Practice sessions (Coventry)

With little more than seven days to go before the LACC pairs match I really wanted to sharpen up. It's hard to explain this to non lure anglers but I will try my best to explain. Unlike say with float fishing where you watch a float in anticipation of some kind of movement that indicates a biting fish under it, with lure fishing and more specifically light lure fishing, you feel for the bite or hit. Now at its most savage a hit can mean the rod literally torn from your hands, but when the fish are not really in a very aggressive mood a hit can vary from a solid feeling, to a tug on the line, to the very extreme tiniest tap. As far as I can figure these tiny hits are quite often fish taking the lure into their mouth before spitting it out again, so striking at any suspicious tap can often result in a hooked fish. This is why sensitive rods and non stretch lines are vital to the capture of fish in this light lure world. But no matter how super sensitive your gear is, it means nothing if you're not dialed into hitting those tiny indications and by sharpening up I mean being on the ball and striking those tiny hits quickly enough to convert a half chance into a fish. Rather than use this practice opportunity to try and find fish I instead went to a known hotspot to try a tune up my reaction times.

Venue = Coventry canal - 4hrs

The canal when I walked down the tow path was a state and I very nearly turned tail and went to another venue as the entire surface for miles was littered with oak leaves. What stopped me was the thought if this canal was like it then any other would be as well and it could be that on the Grand union in a week's time I would have to compete with lots of leaf debris, so I pushed on and battled it out.

Total =181cm

This wasn't an easy session by any means. Literally I barely made any actual casts and in the end resorted to simply fishing under the rod tip down the edge as the floating leaves were ruining any casts I made. After covering quite a large section of canal with no results I found the fish tightly shoaled up and random section with no discernible features. I had to work very hard for 181cm of perch and small zander, though the capture of a 51cm jack pike was a very nice way to kick off the action especially on a super light 1-7gram outfit and 4lb line. The hardness of this session was almost a blessing as the lack of action really focused me on hitting every possible chance of a bite and literally I only lost one small zander and a tiny perch all morning.

Go big or go home.

Of all the facets of light lure fishing it's the dropshot that intrigues me most. By that though I don't mean it's the only method I use, as I have grown to understand that every method has its moment and I am just as likely to cast a tiny crank bait, jig or Carolina rig when I believe it is appropriate as I am a dropshot. But all those methods have one single thing in common that the dropshot doesn't, and that's that they are predominantly retrieval methods where as the dropshot to all intents and purposes is generally conceived to keep the lure in one area, or at least retrieved at a snail's pace.

The other day I actually went out with the sole intent to fish the dropshot on a section of canal so rife with structure that it would be easy to think it was built specifically for the method. I had with me pretty much the entire spectrum of dropshot lures, from tiny Mebru shirasu worms right up to E-sox Lobworms, but it was the latter sized lures I intended to use... You see I have become adept at using all sizes of lures drop shotting, and see that by using scaled down tactics, micro hooks and tiny lures you can catch tiny predators all day long. Occasionally these mini methods tempt bigger fish, but honestly in my experience they do lean heavily towards small perch, or wasps, as people seem to be calling them in lure circles.

Now although I do not believe that the bigger bait catches the bigger fish, I do believe that if you offer a fish something that is too good to pass up they will more than likely eat it. It's like when you are trotting maggots on a river; once the fish are focused on the maggots that are moving towards them they have to make an instant choice - grab the maggots or let them pass by where they will be lost. Transpose that onto lure fishing and think of it this way; if you drop a tiny lure into the vicinity of a big old perch on a freezing cold day, if it is big enough to catch her attention then she is going to work out instantly if it's worth being bothered with or not and she might have it, or she might not. Now replace that tiny lure with a lure three inches long and suddenly it's a feast not a snack, and when you're weighing up energy expenditure verses reward, bigger baits have to be better, right.

So rather than mess around with 2lb line, mosquito hooks and maggot sized worms set up with a much larger rig intended to fish big lures. Given that the Grand Union was quite clear I chose a core few very natural looking lures, like the Wave pumpkin Tikki monky which looks rather like a newt, the E-sox lob worm which is a great replica of a lob worm and the now ubiquitous Savage gear 3D bleak to concentrate on through the afternoon.

