FOGGY FENLAND FROLICS

A few weeks ago I couldn,t contain myself anymore and had to point the truck Cambridgeshire way and fish the mighty Fenlands for their predatory inhabitants. I normally go for the weekend but unfortunately i could only do the one day so on Sunday 16th October I made my way North at stupid-o-clock to get to my chosen destination at first light.

I arrived at my chosen river before light and set about carrying my kit to my first swim, a well known big fish area once upon a time. I set up two rods on floats, one as a deadbait and the other as a free roaming livie rig, cast out the deadbait and them proceeded to winkle out a few nice silvers for the other. When I had enough of them I cast my float to the near margin to my left fishing 3ft deep over a bed of heavy weed. Over the next couple of hours I had 2 mid single figure pike and bumped of a good double on the lives. It was great fishing the lives as the water was really clear and I was fishing just over the top of the reeds and could see the pike stalking my bait. I,ve never witnessed that before.
Around late morning I upped sticks and had a drive around my usual haunts to get a feel for the place again and to see if anything had changed. I took a look at a lovely area I found last season on The Little Ouse and couldn,t believe how clear it was, that put me of fishing there to be honest as I could see the bottom quite easily. After a couple of hours driving from location to location I settled down in a swim that has been really kind to me over the years throwing up 2 twenty pound pike as well as numerous big doubles as well as some cracking zander to my rods.
I set up one rod on ledgered deadbait cast to the far reeds, one rod on sunken float pasternoster lobbed just past the near marginal shelf and the third rod was on my favourite free roaming livebait. Well I had a couple of takes on the ledger rods but nothing held on, but the float rod managed to bag me 3 pike around the 6lb mark which scrapped really well on my new ET Sneeker rod. I also had a small perch on a orange chubby shad from a small carrier stream close by which was the first perch i,ve had from there.

It was a long way, and expensive on fuel, to go for a days fishing but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. The few fish I had were an added bonus as I just enjoy being out in the wilderness.............

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