diminished as the light faded. It was nice to get out and enjoy the time by the river. I was using a mackerel bait, as I’ve not had time to collect the winter supply of  fresh water baits yet. This will be a job to be done soon.

The bonus was that I saw a couple of large (Bristol Avon size) chub of over 4lbs drifting around before the water coloured.