Piking Perfect

I suppose my first adventure to blog couldn't come at a better time. You will learn through the course of this blog that most of my fishing takes place on medium sized commercial fisheries, so it's nice to kick off with something a bit different to my usual outing.

This was a trip I had been planning for sometime, 2 years to be precise, and why I waited that long I will never know. The time was just never right for me. Work or social commitments kept popping up and another winter would come and go without the pike trip taking place. Okay, I realise that the last week in April is hardly winter, and if you're a traditionalist, outside of the usual pike season, but the time was right for once and I couldn't help myself. So it was on, along with my younger brother and long term fishing partner, Dan, the trip was planned to visit one of Wales' premier pike fishing destinations, set in the Brecon Beacons, the largest natural lake in South Wales at 327 Acres, Llangorse.

Llangorse Lake

Planning

With neither Dan or I being seasoned pikers, some essentials would be required. We decided we were going to use lures and spinners to try and tempt old Esox. It is something we have tried briefly in the past and thoroughly enjoyed, so it was off to a local tackle shop to grab some lures and traces.
Garry Evans Tackle Shop in Cardiff is not our closest tackle shop, but they have an excellent Pike section, so it was here that we visited 2 days prior to our trip, and boy we were glad we did. As we browsed up and down the vast selection of lures on offer, the very man himself approached us and asked where we were planning on fishing. As I gave my response, his face lit up as he proceeded to tell us how well the lake was fishing and how he'd been up there the week before with another boat that landed 51 Pike in a day! He told us the area of the lake to target and could even point out the very lures they had been catching on, the Savage Soft 4 play roach imitation, and lucky for us, he just so happened to have a few left. Needless to say, Dan and I left the tackle shop grinning from ear to ear. We had the right destination, the right lures, the right information, surely we were going to catch some pike, weren't we!?




Savage Gear Soft 4 Play

The Tackle
I wont bore you too much with my set-up, I will however give you a quick overview, as this is something I like to see explained when reading over other blogs or articles. My reel for the day was my 'Daiwa Exceler 3000E'. Although this is a purpose made spinning reel, I'll be honest and say that this is the reel I use for most of my course fishing. It's a smallish front drag reel that happily takes lines in the 6-8lbs bracket, perfect for medium sized carp and other course species. On this occasion I had loaded it with 8lbs guru drag line. Drag-Line is a robust performance mono that offers a good combination of abrasion resistance and diameter. The line is super-supple as well as tough. This means that it flows freely off the spool with repeated casts. Braided line would of been the best choice, due to its qualities of having no stretch, but as I was on a bit of a budget and I already had the drag line in my tackle box, I felt it would make a pretty good substitute. Finally, all this was coupled with my 9ft Shakespeare Ugly Sapphire Spin Rod, 30 Plus Pike Spinning Wire Trace (28lbs) and the Savage gear lures.

Daiwa Exceler 3000E

The Day
We arrived at Llangorse around half 8 on an overcast but dry day. There was a light breeze on the water and temperatures were around 12 Degrees. We paid for our fishing and hire boat (fishing can only take place from a boat at Llangorse) at the on-site shop, the reasonable price of £36 for both of us and the boat, and proceeded down to the lake. We loaded our gear into the boat, and headed off to the spot described to us in the tackle shop, with Dan rowing and me setting up the rods en-route. It was only a short row to the spot, something Dan was grateful for seeing as the lake is 327 acres. We dropped anchor, and began to fish, casting our lures into around 4 foot of water tight to the marginal reeds. 20 minutes of constant casting to this spot yielded no results. I decided to turn round and scan the water behind me for signs of fish, and spotted several small fish breaking the surface of the water around 20ft from the boat. My first cast to this spot saw a large boil surface around 2ft behind my lure. This sent my heart racing, and on the next cast with a slow retrieve and sharp jerks of the rod top in between, a pike slammed into my lure. A firm strike saw the trebles set home, and after a short but energetic fight, a small Jack Pike of around 5lbs was lifted into the boat. 10 Minutes later, from the same spot, a Pike of similar size fell to my savage gear lure, shortly followed by a nice sized perch. I was off to a great start, all we needed now was for Dan to land his first Llangorse Pike.

 

 

Me with my Jack Pike

Near Miss

In the week leading up to our trip, all of our immediate family were both horrified and humoured at the thought of Dan and I being on a boat together, and they were all convinced at some point during the day we would be going for a swim. After all, we are both accident prone and have a track record for falling in waters whilst fishing. I remember being on the River Wye one time, when I heard a huge splash a few metres upstream. My thoughts of huge leaping fish were soon wiped away when a pained expression Dan floated on through my swim. Needless to say, I was bent double with laughter, the tears rolling down my face. He got his own back a few years later mind, when fishing a small commercial fishery I lost my footing stepping around the front of my seat box, and it was I who ended up in the drink. Anyway, back to this trip. Whilst anchoring the boat off, Dan decided to tie the anchor to a small metal 'O' ring at the bottom of the front of the boat. To Dan's horror, as he pulled the knot tight, the 'O' ring came away from the boat, with the plug it was attached to, leaving a nice hole for the water to come in and fill the boat. Dan panicked, and tried to fill the gap with his fingers before quickly realising the best thing to do would be to put the plug back in. We hadn't even cast a lure yet and already we'd almost sunk the boat! Maybe our family were right, but I am pleased to say, this was the closest we came to disaster all day and we both got to go home dry and with all our gear.
We shared this story with our family on our return much to their amusement, in particular our father who is also an avid angler, and the person, along side my granddad, who introduced us to the world of fishing. Sometimes, fishing isn't always about the fish you catch on the day, but the stories and memories we make from it. I know this one will be prominent in our family for a long time.

Success

After my quick succession of fish from our starting point, things went a little quiet so we decided to explore. We spent the rest of the day rowing around different areas of the lake to see if we could locate more fish and to be fair, most of the spots would yield one or two pike. We finished the day in the same spot we had started in, with the last half an hour seeing 3 pike come into the boat, including a double to Dan's rod and myself loosing one around a similar size. Maybe this was the best spot on the day and we had done the wrong thing by roving around, but we had a great time all the same.



Dan with a Double Figure Llangorse Pike

Conclusion

Our very first piking trip had been a great success. Something I was extremely pleased about, as it would of been typical for us to plan a trip in such detail only for things to go wrong on the day and for us to come away with a blank. I say this because it has happened to us so many times before, but on this occasion we had got it spot on and returned home triumphant.
Although I am itching to get straight back up there, (even just typing this is making me yearn for my spinning rod), I think I will hold off until the end of Autumn / early winter. The weed is starting to grow in the lake, and after all, spring time efforts should now be concentrated on other species, such as Tench or Carp. Rest assured though, we will definitely be returning and this time we won't be waiting 2 years for the privilege.

Tight lines,

A R Howorth