In the past I have had some great results with the Tikki monkey creature bait, but even after working that hard in every conceivable manner around loads of structure, I had exactly no interest in it. The same went for the E-sox lob worm and even the 3D bleak was striking out fished under the rod tip. At this point the thought occurred to me that although the structure offered cover to the resident predators, maybe they were actually in the deeper water looking for warmth. So I resisted changing onto a jig rig to search out the open water and stuck with the drop shot rig so I could work the lure really slowly across the bottom. I knew there was a good chance I would lose some gear fishing this way in a snaggy area but the risk was worth it.

After casting onto the far shelf margin I gently work the life like little fish down the shelf into the trench the barges carve out. I worked the lure slowly down across and up the contours of the canal until finally I located a willing taker close to my own bank just were the shelf began to rise up. There was no doubting it was a fish, there were no plucks, just wallop, as a nice size perch engulfed the lure.

That same area produced three almost identical in size perch in consecutive casts and showed me exactly how tightly these fish were grouped in the clear and recently thawed and still thawing water.

I had my doubts that the zander might play ball at all in the clear conditions, but after working a few more areas over diligently, I targeted a patch of dead rushes on the far bank. Zander I have found can be very subtle taking lures, unlike perch and pike which seem to thump and tear respectively. I have often thought this might be because they sometimes seem to grab the lure and either stop or move forwards, which doesn't give a definable hit until I reel or lift the rod with something on the end. This was exactly one of those occasions where I felt no hit then reeled, the line went tight and the fish moved, then I struck. Considering how far in the mouth the hook was, anyone would have thought the fish had really hammered the lure which was just not the case.

The rest of the session passed by quickly with me working hard to find localized shoals of perch which all seemed to be lurking in similar areas around the bottom of the near side shelf, and I even found couple more small rouge zander loitering amongst them. My confidence in the 3D bleak lasted all day and every fish landed on this session felt the lure of this realistic replica fished as if it was a struggling injured fish, was too good of a meal to let pass by. 

Every single perch absolutely nobbled it and proved my decision to go big or go home right on this occasion. Although I feel I would have probably caught fish on smaller lures, I don't think I would have caught as many or as higher quality perch as I did. I ended up catching twelve good sized perch of between 20-25cm perch and three 25-30cm zander for a rough overall length of 3.5 meters, which I am led to believe is a respectable length of fish from any canal and happily I lost no gear as well.

Just one fish.

All the local canals seem to really be waking up a bit now after a sputtering spring thing. I think it was three weeks ago that I saw the first little fish dappling the surface on the Grand Union. The zander might have spawned and now seem firmly on the feed and the catch rates are reflecting this. Perch though are another matter! A couple of outings ago I caught one solitary perch which was ready to pop, it was that full of spawn. Since then though the temps have risen so much that I was sure as hell the perch population should have got their mating done with.

One canal that I have neglected a bit lately is the Coventry as the general lack of a hard winter season did not benefit it at all. Usually when we get a good consistent winter the Coventry responds well and fishes consistently. In previous years when the temps have been up and down I have found that the fishing can be very patchy, even on normally reliable areas. Hence I have purposely been reluctant to fish there.

The warmer weather got me thinking that maybe it might have settled down and that the perch might be feeling a little peckish should they have spawned. It was a bit of a sputtering start for me on the day after an early wakeup call from my boy resulted in me turning off the alarm to glim a little more kip. In the end though I did get there and did fish, although the fish seemed hard to find or should I say, hard to convince to eat.

I was very diligent about working along the stretch, methodically using several different lures in various ways all whilst fishing a small dead bait as a sleeper rod at the bottom of the marginal shelf to hopefully appeal to a zander. But even working very hard it quickly became clear that the canal was still not on form.

My one sole bit of action was as pure as pure can be. From a short distance away I saw what I was sure was tiny roach flipping out in a flat calm section of canal hidden from the wind. As I approached, two more small silver fish jumped out of the water. After quickly flicking through the lures I had to hand, I settled on a small silver glittery paddle tail grub which I cast tight to the far bank cover beyond the jumping fish. I must have cast and recast twenty times before the lure got hit on the fall as it dropped into the trench. It turned out to be a big perch which had taken my grub and what a fatty it was as well.

You could put a saddle on that!

One perfect hit from a perfect perch. I would love to say that I walked away and went home satisfied with my perfect moment. But the truth is that I combed that area again and again, hoping in vain that it might have been a shoal of big perch in the area, but I never got another touch.

