My chum, John, had communicated his recent interest in fishing for our old friend Esox with the fly. Intrigued I got in touch with him to arrange a day together in pursuit of Mrs Pike before she got too frisky with Mr Pike - it being early March.
We travelled through blizzard conditions and heavy traffic before finally arriving at our destination - a windswept canal. The snow joined us on the bank and was soon blowing almost horizontally covering both our backs with ice and slush and freezing the old mitts.
We began casting large flies to the far bank - or in my case, halfway to the far bank. Mercifully the snow subsided and the wind dropped and a weak sun warmed us and then the Pike appeared.
I've caught me fair share of Pike before, up to 24lbs, but catching a pike on a fly rod is a different kettle of fish. We were using suitably beefed up gear - 9 foot, no.9 rod and lines - but the bend in the rod and the direct contact through the fly reel was very exciting.
During the day and over three venues we both managed to bend into high doubles as well as some hard fighting jacks. We broke for lunch in a nice pub and shared a bottle of reasonable Merlot.
All in all a tremendous days sport.
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