“It’s hell for the roach shoals, but heaven for the pike angler!”
NGLERS can be strange creatures when it comes to their choice of venues.
Given the right reputation or a recent big fish headline, we’ll travel for hours or even queue for swims. Yet so many of the most wonderfully secluded places are deserted for anyone who can be bothered to walk.
Each to their own, I guess, but I’ve no problem with doing a few miles in a day. If I want queues and full car parks, I can join the wife at the shops!
It’s this desire to lose the crowds that takes me back on the Somerset Levels every pike season. The only reason that they are so undervalued is the lack of catalogue cover-sized pike. But for seclusion and adventure at ridiculous value, they’re hard to beat.
AAnother factor that puts people off is the boggy, open terrain. One week you can be met by brutal winds without any shelter, the next it’s massive floods. That’s why it’s so important to seize the day when conditions are right.
Fellow fluff-chucker Gary Pearson agreed on my last visit. We both had a long to do list, but had seen the ominous long range forecast! After a phone call, we were on one of the region’s many beautiful drains.
Never mind hauling out multiple rods and defrosting herrings, with lure or fly tackle you can be fishing in seconds. Predictably, the only other anglers were just yards from the access point. But just a short cast further along, we had hundreds of yards of tempting water to ourselves.
You know it’s going to be a good day when you get a take on the very first cast – and so it was on this occasion. In fact, “take” is an inadequate expression of how hard these wild fish hit a bright fly! A lean, angry five-pounder made a brief appearance on my unhooking mat before being slipped back.
The next two hours were breathtaking. When we weren’t hooking pike, we saw fry erupting and, at one point, a pointed head suddenly carved through the surface!
When the fish are smashing up their prey like this, I see no need for subtlety – a large fly with as much silver tinsel as possible is ideal. The afternoon must have been hell for the roach shoals, but heaven for the pike angler!
The takes came thick and fast and it was joyously visceral fishing. We didn’t find any oil tanker-sized predators, but each fish was a picture of health – lean, vividly marked and bristling with bad intent.
Immense fun for anyone prepared to travel light.
Across: 1 Glug 4 Cuttle Mill 9 Gills 10 Over-run 11 Stun 12 Satin 13 Daps 14 Wetland 16 Single 17 Dibber 19 Launces 21/2 Beta light 22 Ponds 24 Alde 26 Mudflat 27 Alter 28 Drennan Cup.
Down: 3 Gill net 4 Casts 5 Trotted 6 Lleyn 7 Marsden 8 Long poles 14 White Amur 15 Air 16 Stu 18/29 Blagdon Lake 19 Lunatic 20 Coastal 22 Palma 23 Sharp 25 Derek.