It did however confirm that the Coventry canal perch at least haven't spawned yet, as this one definitely had spawn in it and had a very swollen vent. I can't deny being confused as I was sure as predators, the perch would have spawned already to give those little munchy baby perch a good head start.

Does size really matter?

There is absolutely no doubt that light lure fishing has grown astronomically in popularity across the UK in the last few years and right now has to be one of the biggest growth areas of UK angling. I too have been swept up in this wave and find myself addicted to lure chucking. Though I must say for me a large part of its attraction lays in convenience rather than fashion, as it enables me to be out fishing with very little gear very quickly, which suits me with my little boy BB at home.

I have always prided myself on having a questioning mind and over fifteen months of cultivating my lure fishing experience a question has been growing in my mind. Does size really matter? Or more specifically does lure size really matter when it comes to zander? 

Pike and perch for now can be struck from this equation as I regularly see pike and perch attack lures that many would consider are either too small or too big to be eaten by either species. With zander though there does seem to be a ceiling size/weight that you can to catch using lighter lure tactics. Both first hand and second hand via social media I see loads of zander captures on lures of between a few ounces and four pounds. I myself have caught hundreds up to three and half pounds, with only two being over four.

Now, I know that as they get bigger, zander get rarer and this could be a large factor in this. But beyond that I am starting to wonder if a lot of smaller lures fail to register as a worthwhile meal for a bigger zed. I myself use a 1-10gram outfit for most of my canal fishing; as an example I generally use a 3-5 gram jig head with a rubber lure of 40-70mm in length. Now this as representation of a prey fish is actually a very small which leads me to the following question: is that too small of a fish for a bigger zed to bother chasing. It is a well known fact in pike at least, that what they need to grow truly big is a ready supply of big prey like bream or trout, hence the reason the Broads and trout waters produce so many big pike. Maybe that's true of zander too. In relative size terms maybe bigger zander need to be looking for something bigger than the average roach or perch, more along the size of a skimmer bream

Now I would never goes as so far as to say that to catch a bigger zander on a lure that you must use a big one, as a few examples of where a 'mates, cousins, dad had one on a micro lure' always crop up and I know better than making blanket statements about fishing. But surely using a bigger lure increases your chance of your lure, if it passes by a big fish, registering as a viable meal.

Obviously I would have to begin putting this theory into practice to stand any chance of finding out if a bigger lure might have any relative effect on the size of the zander caught. So with the river and other waters I want to fish out of sorts, I headed to a very reliable section of canal which holds healthy stock of zander. It also seemed a great opportunity to have a go with a new medium weight Shimano yasei ax player rod I acquired recently. Now although I got this rod with more plugs and jerk baits in mind, it is listed as an all round lure rod and it's weight rating of 10-30 grams means it should be perfectly able to handle my scaled up jig tactics.

Now I really didn't want to go over the top to start with and knowing what sort of condition the canal would probably be in I opted to scale up what had already been a very successful winter zander lure for me. Normally on my light outfit I would fish a 2.5" curly tailed grub on a 3 gram jig which gives you an overall weight of just under 5 grams. Not having any massive curly tail grubs at my disposal I opted for a 4" twin tail on a 10 gram jig head, which gave an overall weight of 14 grams. Now I know this might not seem a massive scaling up, but the smaller option is half of what can be cast on my light rod and the scaled up also is just about half of what can be cast on the medium rod. Also I didn't want to go from a tiny lure to a humongous one and fail at the first hurdle, so my hope was that a subtle increase in size would act as good steeping stone from small to large. 

I was quite up for it when I got to the canal, but the state of the water was ten times worse than I expected. On the way I was thinking it might be a bit coloured. When I got there its water has turned into milky strong tea. I didn't have a back up venue though so it was always going to be a case of fighting through it and doing the best I could. On the bright side though the zander, with the very turbid water and mid teen temperature, should have been on the feed.

After two hours casting at every feature from every possible angle a few hundred times, I thought I was way off with this theory and that it was just going to be total a wash out. Then out of the blue I felt a hint of hit as the lure dropped and the line changed angles. I was into a fish and lo and behold, it was a small zander. 

With the blank avoided it did relieve a little of the pressure I was putting on myself, which in turn boosted my confidence to continue casting. It took probably close to another fifty casts to find a second small zed tight to my own bank on top of the marginal shelf, and this one was even smaller than the first one.

After this one though I couldn't find another taker as dusk set in and I found myself casting all the way into dark thinking I might just get one last take.

