Piking in the Old Days

The old days being forty odd years ago. It seems impossible but it is so.

Id fished the pit since I started fishing as an eleven year old "skinball". Anyone remember that charming phrase ? Pike started off as a bogey fish, I just couldn't catch one, until one day at the end of the season.

I'd walked right round to "Number 24" after school on a silent, damp, dank day in late February. This peg was notable for two things, a great place for roach and pike and a place where porno mags ( that's what we called them ) seemed to be dumped on a regular basis.

Obviously after setting the gear up I'd have a read and bank the images for later use as any self respecting adolescent would do. But not today. No, the light was beginning to go and although I'd blanked every other time I was strangely confident. I always was. And am.

The green and yellow plug was worked along the reeds, trees and any cover and then out of nowhere a whack and what felt like a bolt of lightning through the rod as a pike hit the lure. It thrashed, mouth wide open on the surface but soon succumbed to the pressure and was in the net and my first ever pike was landed.

Amazingly I had another two fish in the next five minutes before dusk fell and the mist thickened. I walked back to the bike with the only sounds the random calls of the resident coots.

The sweaty cycle ride up the hill past the burnt out church was hardly noticed as I peddled home head in the clouds high on success.