THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

If I'm honest, I doubt if there are any really sizeable pike in this place, but it was full of jacks, the best
of which might creep up towards double figures. Even so, we had an absolute field day taking well over
forty fish. Far and away the most pike I had ever seen in a single session by any method.
The next couple of experiences relate to Scotland's Loch Ken. We had a spell of spending back-end and
winter weekends up there when we couldn't get out to sea. And again, as with the United Utilities
reservoir, the place is stuffed with lots of small to mid-range fish, though it also has some very big fish
too, particularly when fishing from boats.
The problem we found was that not
knowing the water too well, we
struggled to find the drop off's within
casting range of the shore, and always
seemed to be fishing shallow, fairly
featureless pegs, the result being plenty
of pike, though always the smaller fish.
But, you can still learn things from
experiences at the bottom end of the
size range too.
Phill Williams, Coniston Pike PB at 20.2.0
Always we would fish with dead-baits.
By that stage, catching your own baits
and moving them between waters was
frowned upon, so we tended to buy in
from the Ammo frozen sea baits range.
Garfish was always kind to me. But on one occasion which we'd decided on suddenly out of the blue,
the only frozen bait I had in was a couple of packs of Launce – jumbo sized sandeels, which I had no
alternative but to try.
Having pike take them wasn't a problem, and fortunately due to the size of these launce, I was able to
get three baits out of each.
Predators generally like to take their prey head first. It makes passage down the gullet that much easier
as it runs with the grain of things like fins, scales, and spines, which might otherwise impede the flow.
This also appeared to be true of my sandeel portions. If I didn't present them with what would have
been the head end of the fish at the bottom treble, in other words with the scales pointing the right way,
the pike became finicky, sometimes playing with it, possibly even trying to turn it, I don't know, and as
a result, a lot of those takes were missed.
It's as if they knew from the layout of the scales, as tiny as these are, that the grain wasn't right, which
certainly seemed to put them off, though obviously, with only a small amount of data to work with over
one weekend, other factors may also have been making them skittish.
Another trip to Loch Ken was as a journey break on the way back from the Sound of Mull with the boat
in tow after calling time on a common skate trip that hadn't really turned out all that well. With a day
still to go before we were expected home, we decided to call in at the loch on spec, knowing we would
still have to fish from the shore.
Unfortunately, as this had not been our original plan, we were forced to use the lightest sea tackle we
could muster, and grub about in the cool-box for whatever bait we might have left, which was lugworm,
mackerel, and small whole calamari squid.
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