Catch fish with Mike Ladle.

Catch Fish with
Mike Ladle

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For anyone unfamiliar with the site always check the FRESHWATER, SALTWATER and TACK-TICS pages. The Saltwater page now extends back as a record of over four years of (mostly) sea fishing and may be a useful guide as to when to fish. The Freshwater stuff is also up to date now. I keep adding to both. These pages are effectively my diary and the latest will usually be about fishing in the previous day or two. The Tactics pages which are chiefly 'how I do it' plus a bit of science are also updated regularly and (I think) worth a read (the earlier ones are mostly tackle and 'how to do it' stuff so if you are new to fly fishing or spinning these are the ones for you).

07 December 2008.

Nice one Ben!

My grandson Ben is a pretty handy fisherman these days. Anyway, what with school and rugby training and computers and all the other things that you have to do when you're 11 he hadn't been fishing with me for ages. When he came to stay with us on Friday night there was only one thing for us to do the next day - go fishing!

The Saturday dawned bright and clear with no frost so it looked fairly promising. We waited 'til mid-day before we set off - to let things warm up a bit then we, packed the gear into the car and drove to the river. To be honest it was not ideal, there'd been a fair amount of rain over the previous two days and the water, although not too high, was quite coloured. We started float fishing to try and catch a bait or two but at the first spot drew a complete blank. We shifted to another 'sure place' but again not a sniff, it was beginning to look grim. The third pitch was just downstream of a little sluice on a carrier of a carrier - only a tiny stream - and there we hit the jackpot. Within minutes we had caught our first fish and after a short while we had plenty of bait.

As soon as we had enough baits we set off upriver. As I said it was a bit murky and I was not too optimistic. I commented to Ben that we'd probably have to plonk a bait on the nose of a pike to catch it. The first couple of spots, although they looked pretty good, produced nothing at all. The third place, a little bay by an old EA gauging post, also looked nice and within ten seconds of ben's bait entering the water the cork shot under. Like an old hand he let the fish turn the bait then gently drew the circle hook home. The fish fought like stink and just as we thought we had it, it opened its mouth wide, shook its head and came off - what a downer! Of course I'd made a few comments about timing and keeping the line tight etc., as you do, so the lost fish was entirely my fault.

We decided to give the pike a rest and see if it would come back to its 'lie'. Ten minutes later after trying a couple more spots we returned to the 'pike place' and in went another bait. Sure enough the float shot away again. This time Ben made no mistake and after another lengthy tussle we had twenty-two pounds of pike ready to land. Lift it out, a quick picure for the scrapbook and back it went - none the worse. All in all a good hour's piking.

Phew!

At last we'd found a place where there were a few dace biting.

Got one.

This time the pike came unstuck and, of course, it was grandad's fault.

Second time lucky.

Twenty two pounds of pike.  Nice fish Ben!