It was our third annual trip to the lake district. We've done four full days boat hire on Esthwaite Water without a fish in the past, in some utterly inclement weather. This year went in October instead of March, hoping for warmer weather. We stayed in The Queens Head at Hawkshead, a lovely little pub. My best mate had bought the trip for my 50th and I couldn't have been more excited. I've been preparing and practising for weeks. This time the weather was relatively benign.
There were 8 boats out on the first day. Esthwaite is a couple of miles long and contains some massive pike but it is extremely difficult to catch them with depths going down over 100 foot. We spent the morning moving around, fishing both lures and deadbaits. I'd brought four rods to use, two deadbaits and two lure rods, one a light one and one a heavy one. Very quickly I had a technical problem: the screw to secure the handle on a brand new reel had somehow become lost. I discovered the screw from the other lure rod's reel actually fit, so when I was changing my lure rod up or down I had to remove the screw from one reel and put it on the other. It worked. In the middle of the afternoon we were fishless and only one other small pike had been caught. We decided to move swims, boating past a sunken island where the venue's in-house guide had a boat anchored, float fishing for pike. It's always worth having a deep diving lure over the side as you motor around, trolling, so I picked up my lure rod and got my Jerkbait down to the bottom.
Just as we motored right past the guide and his guests, within 10 yards of them, chatting, it happened in a flash. My rod was in a holder off the side of the boat and it buckled over into an unbelievable, thrashing curve. A big pike was on and all eyes were on me. I went for the rod and realised with a shock that there was no handle on the reel. I'd forgotten to change the screw over when I put the rod out and the handle had flown off, down to the depths, on this unbelievably aggressive take. I couldn't get the buckling rod out of the holder because you need the handle to give yourself enough slack to take the pressure off enough to lift it. So I'm hanging on to this big pike, which is now thrashing and tailwalking on the surface, with a reel-less rod which is stuck in it's holder. It was certainly the biggest pike I've ever hooked and could have been a thirty, given the commotion it was making. I eventually managed to force the rod free and tried to play this pike by handlining on the reel. It was on for a while, diving all over the place, burning my fingers on the braid, but then the inevitable happened and it threw the hooks as it leapt.
Gutted is an understatement. I'd missed our big chance and make a right arse of myself in front of a boat full of anglers. Everyone was laughing about it when we took the boat back that night, but my mate and I were gutted. Only one small pike was landed that day. A few pints and lovely meal and we were on the water at first light the next day. Eleven boats were out and we didn't get a sniff. Not one pike was landed on the whole lake and we went home, yet again, disappointed. It had been stunning to be out but the loss of this big fish overshadowed everything.
Fishing, bloody hell.
