Barrow Muscle Cars.

I've not fished the river for a whole week (six days to be precise), withdrawal symptoms were well set in by today. Living so close to the river is real a double edged sword, it would be very easy to spend a lot time on the bank and yet when your not there the mind often wanders as to what you might be missing!
I've been watching the river like a hawk, checking the level and colour everyday whilst on the school run, still no rain, things were looking good. If my memory serves me right, the river has not been this low and clear since last June. I couldn't resist it any longer, I was off out to get my Fix.
Heading to the swim there was a distinct touch of spring in the air, no coat or extra layers required today. I quickened my pace!
Two ledgered deads were the order of the day, the usual routine,  one popped up the other hard on the bottom. Ninety minutes in and an alarm burst into life, not a screamer of a run but a take of sorts. Fish on!...Oh.... Fish off... I left the bait in for a few moments longer hoping the fish may slam it out of frustration if nothing else but no joy. I cursed myself and the fish, if the truth be known.
I brought it in to see if there were any signs of the encounter. Once again it was all proper horror show, slashed like a Romero movie.

Things then went decidedly quiet, I moved everything around, changed the baits but the swim still appeared to be void of fish. I moved upstream and put the coffee on. I needed to cover some ground or water as the case may be. A 30g WaterWolf Scud float was now patrolling the new swim, third trot through, it bobbed and disappeared, that was the last I saw of it for some time. Through the braid I could feel the fish chomping on the hooks and rig, this was not a good sign yet some how all remained secure. This was one angry mother! A superb hard fighting river pike, this high octane fish was like a muscle car on a quarter mile strip... At will, she ripped line off the reel at very high tension quite a number of times.

By the looks of this of this old girl, she has seen her fair share of action in the past. She was very lean compared with other recent fish, clearly she has not been feeding up perhaps due to previous captures. She also carried a number of small cuts and nicks on her lower flanks and back. She had a noticable lesion or bacterial infection at the neck of her caudal (tail) fin. This could be due to stress or mishandling. I also wonder due to her condition and wounds was she maybe a post spawn fish, were the jacks nipping her whilst jostling for position (could some of the Barrow pike have spawned already). Looking at my "self take" timer photos she reminds me very much of a "summer pike". Tonight she swims, I hope she feeds up well and finds a place of refuge to make a full recovery.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, I'd not been on the river for about a week or so. I dug out a bit of old software one of the days (Windows Movie Maker) and put a few bits together, I suppose its a bit of  a look back at the season and blog so far. I think it turned out alright, Give it a click and let me know what you think.