Blank, Warks Avon.

It is a tradition of mine to fish Boxing day and this year I was determined to give it a go. I have stopped looking at the temperature and I am fed up with people telling me 'oooh, its minus 8 now and will be minus 33 later' etc. I put on all the thermals I have plus three pairs of trousers and goodness knows how many fleeces, I lost count at 6.

On arriving at the car park I made the first tire tracks in the snow so no one has been as stupid as me for at least a week. Apart from the dog walkers.

I checked out the river and downstream was frozen over as far as the eye could see. Upstream looked ok but laziness got the better of me and I chose the nearest peg.

I figured I had two hopes, Chub and Pike so I put out a rod for each. Cheese Paste on one and dead bait on the other. I felt confident but three and a bit hours later my flask ran dry, the rods had not moved and the cold started to penetrate my third and final sock. Time to head back to the roaring fire and Tomato soup. Heinz of course. Still at least I had given it a go.

PB Pike, Warks Avon

A three week stint of DIY and decorating meant that I finally got a few hours on the bank today and I was feeling confident due to a recent slight rise in temperature. The Landy still had a frozen windscreen though when I got up so I decided not to bother with Barbel and to take the safe option and go for Pike. I was not surprised to find I was the only fool/angler down by my chosen stretch.
The first peg I tried was unproductive for a good two hours so I moved to the next peg down all of 10 yards away. Sometimes that can make all the difference and within 10 minutes I had a fish on. Sadly the hook pulled at the net.
In my opinion Pike are a pretty stupid fish lacking in survival instinct or just possibly complacent due to being the top of their food chain because the same fish(90% sure) picked up the same bait from the same spot within minutes. This time I landed him and he weighed in at 9lb.

The next run ended in disaster as an unseen adversary took me into the snags and the line parted. Not a case of the big one that got away as I always manage to persuade myself that it was a tiddler. 

A couple of hours of inactivity followed and I decided to chuck a bait out towards the middle instead of the margins. A kind of chuck and chance it effort. It worked. 20 minutes later and I was away again.  A slow, sluggish fight ensued with a harrowing moment with another snag (pictured), the branches were moving and silt was being disturbed but steady pressured ensured I won and a large crocodile like head broke the surface. The size of the head made me nervous as I knew I had a possible new pb but she slipped into the net easy. On the scales she weighed 18lb 3oz and I went home a happy and lucky angler.