It wasn't exactly any kind of result as I only caught two small zander using the bigger lure and not catching anything near the realms of a bigger zander. But I think this is definitely a theory that I should continue to try through the year to get any real evidence that bigger lures might equal bigger zander. One thing I do feel a little stupid for is not doing this a bit sooner, as it might seem that the smaller zander will take a bigger lure anyway. So if I had been throwing some slightly bigger lures round this past year at least, then the chances are I could have still caught a lot of the fish I have whilst standing a better chance of rousing a big one to have pop at my lure.

Now though a second question has come to mind: how big of a lure will these smaller zeds take before they get put off thinking it's too big to eat?

Nearly enjoyable.

People call football the beautiful game, in my opinion though fishing is the beautiful pastime. I suppose that's because as anglers we so often find ourselves looking out over wonderful scenes of water framed by the resplendent countryside through ever changing seasons. Even the most horrendous urban or industrialized vista has it's moment when the sun rises, mist clings to the water and you can see past the scars of man to feel like you're in the most wondrous place on earth.

I have always tried to see the beauty in what I am doing or where I am fishing, and in most cases even if I am not enjoying my surroundings I will glimpse a moment in nature that satisfies my need for visual romance, even if that's something so small as watching a wren busying about its business along the bank or a rash of seasonal blooms it still makes being out worth it for me. My last session though... well I didn't really feel it.

Not wanting to fall into that age old English tradition of whinging about the weather, I am feeling a little hard done by with this damned incessant avenue of Atlantic weather fronts that seem to endlessly pile in. I know it might seem churlish given that some people have been flooded out for Christmas, but every time I seem to get the opportunity to get out, the weather has either been, or is, crappy and this last session took the biscuit.

To cut a long story short it was cold and raining when I left the house and was so the entire time I was out. Now given my recent proclivity to mobile angling and the fact that the canal was in perfect condition to wang a few lures around, really I should have chucked caution to the wind, manned up and got wet. But I didn't and with still more worms left over from a session a week go I naively came to the conclusion that I could ply them on the canal and catch hopefully a few more zander to get me closer to my target for the year.

I didn't take me long to get pinned down by the rain. Having a chair, umbrella, rod bag, and all the extra tat I seem to take when having a sit down session only served to stop me from moving, even though I was sure other spots would produce. As a result I ended up spending four wasted hours hunkered under my umbrella targeting a patch of bait off the marginal shelf.

Worst of all was the knowledge that my presence under fifty inches of skyline changing of nylon was not helping my cause in the clear water. The result of which was me catching very little from an area full of fish. Literally in the entire time I sat shivering on the tow path I reaped no more than a few mediocre perch which were confident enough to drift onto the bait. To catch those I had to do something that for me is unheard of nowadays and scale down. Anyone who as ever fished with me on the canals knows I am all about the attack and as a result my gear can be described as robust. So dropping from 3.2lb line straight through to a size six hook to 2lb hook links with size 16 hooks is like pulling teeth for me, and it didn't do any real good anyway.

That was until I rolled the dice and chanced one last attack to try and vilify my efforts. After depositing the last of my worm onto the spot just as the first barge of the day passed by, I decided to give it forty-five minutes more. By fishing a lob tail dead depth I suddenly started to get some very subtle dips on the float. It might sound insane but sometimes when fishing worms, especially lob worm, on a light rig I reckon that the worm writhing around or into something has pulled my float under slightly. Not wanting to disturb any would be biters striking at a worm bite I waited until I was sure this was a fish. Turns out it was and after a sprightly scrap large and rather perfect roach was on the bank.

After that I'd had enough of the cold wet weather and packed up and went home. The End

BOGOF

'You buy one, you get one free!  I say you buy one, you get one free' 

Those were the words that kept ringing through my head again and again as I stood on the tow path the other day. And why shouldn't they have been stuck on some torturous loop in my mind, because after all this was a bank holiday weekend, it wasn't raining and the boat wankers were out in force. At some points 'buy one, get one free' was an understatement to say the least. Seven boats in convoy was the record for the day. Honestly that lot coming down the cut was like an armada passing by, all churning up the bottom and blankly wishing good morning whilst inanely asking if I'd caught my supper. If it wasn't for the fact that I was actually having fun catching a few perch and some rather obliging strip zander I feel sure I would have been jumping up and down on the bank shaking my fist and ranting in ancient long forgotten language that they should keep their witty japes regarding my tea to themselves, before I am tempted to shove their barge pole in their rear hatch.

