Pike Lows and Bylaws

Do you remember a few years ago when I was visiting my nearby Pike spot and could do no wrong? It seemed like every trip I was guaranteed if not a dozen pike then at lest some action. By action I mean some follows and at the very least Pike spooked.

This season has been very poor and I am trying to work out why.

My last Pike trip was over a week ago, we arrived at dawn (which was 0730) and it was a lovely calm morning. The water was like glass and the only thing out of place was the tent at the side of the loch with around 4 rods sticking out into the bay, two of which had bite alarms attached.

Needless to say we stomped around the whole bay (never once getting tangled in their lines which I thought was odd) and failed to connect with any fish. At one point I was using a rather amazing popper that was sent to my by a reader (thanks dude, you know who you are) and was also stripping back streamers at all kinds of speeds. Often when the Pike are not in the mood slower is better as the beast thinks it is going to get an easy meal. When you see lots of Pike activity you can strip em’ back faster.

For a change from the Loop Pike Booster I used my BROMANoDELL’s Esox Lucius 9ft #9/10 coupled with a new 9 weight line as I was informed my previous line bought from Ebay was a “pile of shite” by fishing buddy Campbell.

I bought my new line from Pike Trek after getting some advice from Pike Guro McFluffchucker it cost around 15 bucks and if McFluffchucker does not say it is absolutely rubbish then it must be very good. It was very good and cast out the big flies with ease.

If you have not visited the McFluffchucker blog I urge you to do it, his posts are long, his flies are pretty damn amazing looking and his attitude and opinions totally rock. If he finds something to do with Pike fly fishing that he does not agree with he will bloody well tell you.

Fishing buddy Campbell did not connect to any of the beasts either despite many a wisecrack about my line.

Anyway, as we were finishing at around 1030 the guys from the tent emerged, their were four of them and one of them was wearing a pink tutu, seemingly it was his birthday. As we walked up to them we looked at the amount of litter spread around their tent and their bleary eyes. I would just like to point out that wild camping has been banned from around this area due to the large amounts of characters not tidying up their shit, sometimes literally. They regaled us with stories of catching over 200 pike since June and only the day before had caught one at 37, nope 37 and a half his pal corrected him while casually chucking his fag packet on the ground.

As we walked back to the car we wondered if this was the reason for the lack of Pike, have they either been mishandled  and died or is the fishing pressure too much. We talked about a statistic that Campbell had heard about from some biologist that a Pike can be caught around 5 times before the stress is just too much and it dies. No idea if it is true but I find it a bit scary.

As we approached the area where the cars were packed a Rangers Van was parked up and four guys were walking towards us, it turned out that two of the guys were from the tent and the other two were Rangers. The Rangers were going down with plastic bags to clear up the rubbish that has been left behind by anglers. It is my understanding that these Rangers can give out fines of up to £500 for breaching the bylaw – I wondered if it would be enforced this time?

In other news we have a Kelvinator in need of likes on facebook to win the fish of the month competition. Davie Cleland caught this 26.5 pounder not on the fly but on deadbait (we do not hold this against him though)

Anyway, please like his photo on facebook – use this link right here. Winning a hundred bucks of Glasgow Angling Centre vouchers may actually make him smile for the camera next time.

It may also earn me a pint at the local pub.

Or a smack in the face.

Go and like it, hurry!