Pike Fishing, Bewl Water

Luck Also Comes In Threes

Bewl Water, Wadhurst, East Sussex, TN5. UK

Bewl Water, Bit Difficult To Get It All In The Photo

It's that time of year again, the cold weather moving in from the north, the first morning frosts, and the rustling of red and golden leaves in the wind falling to the ground, time to get the Pike rods out and go blanking! errmm... sorry I meant fishing. No really, I go fishing a lot, and I very rarely blank, except when Pike fishing when I very rarely catch, why? I'm not too sure, lots of reasons, there are way too many variables to contemplate, but as always, I have a plan, I was going to put all my faith into a lure fishing session at Bewl Water, I've never fished Bewl Water before, never fished from a boat for pike, and considering I have only ever caught 2 or 3 Pike on lures in about 30 years, you could say that I was a bit over optimistic that I would catch, but then again if I wasn't, I would of given up fishing long ago.

Captain Newbie At Your Service

After booking a boat for half a day for me and Sarah, we set off early with one rod and reel each and a small tackle box, net and landing mat, almost nothing compared to other sessions, but a welcome change. we arrived nice and early, it was sunny with a clear blue sky and gentle breeze! I love these days. We paid our dues at the lodge and loaded up the boat. I had assigned Sarah as captain for the day, then it dawned on us that neither of us knew how to use or even start a outboard motor, well there's a first for everything. And sheepishly I headed back to the lodge to ask for a tutorial. One of the Rangers happily came and showed us the ropes, which was quite handy as I got to ask where the Pike were, and he gave us the location of a few bays to try. Now with the engine turning over and drifting nervously away from the pontoon, we set off into the abyss, I knew this water was big and it wasn't till I looked out as far as I could see, that I realised whilst looking at the map and the shape of the water that I could only see a very small part of it, undeterred we headed west along the northern bank till we found a small sheltered bay lined with weed, it looked like it could be providing Pike with ambush cover so we set anchor.

Now My Favorite Lure! Fire Tiger Baby!

Whilst I set about Lure fishing with my 8' Snowbee Sea bass special spinning rod with Shimano Stradic 5000FJ loaded with 20lb PowerPro braid and 12" of wire trace, Sarah wanted to catch a Trout for dinner and opted to float fish sweetcorn with a 9' Shakespere Uglystik and Shakespeare Mach3 reel loaded with 6lb mono. I tried at least 8 of my lures and nothing and after 30 minutes I decided to move, I believe most of the time that if a Pike hasn't hit after 10 casts its very likely that there isn't one there, and the temptation to explore as much of this new water as possible was way too appealing to linger about anywhere too long . We upped anchor and continued along the bank till we found one of the locations the Ranger had advised we fished, I have to be honest, I wouldn't of stopped there by my own accord, no features, no bank cover, exposed to the wind and waves, but I know that experienced knowledge is invaluable most the time, and I wasn't in a position to know any better, so we set anchor and set about fishing.

A Sheer Joy Whatever Size

About 20mins had passed and again nothing, I had gone through most of my first choices of lures, spoons, spinners and soft plastics, one thing was bugging me was everything I was using was silver, the water was clear, they flash in the sunlight to imitate small natural bait fish. But with no hits I decided to go against the grain, I picked out a brightly colored 10cm firetiger E-Sox Flektor sinking lure, normally suited to cloudy waters, and cast out parallel along the bank, I let the lure sink to the bottom and had made a few flicks and reeled in about 5 meters, when bang, a single quick pull on the lure, I stopped reeling in and again I felt a knock, I stuck to set the hook and I was in, with all the lure fishing failures in the past this made my heart pound! I knew it wasn't a big fish but it meant everything to me. I played it carefully, and when it first surfaced it spectacularly tail walked in a last attempt to spit the hook before I dwarfed the small jack in a 42" specimen landing net. believe me that this fish was a long time coming and the relief as I unhooked and held him up for a photo was immense. It wouldn't matter what happened for the rest of the day, I was so happy with my first hard lure caught 2lb 12oz Pike, and nothing would change that.

Getting Smaller, But Not My Smile

But my luck would not stop there, in the next 9 casts I hooked and landed another 2 pike, one at 1lb 7oz and 1lb 2oz, yes they were going from small to bait sized!, but this was heaven for me! I had found where they were hanging about and now presenting them the right lure. But as quickly as it started it finished, probably due to disturbing the water to much and spooking them away, but we stayed a extra 30mins just in case, before I decided to head back east past the lodge to an area that the wind was pushing into a very large corner, I hoped that would give Sarah a better chance of a Trout and it seemed to be a good of a place as any to fish. We swapped rods for a bit and Sarah was really unlucky to lose a 10lb approx pike which spat the hook when it surfaced next to the boat,  we didn't have anymore bites or hits between us, maybe because I lost my lucky lure to some rocks, we tried several other bays and a creek before our day come to an end, and we motored back to the lodge at full speed for a good 10 minutes.

Last And Definitely The Least. Bring On The Beast!

What a fantastic day! the weather, the fish, the boating experience and the excitement of a new venue to explore made this a session I wont forget, and with 17 miles of bank to explore this place could keep you interested for decades, and I have no doubt that there are monsters hiding in the depths I also had another first today and a painful lesson about fishing in boats, I slipped on the wet floor whilst balancing as the boat rocked, I was attaching a lure to my trace, this left two points of a size 8 barbed treble deeply embedded in my finger! ouch....yes it hurt! but not nearly half as much as tearing the barbed hooks free with pliers, not for the faint hearted let me warn you! Just a little reminder to take extra care whilst handling hooks on a boat.

Oh Captain My Captain