Birthday Double.

Every year around my birthday I always struggle to get a line in the water, we either have family visiting or the big day falls mid week making any kind of session impossible. This year was a little different, the family aren't going to visit till the week before Christmas, the shopping and days out were taken care of over the weekend leaving me with a bit of time on Monday to get a bait in the water. It wasn't going to be any kind of fancy trip to chase any more species for the challenge, I've pretty much decided to put that to bed and make do with what I've caught through the year, I think I'm currently in tenth place which will do me. It was a simple trip to Ryton fishing dead baits for Pike, Barry accompanied me and after a quick look around we made do with the first two pegs along the road bank, Barry dropped down onto the information desk and I settled on peg two, it might be the last time we fish these pegs in their current state!!!!!

We'd met Paul earlier on fishing the corner at the back of the point, he was fishing for Perch and wasn't having much luck, the frost might have put them down in the deeper water but it was sunny so there was always a chance, another angler was roving around the lake trying his luck at spinning for the Perch.

We'd been fishing for about an hour and Paul wandered down towards the car park with his gear, he'd had enough but stopped for a chat when a stutter of bleeps came from the direction of my right hand alarm, the back bobbin hadn't released the line but something was showing an interest. I picked up the rod and waited a few moments for the line to tighten before reeling into the fish, it felt good and came straight to the top and rolled a few times, Barry was on net duty and we soon had the fish under control and in the net. With my tool kit to hand I gave Paul a demonstration in gloveless Pike unhooking and after some light dentistry the hooks were out and I was able to hold the fish up for a quick photo......... the camera batteries were flat!

The toothy one had to rest in the margins whilst the batteries were swapped over in the old box brownie and it remained well behaved for the snap before swimming off.

Ten pound and twelve ounces, a birthday double.

Barry made a concerned comment about the condition of some of the Pike he'd caught recently at the pool, they were all good sized fish and should be weighing much more than they were and I must admit, this fish and the last one I caught at Ryton were very long and lean with big heads and would have looked better had they eaten a few more pies, might be something to keep an eye on!

The rest of the session remained fishless but I was happy to have caught something on my Birthday.