I had always known it was going to get a bit manic with boat traffic and to try and get some done before they started I had arrived just after first light. Weirdly the action prior to the boats beginning to rumble by had been in my opinion, a bit sporadic. All I had managed was a single chunky perch which I had winkled out by dancing a tikki monkey along the nearside shelf on a drop shot rig. 

The drop shot rig was partly why I was fishing in this area. You see I had a few new lures I wanted to try out and they all seemed more suited to the drop shot rather than a jigging rig. Given the past few weeks had been a little zander filled and that I have much more success with perch on the drop shot, I had come to a area stuffed full of the critters.

Convinced the margins were paved with the stripy Herbert's I stuck it out on the drop shot, working around any structure I could find. Although I wasn't finding them in numbers, when I did spark any into interest they were absolutely smashing into my lures.

The oddest part of the session came after a couple of boats really stirred up the canal. I have always thought that it actually takes a boat going through to stir the resident fish into moving, and off the back of that I have developed a theory that sometimes when the boats churn up the bottom, zander for one, actually go into the clouds of silt looking for anything that has been disturbed out of the mud, like worms, leeches and small fish. It proved exactly the case when the boats have moved on and I shot my rig right to the far side of the canal before pulling it back into the murk. Four or five small strip zander and a single nice perch fell for a black grub on a slow retrieve through the clouds of silt.

The boats I knew would all too soon begin to wear on my patience, and it was then that I sought a bit of respite and headed for the relative quiet of a small row of moored boats. Working the rig rhythmically as close to their hull as I could, I tempted one final nice perch that I can only say has real potential in the future. Although not much over a pound in weight I don't think I have ever seen a little fish that looked so much like a big fish before and that for me was the perfect point in which to leave the canal to the boaters.

Lured by man made water.

Time is my enemy at the moment or lack of to be more specific. I mean I could fill every day between now and Christmas just fishing all the stretches of canal I want to go drop shotting on never mind everything else. But like most people I don't have the even one seventh of the free time every week I'd like to have to go fishing as earning a crust kind of gets in the way. Hence as we all have to I have prioritize what I want to do with my valuable fishing time. The canals of late have been the dominant target venues, but I know other things are on the horizon so for now they will have to be left alone. Though saying that, I did squeeze in one last day of canal drop shotting in on a stretch I used to fish years ago and the results were quite promising.

From the off, fishing round structure and features proved to be the order of the day. First chuck in and my Fox spiky shad got nobbled by a small zander and on the second cast the lure got literally ripped off the hook. After a few fish hitting in a frenzy, the zeds shut up shop. A quick change to a slow moving actual worm soon rooted out a nice perch which was lingering tight to the concrete margins.

It was the same story all day as I worked along the canal; I'd find a tasty looking spot fish it, get a few hits and maybe a fish or two then off I'd go on to the next one. The only thing was the general stamp of the fish was a little small considering the amount I caught. I landed easily ten or more zander and twice as many perch, but the all the zander were between 1-2lb and the perch were all 6oz-1lb. Now there isn't anything wrong with having a load of fun and a stack of action, but really I would have expected something bigger to have shown up somewhere in amongst that many fish and worryingly I know there are bigger specimens of both on this stretch so maybe I am doing something wrong...

That was it though for the canals for a little while as I had so many different types of venue I wanted to get on and the next was a real classical corker, and boy oh boy did I want to chuck a lure or two into this predator haven. A few years ago I fished a little known estate lake hidden deep in the Warwickshire countryside that as it turned out was stuffed with Jack pike. That first time I quite literally ran out of bait chucking dead fish around, so this time went back with nothing more than a light lure rod and enough lures to choke half the pike in the county.

It was a perfect winter's day to fish such wonderful venue. As we the crossed the rusting old fence into the ageing estate gardens and walked down through ankle deep leaves towards the lake the woods were alive with gaudy pheasants foraging under the alien pines. The cloud was clearing and the sun lit up the house atop the lawn over the lake. Bar the hundred or so Canadian geese ripping the well manicured lawn up over the water and a family of swans it seemed that we would be honoured, and have this wondrous lake to ourselves for the day.

