Back In The Room

Well blogistas, it's been a while since I posted a blog and therein lies a tale.
After a thread about Personal Best pike on the LAS forum I was reminded that missing from my angling CV was a good lure caught pike. I have spent my short lure angling career mainly targeting chub and perch with the occasional foray in search of a fish to beat a very long standing pike PB of 13lb 4oz.
At the end of September I had a few nice doubles from my local stillwaters and decided to carry my new found confidence onto the local river network.
I was fortunate to find some nice fish fairly quickly and had a run of good fish. I wasn't aware quite how good it would get when I started posting the catches here and on the LAS forum. Unfortunately my success triggered some interest from some 'long lost angling buddies' and to protect my fishing I quickly deleted all online pictures and tales of my captures. I've since discovered that the fish are not evenly distributed throughout the rivers and can be concentrated into very tight areas - hence the need to disguise the swims with some fairly crude Photoshop!
I started out with a few low double figure fish before getting the fish I was after, a 16lb 8oz fish to smash that old PB.

The next obvious target was a lure caught twenty pound fish. 

The next session started out with one of the prettiest pike I've ever caught and another PB of 18lb plus.

..followed within an hour by my first 20lb lure caught pike!

I was on a high for days and didn't think it could get any better. 

The next session began before it was light and I was soon rewarded for an early start with a nice15lb fish.

..followed by another mint fish over 15lb!

I then had a follow from what was clearly another good fish - I tried a few different lures but the fish refused to show again. I fished a couple of different areas before returning to the same swim where I managed to hook this monster.

At 26lb 6oz this fish had beaten my old PB by over 13lb!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The next big fish was another over 16lb.

If the 18lb fish was one of the prettiest, then this fish was one of the ugliest. The picture doesn't show the deformed head which was bent down at a very odd angle. I was amazed when this barrel of a fish pulled the scales round to over 20lb!

I recognised this mid-double two weeks later when I caught it for the second time...

..along with another 15lb fish!!!!

The local rivers had proved a revelation and provided me with a string of personal bests (and loads of back up doubles) and some fantastic sport. I don't think I could ever get bored catching fish like these but watching a bait angler land a good perch turned my head - big perch are definitely my major passion and I've spent the last month targeting them on the river.