Like a fine summers day!

Well it shit it down with rain from start to finish yesterday on a chalk stream in Dorset. where me and Nick Hart had managed to blag a day on this exclusive trout chalk stream which just so happened to have tons of dirty great Pike munching on the wild brownies :-) After a eveing of beer, red wine and steak at Nicks house we were up at 5am ready for action! Nick manages to misplace the shop keys and forget the sarnys we certainly had a good start what with the awfull weather pounding down but as usual me and Nick are buzzing to go with thoughts of new venues and monster Pike to be caught!

after a good few hours of sod all i managed a follow from a huge pike well into twentys my faith was restored as you can see with the picture above of me hood up the wind and rain blasted us pretty much all day..... luckily wearing breathable waders and a wading jacket i was nice and dry under the layers! i was using a savage gear 4play in koi when the fish chases from the left hand side it literally hammered up behind the lure the like a croc sunk slowely to the bottom my heart missed a few beats i tell ya! Dave who took this photo is the guy who invited us to his private beat ran over in hopes of seeing another beast as he's the guy who has sussed this venue with fish to 21lb already in the last couple weeks!
I managed to sneak a tiny jack from one of the swims dubbed "Pike Corner" on another Savage Gear 4play in baby cod this fish was literally ripped to shreds! obviously some huge fish in these waters, its wierd seeing pike in water running so fast and as we said this is a "trout water" by nature but you know me ill catch pike where ever they haunt! while me and Nick snooped around these tidy swims all covered in over hanging trees perfect for big pike to sit behind waiting for a trout or two to swim past! Nick made the decision to switch from traditional wire traces to AF wire as this is so limp you can tie directly to the lures giving the magic swimmers we were now using the most awesome un-hindered action! flukely i managed to whip this 8lber right from under Nicks nose, the take was unreal smashing the lure through the over hanging trees almost like surface fishing in the hight of summer!
Literally two three casts later i cast yet again right behind where Nick was previously fishing and smash im in again! right in amongst the horrid snags this 10lber jumps on my Sebile Magic Swimmer..... screaming line off the baitcaster down stream in the powerfull current! talk about action packed, as Nick lands my fish we hear Simon shouting from around the corner "im in"...... then "WOW"....... then "Get the NET" Simon manages to nail this gawjus beast of a pike! me and Nick move down the swim to Simon to see this beast looking at us in the net.
the scales read 22lb 13oz take a pound of for the net arms and mesh thats 21lb 13oz and Simons PB (flukey sod:-).....) seriously though what a fish! this beat his previous PB of 13lb! a fish of a lifetime from a tiny chalk stream like this! awesome stuff and even though i also had a double in my hands it was nothing compared to the smile on Simons face and in fact all our faces to witness this capture! Dave had also caught a 21lber a week and a half ago, possibly the same fish but judging my there fishing reports from christmas onwards there are plenty of these twentys in here, dave losing a much larger fish just weeks ago further down stream! 10mins later Nick lands the biggest of the session..... the lesser spotted ginger fluff chucker which only just fitted in my landing net! as you can see the mood was awesome after that catch even the horrid weather didnt take the smiles off our faces! we fished on with fly and lures but had no more hits, we headed back down stream trying various lures and flys in all the likely swims but it just wasnt happening! all in all myself Nick Dave and Simon all had a wicked day and cant wait to get out again. we are heading back up there in the warmer months to get them off the top! Brilliant to see a bunch of guys from differnt fishing backgrounds all chipping together for a cracking session. This is what angling is all about for me friends and having a laugh on the bank!

heres Nick tyring to figure out if we could tickle out one or two more pike from the final few swims, but it just wasnt happening! it was now time for calling it quits and heading off to the nice warm pub. all in all a brilliant day and me and Nick really enjoyed it! massive thanks to Dave and Simon for letting us two motley angers venure out on there chalk stream we had a blast! we will deffo head back again later in the year to hit these fish off the surface! please check out Daves blog and site http://www.blurredfocus.co.uk/ for more fishing tales and adventures also flick over to Nicks blog for yet another great write up of the day.

Danny