Well I never...

[snotty]

I've heard the stories, but never witnessed anything like it until today.

 

I had an afternoon on my local canal with my father, the intended quarry being perch.

We both set up simple waggler rigs and fished worm whilst feeding red maggots.

 

As my father reeled in to recast, a large swirl indicated the presence of something a little larger than our rigs were set up for. Carp..? Tench...? several casts later around the same spot and all hell broke loose as a pike took a fancy to his float, crashing out of the water it severed the mainline and submerged, the water returned to calm. It took a little while to recover our composure after that as I fell about laughing.

The look of disbelief on my fathers face was amazing as he surveyed his limp line dangling from the rod tip.

 

About ten minutes passed and my laughter had subsided, when a red tipped float bobbed to the surface in the middle of the swim. I cracked up again.

 

Its at times like this you wish you had brought your lures, a spinner, treble hook, anything in fact...

He re-rigged and using an old avon float inline with a wire trace, and attached as large a single hook as we had brought with us, he then tried trolling around the swim.

 

Incredibly the pike had a good look at this homemade lure and even pushed it with its nose on one retrieve.

Fortunately I suppose, that was the nearest we came to catching it but I will never again doubt those stories of the ones that got away.

[Dick Dastardly]

Often just the splash of the float hitting the water can provoke a strike at this time of year.

[chavender]

its instances like these that keep us going fishing as it not just the frill of catching something,it's the anticipation of the unexpected and unkown & the prospect of anything could happen at anytime and even the most unlikly days turn into adventures.

[greg long]

I have had Pike hit floats with dead baits only 3 feet below them....and ignore the deadbait.

[Sharkbyte]

A few weeks back I had a perch on the livebait, another take the float and yet another grab the 3/8oz bomb!

 

If I was fishing three hooks, I could have post the first '6lb+ of Perch' thread!