Complacency caught me out this week, when my wife suggested that I go fishing, while she took a drive into town looking for birthday presents. It was a bit of a snap decision and I decided on a new, as yet, unfished swim on the nearby River Blackwater, however reaching inside the fishing and shooting drawer of the freezer, there were no bags of liquidised bread left. What I thought was a bag containing several smaller measures of the precious feed, contained a number of recently made rabbit pasties. Shock, horror! I always have liquidised bread in the freezer! I felt so out of my comfort zone, that I suggested that without being able to fish the bread punch, I would not go fishing after all. “The look on your face!” she said “Can’t you buy some maggots, or something?” She was right of course, I could and would.

Regaining my will to live, Plan B swung into action. I boiled up some hemp seed and checked out my ground bait tin. A half bag of Van Den Eynde Super Cup, a full bag of brown crumb and some dried mole hill soil, would make up some nice maggot and hemp filled balls of ground bait, that would slowly break down on the gravel of the fast flowing Blackwater. I also took a couple of small slices of punch bread as a back up bait. The tackle shop was on my way to the river, The Last of the Big Spenders lashing out one pound, seventy five on half a pint of red maggots.

Arriving at the river, I parked alongside the only other car in the carpark, unloaded my gear from the van and walked to the swim, unable to see until right on top of it, that another angler was already lounged out in bed chair, staring at his feeder rod top. Disappointed I asked if he had caught anything.”Nope” He was the sort, that even if he had caught a dozen barbel, would have given the same reply. I turned and went back to the van. Plan C was to reload the van, drive to the other end of the carpark and walk to another swim, that I had blanked from, when the river was in flood last winter. The swim had good head room for casting a float rod and was almost at the end of the fishery, therefore I hoped, to far for a less determined angler to bother with.

In the winter, this swim had appeared to offer refuge from the floods, deeper water giving way to shallows further down, but two bites and a lost chub were all that it had provided, but now it looked good with a powerful central flow, bordered by slower water. I mixed up my mucky ground bait mix, including the hemp, but saving the maggots to add to the made up balls.

Leaving the ground bait to absorb the water, I tackled up with a 6BB stickfloat to my 14 foot Browning float rod, then punching out a 7 mm pellet of bread for the size 14 hook and casting over to the back eddy along the opposite bank. The float dipped and sank. I lifted into a good sized roach, playing it toward the middle. Whoosh! A pike broke the surface and dived away with the roach. Oh no! Not first cast? Releasing the handle on the reel, I let it spin, the rod bending to the running pike. It stopped and began to allow me to reel it back. It turned and come off. The hook was OK, tied to a 3 lb hook link, then to 5 lb reel line. I’ve had pike trouble before on the Blackwater, then I had a heavy feeder rod with 15 lb reel line with me and after lip hooking a small live bait to a size 12, hooked and landed the pike, releasing it further down stream, allowing me to continue fishing undisturbed. Today I had no feeder rod.

This was a dilemma. I knew it would be back, but did not want to move again. Maybe I could get the pike in next time? Running the bread through again, the roach seemed to have been scared off and ran through with double maggot. The float dived and the rod was bent into a good fish, that felt like a good perch boring deep, as it came back to me. Suddenly the line tightened and I was backwinding a rapidly retreating fish. The hook had straightened. Was it a carp, a barbel, big chub, or had the pike returned already? So far I had been smashed off twice, without landing a fish.

After tying on another 14 barbless hook, I pushed a hole in one of the ground bait balls and filled it with red maggots, dropping it in just past middle, putting in another just upstream of it. About six inches over depth, the float was checked through at half pace, travelling a few feet then dragging under with small perch hugging the bottom, as the hook was set.

Small perch were lined up chasing maggots and with a few in the net, I tried a bread punch pellet, the float sinking away again, this time with a small roach, that I got airborne across the surface to my hand. Next drop in, the bread selected a better roach, which again I swung in to avoid tempting the pike.

After a couple of dropped small dace, I switched back to the maggot, following down another bait ball. The bites were fast and furious, as the dace scooped up the hemp and maggots, a positive bite bringing a nice dace, that fought deep, but then burst onto the surface, the pike rolling, when the dace was lifted clear.

This dace was lucky, not so the next, that fought hard along the bottom, until seized by the pike. Here was another chance, the rod bending over as the predator flashed beneath the surface in an arc. Again it ran down stream, coming back, then turning down again under pressure. It was tiring, slowly swimming up toward me. Soon it was level and beneath my feet, lying just under the surface. The dace was hanging outside of the wide jaws, the pike about thirty inches long. I tried to slide the net under the pike from the high bank, but it rolled away, swimming back out. I wound the reel back down, putting pressure back on and the float went from view, but then the pike was wallowing on the surface and I pulled back in an attempt to surf it over the rim of the landing net. Nearly. Half way in, I lifted the net, only for the net to twist on its thread and the pike to slide out. It dived back to the fast water and ping, the hook link broke on the tight line.

Feeding again and with another hook, the dace and roach had moved off, leaving some of the biggest gudgeon that I have caught for a while.

These were monsters, probably a couple of ounces each, that hugged the bottom like glue, before giving up, to swing straight to hand. Small dace and chub took their place, usually coming off before reaching the surface. I was now paranoid that the pike would return and pulled more fish off the hook, than I landed. A perch hooked on a longer trot, burst onto the surface,. followed by swirls from the pike and I powered the fish back to me.

Normally a perch of this size would not have come in so easily, its spiny dorsal fin erect as it skimmed the surface, but the pike had no food preferences and perch were fair game. Next cast I had a small chub of an ounce and decided to trot this down to Mr Toothy, the pike nosing up, causing the chublet to flap on the surface, but it wanted a larger meal. Next visit will see the pike gear in my bag, then we will see who is the boss.

I fed the last of my groundbait further upstream, trying to keep the fish under my rod top, but the damage had been done and even the gudgeon had stopped biting.

After a traumatic four hours, I’d had over forty fish for about 4 lb, not bad in the circumstances, but with a long walk back to the van, my main thought was focused on getting home, before the traffic came between me and my cup of tea.