Archie’s birthday present and a good few pike

Archie had been given a days guiding with me as a birthday present. He had wanted to do some pike fishing. Now his birthday is in December and we had made a few arrangements to fish only for the river conditions to be in flood. Well there is a surprise.

Well eventually arranged to meet on Monday just after half term as Archie had an extra day off.

The objectives for the session was to catch Archie his first pike and for him and his Dad Trevor to learn how to unhook and handle them correctly.

The river had fined down nicely since we had had little rain over the weekend. The river had a perfect green tinge to it and the pike had to be hungry. We started by using some dead baits and using the wobbled bait method. The first field produced one fish that thought about taking Archie’s bait. He was really excited on how the fish appeared in a flash.

Believe it not the rain came down for about 2 hours whilst we were fishing but it didn’t stop Archie landing his first ever pike of about 4lbs.

Archie’s first pike

Archie and Dad

We carried on fishing a few other swims only spending 10 minutes or so wobbling the baits. Archie did get a few follows after his bait but no takers.

We crossed the river and headed back down the far bank and in some very shallow water that normally produces didn’t. However with a slight adjustment and position Archie was soon playing another pike again not very large, but it was giving him and Trevor plenty of experience of unhooking them.

We then walked another 200m downstream to a swim I call pike corner. Sure enough both guys had a good few chances however the hook came out of a few pike. I was encouraging them to strike early rather than deeply hook the pike with possible grave outcomes. I think Trevor hooked and landed one here.

It was moving towards lunchtime and everyone was hungry. The weather had improved and it was warm and dry as we sat down near to a swim where there is an 18lb pike plus a smaller one. Trevor and I were enjoying our lunch while Archie was letting his wobbled bait dance around the swim in the current, after about 5 minutes he said that he had a take. Sure enough the float was bobbing around and then shot under and out of sight. He struck into a good pike. I was hoping that it was the 18lber however from the curve of the rod it wasn’t. It looked to be a better pike than his previous ones. Sure enough on the scales it went 7lbs 6oz and a new pb for him.

Archie’s new pb pike 7lbs 6oz

So with lunch over we headed off to another stretch of the river that they had never fished before. We arrived and parked up on the bridge. The bridge pool didn’t produce anything which was a little of a surprise to me. We moved to a couple of swims. It was Trevor that had the first hook up. It looked a decent pike which gave him a great tussle in the strong flow. As I approached the swim it looked a double. In the net it looked a stunning pike with great colours.

Trevor’s 12lbs 4oz pike

Business end of the pike

We moved down through more swims spending 10 minutes in each one before moving on if there was no action. In one large slack Archie annoyed a pike a few times and each time he struck the pike let go.

Trevor was in next with a large pike however the pike came off again. We were now down to our last few baits and with the evening drawing in we managed a couple of other takes but just one other pike was landed and the last one came to Archie’s rod.

Last pike of the day

So not a bad days fishing picking up 6 fish in total and a few that got away. Archie I think can now fish for pike using the wobbled method and more importantly they both know how to look after pike when landed.

A belated Happy Birthday Archie!