Braving the Elements

Sunday was maybe not the best day to set off on another one of our fishing adventures, before first light the weather can be a little misleading, what seamed to be quite a calm and mild morning, turned into a really cold and blustery day. Before setting off down the M6 to Cudmore, we loaded up with the tackle and I grabbed a small beach style sun and wind shelter, to maybe complement my umbrella and to keep the tackle dry in case of a down pour.

Grim was not the word it was a tremendous struggle just to set up. I lost another umbrella spike to the wind as my brolly was turned inside out. The small wind shelter proved to be a great addition to my kit after loading it with all our tackle, I could just about stop it from taking to the sky!
So the fishing wasn't the most comfortable session we have ever had, but despite the bad conditions we still managed to get of few Pike on the bank.




This week our friend Liam came along to bag himself his first pike of the season, and Cudmore's predator lake Tara did not take long to oblige. A ledgered dead bait grabbed Liam a 5lb 14 jack by around 8:30 and it wasn't long after that my float buried and I landed a really lively 3lb Pike.

 After catching a great 12lber for my first Pike I was a little disappointed at the size of my fish and confident of another I didn't take a picture, just slipped him quickly back with the instructions to go and find his mum for me.
Toby fancied his chances of catching a cheeky winter Carp and they run to a good size in Tara. Armed with a new rig to try out, it only took a a couple of casts with a few stringers of loose feed to tempt a beautiful 7lb mirror. Chuffed with his catch Toby got back to the more standard winter quarry and lumped out a float fished Herring.

A little salmon oil must have worked its wonders as Toby's float started to disappear, on what was a really choppy day watching for bites on the float was pretty hard work, but there was no mistaking that this was a fish as the float dipped under again and Toby hit into a lovely 5lb Pike. We managed to bank another small jack before the day was out. All in all a good day 4 pike banked and a cheeky winter carp.

For more information on rigs, set ups, bait and tackle please have a look at our brother blog

On The Bank Technical specs

My first pike

Not a bad first!

After a frustrating visit on New years day Toby and i returned to Cudmore fisheries predator lake Tara.
We both started out on float rigged dead bait (Lamprey section/half Herring) and after a quiet couple of hours we started to get pickups only to be disappointed on the strike, as we are both fairly new to Pike fishing neither of us knew exactly when to strike?

After speaking to the current Catfish record holder on the avoca lake, he suggested we should try a live bait (which his other half kindly supplied). I kid you not 2 Min's after Toby's first cast with a small but feisty Perch, the big bodied float on his line started going walkabouts, the float dipped a couple of times, and Toby grabbed the rod and tried to set the hook. Gutted, no fish, no rig either but a nice clean cut on the line told us a Pike had got a large mouth full of mainline as well as the perch!

We each had a couple more takes as the afternoon wore on, but I decided to change to a really simple Catfish rig of slightly popped up worm on a straight running ledger.
I cast to an over hanging tree to my right, from which Toby had promised me all day would produce a fish.
Oh boy he wasn't wrong, my alarm give a couple of beeps then screamed off. As I struck to set the hook all i could think was please for god's sake don't do what you did last week, when after a cracking take, I hit into the biggest fish I have ever felt, only to be snapped off immediately. This time everything was right and I started to play the biggest fish I have ever had on my line. The fight was brief but exciting and after a couple of frantic minutes Toby netted my first ever pike. The large single hook loaded with worms had lodged beautifully in the scissors of the fish, so after quickly being unhooked and weighed the 12lb esox was safely returned no worse for wear.

Thats her at the top and im the one beaming ear to ear!