We actually circumvented the lake and followed a small feeder stream through the trees to begin our fishing on an acute bend where a few hundred years of steady water flow have carved a bend into a deep holding spot. The water as predicted by my accomplice Rob was sluggish and slow with a large mat of debris collected where the branches of the ash that dominates the bend dipped into the stream. The sight of that bend alone would make any perch angler go weak at the knees. It had to be fate that I was here and I still had a drop shot rig set up ready to drag a worm down to its doom. It took the slightest of a flick to send my rig within inches of the debris and joyfully I watched as the braid spilled endlessly from my reel and informing me of how perfectly deep this swim was.

I couldn't have twitched that worm more than a hand full of times before something had it off the hook in a flash. The second cast was much the same apart from I did feel the tell tale vibration of a small stripy for a moment. After a fruitless retrieve I found that the inside line directly under my feet was even deeper than the outside of the bend. I could even feel some tree roots in one area which I did my best to avoid but target if that makes sense. It was whilst doing so that the first of a trio of small but perfectly formed perch zipped out and smashed my worm. Even convinced that there must be a bigger perch lingering in the shade of the tree roots somewhere I had an entire estate lake calling to me like a siren, so I reluctantly left the bend in the river thinking I might return at the end of the day.

The water of the main lake very clear as I expected it might be and I had always known it was going to be a case of going through half the lure box to find which fake folly might spur the pike to strike. In hindsight it was totally the wrong decision to chuck out a drop shot rig into this pike infested water. On the very first cast my line suddenly began moving in a very odd angle after something grabbed my lure. After the line fell slack I retrieved nothing more than two thirds of my leader and the hook. The lure and the weight as well as the other third of the leader were all long gone. Rob got the next bit of action as he retrieved a vigorous little roach he caught on a pinch of bread and the water not far from the bank erupted. I rushed to tie on a trace and rummaged around in my box to find something that would float and could work around mid water.

After settling on a small plug I raised three strikes and good hit before playing a excitable Jack into the edge before it threw the lure back at me by thrashing around in the edge. But that was just the start of things for the day. As we worked away around the lake I went through a whole variety of different colours and patterns before settling on a top three productive lures for the day.

The old school but ever reliable silver spinner worked best in the sun flashing away on a fast retrieve mid water and drew quite a bit of attention from some really tiny pike. I had hoped that it might attract a monster perch but they proved very absent through the day. The floating and super bright perch pattern mini fat plug seemed to wind the fish up into a frenzied attack, but as much as they went for that they seemed to miss it most times. The real winner and number one lure was actually a bit of bastard combination in the end. I had picked up a pack of E-sox paddle tails in the ubiquitous pearl and red pattern, and although they are designed to be fished on a drop shot rig I found they were much more productive at hooking these jacks fished on a 10gm jig head whilst being lifted and dropped on the retrieve.

As the day drew to a close we focused on an area where we had seen prey fish topping and it was here that the pike went into overdrive hitting my lure every other cast. In fact in a mad fifteen minutes I had three fish and six hits in as many casts. Although there was nothing bigger than five or six pounds all day these little predators were great fun on my light lure outfit.

I did in the end follow that stream back up to the bend as the sun dipped behind the woods. Before leaving I had dumped some left over chopped worm alongside the old ash's roots. The thought of what might have been drawn in by or whose appetite might have been peaked by the oozing worms had played on my mind all day.

Leaning against the trunk I flicked the rod sending a newly tied drop shot rig half way across the river. Nothing seemed to notice it fluttering across the flow and into the depths below the tree, so I began to bounce it round temptingly around in front of the roots in a figure of eight. The thump that got sent back up the tight line was epic and it really got my heart beating, but whatever did it seemed not to hold onto the bait. Not knowing what had happened I reeled up a ruined worm which looked as if it had been through a mangle. With a fresh one hooked I wasted no time casting and instead dropped it back on the spot. The next and identical hit came on the drop and also resulted into no fish. All became clear though when I once again retrieved the worm for checking and a pike of about five pounds followed the worm up like a Polaris missile before turning in a splash back to its haunt under the tree.

It was then I figured my attempts to lure one type of predator had not been as precise as I hoped and the likelihood of hooking and keeping on any big perch might be a little hampered. Carrying on though, I did again hook the pike which after smashing up the entire swim threw the hook directly up into the bows of the tree and ended my session. I will however be back to have another go after a monster estate lake stripy as we have it on good authority that there are some true beasts lurking in this lake and apparently they are rather partial to a spinner just as I suspected the might be.