After promising Jamie Rich, who writes the well-read Against Men & Fish blog, a personal best pike over a year ago and failing to deliver, I met up with him again today. Last time, we endured a bitter, biting wind and motionless floats on the Somerset Levels and I think Jamie's late arrival at our meeting point this morning betrayed his pessimism for round two. But I was feeling quite confident. After all, the target was simply to beat a previous personal best pike of "a few pounds".
The weather was not kind to us again and the following five or six hours gave our waterproof kit a thorough working over as we were battered by rain and hail, which made the surface of the water resemble John Wilson's approach to loosefeeding. The first job was to rig up a light float outfit for catching livebaits, which took a lot longer than usual, owing to the line and other fiddly bits and pieces sticking in the cold rain and a hook which refused to be tied. Eventually a small rudd was lifted ashore by Jamie, who greeted it with pleasant surprise as though he thought we would never get around to the business of fishing for pike. Out went the rudd to the same spot which had produced it, and the small pike float could not have been there longer than a minute before it disappeared from view and Jamie found himself attached a jack of maybe two pounds.
He looked made up with that, and I was so chuffed for him that I had yet to get started myself, but two baits were soon in position for any more lurking predators, and it was Jamie again, who found himself attached to a good fish, which turned out to be a perch of 2lb 6oz; a personal best by a single ounce.
I had three or four perch to the pound mark (pictured top) over the next couple of hours, including one fish which had a six inch length of mono trailing from its backside. I cut this as close to the fish as possible before slipping it back, and hopefully it won't be too badly affected by its previous encounters with anglers. Jamie lost a better pike which we put at around 4 or 5lb before the weather downgraded from apocalyptic to simply dire, allowing us to move to another area where we could gain at least some shelter from the elements.
I thought I was destined to not catch a decent pike after watching Dom catch them all last time I went fishing but amidst my efforts I was pleased to slip the net under another personal best for Jamie, weighing 8lb 5oz. You can read more about his match fishing exploits and what he thought of the day on his blog. My day ended with one final disappointment when I lost a pike which felt very decent, heavy and strong, before the hook pulled on a surging second run. Jamie rounded up the day with a hattrick of long, pointy things and another pike of 3-4lb though, so it was ambition achieved for him, and then some. Well done mate, and sorry for the long wait!
.JPG)