Neville Fickling's Mammoth pike Update - My Contribution

What follows below is an extract from the second book I have appeared in, the short story of how I caught my P.B pike...

A Pikers Dawn

The day was Thursday the 10th December 2009. I arrived at the waters edge at first light and the mist was slowly rising off the flat calm sheet of water that was in front of me, the conditions looked fairy tale like and expectations of a fish were high.

Each one of my three rods were casted out into known features in the loch. My first, baited with a lovely fresh sardine was accurately placed thirty yards out, straight in front of me into a deep hole that was twelve foot deep and was surrounded by eight feet of water. The second, a popped up herring was cast to my left about twenty yards out from the bank, just shy of a weed bed in seven feet of water. My third and last rod was baited with an eel section and cast off to my right hand side onto a gradual drop off that went from four feet down into nine feet of water again about twenty yards from the bank.

The morning went by slowly just like the previous six had where I had not encountered even a stiff from a pike on any of my baits. At just minutes past 10am I was standing next to my closest rod, the one that was out in the twelve foot hole. I was admiring the morning sun as it was just starting to burn a hole through mist that was lit a lovely bright orange when thoughts were running riot through my mind, why are they not having it? Are the pike in the deeper water? Should I have pre baited an area? etc when suddenly my drop off slammed against the rear bank stick, I don’t know whether it was the adrenaline that was pumping or that I simply never heard the sounder box going but I grabbed the rod from off the bank sticks as quickly as I could, wound down and stuck. It was my first run in over thirty eight hours of fishing I wasn’t going to let the fish drop the bait before I had a chance to set the hooks!

What met my strike was a solid resistance. If you can imagine striking into a submerged tractor tyre you will have a pretty good idea of what I mean. My 3.25lb test rod was bent double just trying to lift this thing off bottom when suddenly without warning I get a vigorous side to side sweeping head shake which confirmed it was a fish, and a big fish at that. Now, I had previous caught more than a good handful of thirty pound plus pike before this but none of which previously had even come close to the power this fish had.

Eventually I started gaining line on here inch by inch as she just kept plugging bottom with solid thumps of her tail. I quickly grabbed the net that was down at my feet and placed it in the water as she edged ever so closer to me. Just as I done this I get my first look at her, she bobs up out on top of the water just 5 feet out from the bank with a head the size of a horse and a saddle to match. I seized my chance and got her over and into the net first time then onto the mat. She was very lightly hooked with just the bottom treble stuck in her scissors. This was quickly turned out and then I stood up and looked at her. I simply couldn’t believe what I had just caught! After a few quick photographs she was popped onto the scales which read out a mighty 37lb 12oz, I was simply in awe! She was then carefully slipped her back into the loch where within seconds she shot off into the depths. I stood back up, wiped my face and looked at the time…..10.15am, time to leave for work!

Her Frame Was Enormous!