Good job I found my lucky hat!

A mornings Piking produced one fish, a sodden crotch and a broken rod – good job I found my lucky hat or there could have been some serious casualties that’s all I can say.

I wanted to be at the water before the hint of dawn however fishing buddy was not made of the same stern stuff – “just tell yer women that sometimes you need to do man shit at man times of the day” was the advice I gave – turned out he just likes his bed and he could go anytime he wanted – which with hindsight probably worked out just as well anyway.

The loch was a good bit higher than expected  meaning our flies were getting caught in weed every other cast – we had to miss out our usual spot as a couple of guys were dominating it with around a dozen rods- the cost of batteries for their bite indicators must be scandalous!

There was little wind, the water was clear and it looked set to be a sunny day – we had a little cloud cover every now and again – I did not see any correlation between the cloud cover and when we seen Pike feeding – we would start to see lots of  nervous water and pike crashing into prey every half hour or so and then it would all go quiet.

Working my way down a shoreline I swayed slightly, I swayed back, I slipped a bit and then realised I was going to get wet (this is ironic as just a few mins before I was marvelling at how cosy and warm I was in my chest waders and fleecy jumper) I had to put one hand out to steady myself – straight down -it was now totally sodden right up to my armpit which then allowed some water to enter the forbidden zone over the top of my waders. I stood up – I  felt the icy hand of doom dripping down my chest, slowly creeping over my stomach (Stop! Stop! I silently screamed) invading my crotch before advancing down each trouser leg to then freeze my toes – sure it was not a lot of water however still enough to chaff when I walked – instead of moaning about it decided to carry on fishing – which is just as well really as I caught a nice Pike…

The beast shot off like a steam train ripping out line – at no point did I really feel in control of the fish – I would try and get the fish on the reel and it would go for another run pulling the loose line out my hands – trying to keep some tension on the beast at these times was problematic. Eventually the creature was tamed and in my hand for unhooking and a quick photo opportunity.

Fishing buddy waited until the beast was freed before showing me his broken rod – I commiserated and then we continued fishing sharing the one rod – the pike were not playing ball – we seen plenty of them – one in particular we watched coming towards us for about fifty yards its actual head out the water with its mouth open – it looked like one of those basking sharks sooking up plankton from the surface – it was not impressed with my fly anyway – we seen it again a little later doing the same thing – very strange. We managed to spook lots of pike by lining them and even through some poppers over the weed beds all to no avail. We used the usual streamers..

Every now and then we would see an enormous splash and then try and cast for whatever might have been there – at one point I saw a pike that looked like it had a back the length of a horse – of course now I realise I was just being silly – the pike probably just took a horse from the surface.

Fishing buddy had a follow – it is not as easy this year as it was last year – in fact it is bloody hard – all the rain we have had has messed around with the beasts and changed the layout of the venue – still good fun though!