Friday Funny - Piking Pirates

This entry was posted on 1st December, 2017

This tale takes place on a very famous (maybe more so in the early 90’s) reservoir in a sleepy English village. The reservoir held a 50lb+ mirror carp as well as masses of bream, tench, silver fish and - the target of this particular session - pike.

Now I was pretty new to pike fishing, being only 14 at the time of this particular story; I think my PB was about 4lb from the River Soar at the time. Anyway, I thought as it was winter and I wasn’t going to be catching much in the way of bream and tench (I wasn’t quite at the carp fishing stage yet) I would give piking a go, not really expecting to catch much.

I had no real idea of what size the pike went up to or how to really fish for them. I looked in some magazines and had a chat to the tackle shop owner who sold me some terminal tackle and deadbaits. He tried to tell me to buy some new rods as my quiver tip and float rods weren’t really up to the job, but owing to a lack of funds I thought I would give it a go and then if I didn’t like pike fishing I hadn’t wasted loads of money on new gear.

I headed for the venue, once again via mother driven taxi. I reached the venue and had everything I needed in my hands or on my back. I scanned the place and with the water level being down I could make out two anglers bivvyed up either side of the sailing club and its various jetties. This was the piking hot spot and they had clearly got themselves in prime position. Due to the sailing club not permitting angling from their jetties everyone that pike fished the reservoir wanted to be as close as they could to the sailing club, as the prey fish were corralled in the safety of this area, with pike gorging themselves.



At this point I should say the area in question was around 1500 meters so there was still a large space between the anglers. I walked my way around the opposite side from the bivvys and tried my new deadbaits in the hope of a pike. First cast set the scene; as I cast my deadbait out on my float rig half the top section of my waggler rod snapped clean in half.

With a bit of ghetto engineering I simply snapped the remaining fragments of carbon clean as near as I could to an eye and then re-rigged. The rod was now much stiffer and despite a few tangles where the mono looped over the remaining centimetre of rod that protruded after the eye it was functional.

A typical November cold clear day meant that I had around four hours of my session left to try and catch something. The first three quarters of my day I had been moving around but felt nowhere near catching any pike. I decided that with time running out I would head to the bivvys and at least have a chat and get some advice to help me maybe catch, even if it was a jack.

I trekked over and just as I am now, chatty as ever introduced myself before being met by two very hardened of old pike anglers who took one look at me and stared with a look that screamed P*** Off you noddy. I don’t think my broken make-shift rod and Adidas back pack helped them take me seriously.

With that I gave the anglers a wide berth and headed back to the other side before bumping into the very friendly bailiff. He recognised me from fishing in the spring, summer and autumn for bream and took me under his wing, enough for him to let me onto the sailing club jetty.

The looks on the faces of the two piking pirates when I was at the end of the jetty between them must have been a sight to behold. The bailiff had told me that the two lads were among the two of the most “unfriendly” of characters both on and off the bank. It turns out they were both Leicester’s finest gangsters (unless the bailiff was pulling my leg) involved in drugs and in and out of Her Majesty’s “hotel”.

I chucked out what must have been the crudest of pike float rings about 10 ft. from the jetty despite casting as hard as I could. The wind, which was mild on a water of this size, kept pushing my float straight back to me so I changed to the heaviest of drilled bullets I could find. After casting my dead smelt clean off twice in a row I finally got the rig some 20 ft. out and settled on the bottom.

I sat and waited and watched the float with anticipation. Absolutely nothing happened other than the bailiff coming to say cheerio after speaking to the gangsters. To be honest I was restless and bored and with about an hour left I would have gladly headed home early if I was driving myself.



I left the rod and paced the jetty and with every step felt two pairs of eyes cursing me for being on the jetty. I was almost embarrassed to still have caught nothing but was just glad that neither of the two anglers had chosen to leave their bivvy to bang me on the head or push me in. Maybe they were saving that for when I was leaving.

I sat at the end of the jetty glanced at my float which was wavering in the breeze and then took a few minutes to day dream and look around.  As my eyes looked back at the float, nothing registered! I thought I must be looking in the wrong place and over the course of a few seconds I scanned the water in front of me. It was not until I looked at my reel which was spilling line just like you drop spaghetti that I realised I had a bite.

With adrenaline pumping I slammed the bail arm over and struck. I think the fish hit me harder then I hit it and I fumbled to release the clutch so the fish could run. I didn’t fancy water-skiing with a mad pike on the end or falling in, thanks.

It was clearly a big fish and with my float rod bent double the inevitable happened: “SNAP.” Now my already broken 13ft float rod was about 3ft. With the noise, the two anglers left their bivvys and stood staring whilst I clearly struggled.

After what felt like an hour but was, in reality, 5 minutes, the fish rolled in front of me and I was a hair’s breadth away from actually soiling myself. It was bloody huge. What in the world was I going to do to land it? After watching John Wilson land pike by hand, I didn’t even have a net with me but the thought of landing this by hand was beyond scary; I might as well put my hand in a meat grinder for fun.

Clearly struggling I shouted and waved my arms at the only two anglers around, you guessed it “the Gangsters”. I had got that desperate that I actually was drawing attention to myself. Luckily one came over and after a further minute or two netted the fish and unhooked it for me without saying a word. The deathly silence was only filled by the sound of my heart beating out of my chest at the sight of my first 17lb pike.

I handed my camera over to the chap to take a picture to which he did without a word and then he left me to release the fish before heading off. I shouted thank you but he just walked off without acknowledging it.

I was buzzing, I didn’t even cast in again I was just so happy, elated and overcome. I had ten minutes to sort my head at and start the walk back to where my mum would be waiting. As I climbed off the jetty and met the main rod, I was confronted by both the other anglers. This was the second time in one day I had come so close to soiling myself. I thought this was it, they would kill me and my parents would never find my body. As I approached the men they both simply put their hands out, (I thought it was some gang trick) before shaking my hand and congratulating me in the sincerest manner. They even invited me to meet them the following week for some pike fishing elsewhere.

I politely thanked them, turned them down and ran to my mum, still sure it was a ploy to make me relax before they put me in concrete boots and tossed me in the reservoir.

I still because of that day swap my carp rods for pike rods every winter and thanks to the kind help from the gangsters and the mix of fear and excitement of that day, it’s truly a day I will never forget. The moral of the story is you shouldn’t believe what people say and don’t judge a book by its cover even if that cover is “the godfather”.