January 14, 2007
I have been fishing since the age of six up until I was about 18, I then had a gap of about 14 years before taking up the sport again. My friend Martin was to blame, telling me tales of huge pike he had caught from a secret lake in deepest Kent. His stories were backed up by many photo's of these huge fish.
I got quite interested in pike when I was about 13. I had never deliberately fished for them but had encountered them whilst fishing for other species.
My grandparents lived on a road that ran alongside the river Severn in Shrewsbury. They lived on the opposite side of the road to the actual river itself but were friendly with some neighbours who had a huge house next to the river bank.
I was privileged to be allowed to fish from their garden and there was a purpose made ramp cut out from the 8 foot high, steep bank leading down to the waters edge.
I was fishing one side of an island that split the river just upstream. The head of this island was, and still is a famous barbel hot-spot and to this day you can have fantastic fishing there at the beginning of the season. My fishing though, was exclusive as you could only fish this particular swim from the private garden.
Most of my fishing was legering or swim-feeder and I caught no end of quality chub, roach, perch and dace with the occasional barbel to boot. A barbel was quite rare though as they preferred the faster water at the head of the island.
The fish were amazing quality and I never failed to catch, the river was stuffed with them!
One afternoon I was feeder fishing to the far bank. As I reeled in after a bite-less 15 minutes a pike of about 15 lb's darted out from some streamer weed in the middle of the river and grabbed my feeder!
After shaking it's head a few times it spat it out and submerged back into the weed. From that day on I was fascinated with pike.
