Well, I had my session up on the wye and finished with this lovely fish which was a PB for me at 15 3/4lbs, unfortunately I lost a slightly bigger fish at the net as a loose treble got caught in the mesh as she was sliding over the rim, but I cant complain with the day generally. Unfortunately my friend who had come up from Cornwall blanked, and managed to get a treble in his finger unhooking my fish! a swift yank with the forceps sorted the problem, but he was definitely harder to unhook than the pike!
Thanks must go to Graham for the low down on the tactics, indeed the fish came a yard from the bank after just twitching the bait, having been stationary for 10 mins. The lost fish came on a wobbled sprat, nearly took it off the surface as I was standing chatting to a mate, with it just dapping on the surface, so just dropped it down and gave it a few little twitches and sure enough he grabbed it.
I do have a serious question, and that is the issue of 'ghost fishing'. I do not do a lot of piking (in fact I think this is one of the very few sessions I have ever had specifically targeting them), so am unsure if there are any nifty tricks out their to help. The Wye is big and snaggy, two exposed trebles in a sprat or joey only add to this problem, I was fishing under my rod tip and still lost two rigs, my Cornish friend lost 4 or 5, that is a lot of baited rigs sitting in the water that could potentially be swallowed by a pike. Indeed the fish in the photo below had a wire trace protruding from its gullet which I could not remove, however he was still feeding and was in fine condition so I suspect he will survive. Is this something you worry about?
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