Its Like Waiting On Buses...

The Barrow was calling, I had to get back to the river. My long summer malaise had been broken by the events of Friday (see the previous post). My mind raced as I poured over maps of the river examining swims, hidden lane ways, access points and photos from last season. It looked like something out of CSI Miami. I laughed to myself, yes there was a serious predator at large!
I was stuck in the salt mine all weekend but Monday was looking good, the weather pattern was holding nicely and the river should have fined down another little bit. I made some traces and grabbed a couple of Archie's finest (WaterWolf) scud floats and was ready to rock n'roll....
A distinct nip in the air and a touch of ground frost caught my attention as I left the house, it was ball breaking cold, I glanced the temperature in the dash, 1.3 deg. I was frozen. I threw on the blower and pushed on to the river.
As I headed to the swim the sun finally decided to make a guest appearance, it forced its way through the cold morning haze, things were starting to warm up.
A very small fish was the fist to trip the alarms, he came to the bank quickly and was dispatched back to the margin.

First fish of the day.

It was only about twenty minutes later when another jack nailed a dead bait in the exact same spot, he made a short lived charge up the middle of the river before making a cameo appearence for the blog and then headed straight back to his watery lair. A little bigger than the first fish but not by much, the jacks were queing up for the early morning feed and  I was glad of the action. I wondered if this was a feeding spell I'd happened to hit upon or just a coincidence. Would it bring any bigger fish on the feed.

Another eager Barrow jack comes to the bank.

As I watched the water, a wooden pallet and football floated by... anything is liable to float past you on the Barrow. I once saw a partially submerged old tube television go by, obviously it was not plugged in and I know of a 3 peice sofa too, its wedged up against a undercut bank, red in colour if my memory serves me right. Is it any wonder they threw it out...
Blip blip blip..... a tripped alarm pulled my gaze from the bobbing football. Then the line tore off the reel. Usain Bolt was in town! This was a more powerful fish, it kept its head down and pushed upstream, charging for its goal. I upped the drag and held my breath... Two runs and a damaged net later a most incredibly marked Barrow Pike came to the net. Not the biggest fish in the world but fit, wild and atheltic with a super paint job! It looked like somebody had just pimped my Pike.

A well marked Barrow Pike.