Good proper fun.

The old estate lake I fish is undoubtedly stunning and so off the radar that the angling world has practically forgotten it exists. Maybe the reason it has been forgotten is because it doesn't contain massive carp or double figure tench and is therefore of no interest to people in these target driven times. In fact it is mainly populated by little roach and skimmer bream, none of which grow to any particular size. For me though were the interest lies is with the pike. I mean this pool has far more small pike than it rightfully should, and as a result it is lure fishing heaven on the right day.

As long as there is some visibility then you can normally fill your boots with over aggressive jack pike. Dead baits can be deadly, but quite often you find one area is thick with young essox, and if you're not in that place then it can be slow, so roaming round with lures is generally very effective here. The only problem with fishing lures is the depth of the water and the amount of lillies lining the bottom. Normally it can be a struggle to settle on a lure that is capable of being fished under the water that doesn't snag up on every protruding risome.

On this visit it took a few changes, but in the end I settled on a 13.5cm savage gear 3D bleak in a bright fire tiger pattern to be seen in the slightly coloured water and opted to fish it on a 2/0  three gram jig head with a treble stinger attached. Fishing this lure on such a light jig head enabled it to sink slowly enough for me to flip the bale arm over on the reel and then begin retrieving it slowly with the rod held up to keep it mid depth in less than three feet of water. Retrieving it like this lets the big paddle tail vibrate rhythmically whilst the lure rocks side to side, flashing the lighter coloured belly attractively.

Once we concluded a lot of the pike were held up in the behind the island amongst the now dormant lily pad beds, all hell broke loose and the jacks began attacking all over the place.

None of them were particularly big, but watching these small predators come shooting out of the depths slashing at and exploding out of the water snapping at the lures was brilliant. Sometimes even two fish came after the lure at once and then things got really insane. All down the channel behind the island seemed to be racked out with pike, but it wasn't till we fished into a bit of open water that we got a real shock. First of all I hooked a preposterously greedy perch which hit what to it was a huge lure.

Then further down the bank Rob hooked what we both thought was yet another small pike, but turned out to be a much bigger perch of about 2.7lb

After that stunner it was straight back to business with the jack pike. In the open water they were a lot thinner on the ground and it became more case of combing a good size area just to get one fish here or there. By the old bridge I snagged a very energetic fish which performed as if it were a summer fish, jumping out of the water and tail walking.

Sunset came all too soon though and as the light went, the sport dried up, though I can't say for one moment that anything about this session was disappointing. Rob bagged seven or more pike and that fantastic perch and I ended up with thirteen pike and greedy perch. We had heaps of attacks that never converted and a fair few came off, so all in all we probably had up to fifty different hits through the day that we know of. This lake really is a lure angler's heaven and coming here is good proper fun every time. Best of all is the great sport in such beautiful surroundings.

Autumn sunset.

All summer long I have walked the canals and if I was truthful, bar a few stand out occasions, it's been largely a case of wading through thousands of micro zander. Whilst wading though I have been taking note of interesting features both above and below the surface. Lure fishing I have found has a great by-product whilst searching for hits, in that you are essentially leading around as a carp angler would to find hidden features. Now having a lure slowing your weighted hook negates the thump you get with a bare lead, but watching your bright braid as the lure descends then slacken as it hits bottom, you easily gauge how deep somewhere is.

Finding an extra foot here and there might seem inconsequential to most people, but a five foot deep bit of canal round these parts is a rare thing that surely will prove a focus point for fish in the winter months. Not only have I found deeper areas but sheltered ones too and now I think I have ear marked several generally nondescript spots which I think will become productive in the colder months. Saying that though, it's been quite warm lately and even with the canal full of leaves it's definitely feeling like it could be a drawn out autumn. Even with the unseasonable warmth I thought it might be good to go and check out a couple of these spots to see if there might be some predators moving in before the sun sets on this warmish weather.

Having only a few hours of an afternoon free I zipped over to the closest of my ear marked spots and found the Oxford was heavily coloured from the still active boats. An hour or more of casting brought zero action and I soon moved on empty handed, though I am still confident this first area will certainly come into its own once the temperature drops properly.

A long walk later and I arrived at a new spot which has had its moments already this year, producing some really big perch. Today it was more the zander I was casting for, but a big fat perch wouldn't go a miss though. I began casting round with a new Berkley Havoc sick fish in clear bream colour, which I bought from a lure event held at Specimen Fishing UK at the canal basin, and after a while I thought I could feel the occasional tug. After persisting for a while I changed to small savage gear 3D bleak and that to seemed to garner a few enquires, but nothing was really having a proper pop. Still convinced it was fish grabbing at the lures, I abandoned the real fish replicas, dived into the lure box and changed to a Fox lemon tiger zander shad. A few casts with that and I got a proper hit from a little zander.

Lucky for me it had only taken three lures to crack the code on this occasion. Other times I have spent hours going through what seems like hundreds of lures to find the pattern the fish are into. Now I had found a lure that was the right combination of bright and wiggly I worked up and down the section. It seemed like most of the fish were holding tight to the bottom of the far marginal shelf.

After landing two more small zander and a very keen half pound perch which practically swallowed the quite large lure, I moved into what at first seemed to be a barren area. Thinking there was little around I wasn't really being that diligent in covering the water and I was about to move on again. That was until I made a shorter cast which landed five feet short of the cover. I was watching the line for it to fall slack when the lure made bottom, but braid jerked tight quickly and I struck. Something grabbed it on the drop and my strike had sent it firing out across the canal.

The fish felt quite weighty and given the snatching take I suspected I'd hooked a pike. All too soon the fish went from hugging the bottom to trashing open mouthed on the surface. I could see the jig hooked right in the corner of a decent zander's mouth and quickly put some pressure on it to bundle it into the net.

Just as the sun was setting on a lovely autumn day, the Oxford canal and one of my new spots had come good and proved to me that there certainly are a few better zander kicking around on a canal that I've not had a lot of confidence in up until now. I certainly will be coming back to these deeper sections over the colder months as I think they could really become a focus point for all kinds of prey and predators when the temperature drops.