9/3/12 Exceptional Piking

In my enthusiasm to go pike fishing on Monday I'd completely misjudged the quantity of rain that had fallen the previous day and, when I reached the river, fully kitted up for old esox, I found it in awful condition and running the colour of strong tea. An hour or two later I was back home playing with the Land Rover.
Tuesday, I tried again, but this time despite no further rain, I found the river in worse condition  , so didn't even get out of the van. Driving east to inspect the 'other' river, and I found it even more coloured which is highly unusual.
I spent the remainder of the day and  Wednesday giving Daryl a hand with his own Landie as he's doing a bit of an epic engine swap, in a bid to improve fuel economy, exchanging his silky smooth two and a quarter petrol, for a bone shaking 200Di .Brave man!
Thursday afternoon, and I returned to the river and gave it a bash for a couple of hours but, it was still a little too murky for my liking, and I blanked although it was nice to come across Paul with his wife and a mate fishing for bream and roach. They'd had a few, but it was slow going.
The 'hot' area seems to have run it's course and , as i mentioned at the end of my last pike entry, it would be nice to catch some big pike from a different area of river so today, Dave and me decided to head upstream finding the river had finally cleared.

Within minutes of dropping in my roach bait, and before Dave had even finished setting up his gear, I had a run, and out came this nice 'little' double of 12-04....confidence restored.

We fished the area for another couple of hours with a slight move upstream but no more pike showed.
Rather than make steady progress along the bank we decided on a complete move to an area we've not fished this year, but one that has produced some exceptional pike  in the past, especially this late in the season.
Dave mentioned in passing that he'd like to catch something big and , right on cue, proceeded to drop his baits on a superb brace of pike, on consecutive casts, and from the same swim. The first at 18lb, shortly followed by 22-08 (pic) both magnificently conditioned pike neither of which thankfully, we've  not seen before.
The opposite bank is very shallow and weedy and could possibly be a spawning area which might explain the presence of the pair but equally of course, this may be pure conjecture. Whatever the case it's still an excellent catch and Dave continues to have an exceptional season-well done mate!