Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Down To The Lake.

My dear old Auntie brought my attention to this one, as I missed it, I wondered if anyone else had seen the news item. However I think it may just have been a local NE news thing.

I don't really have to go into detail because you'll know the kind of story. This lake had been terrorised by a "HUGE" pike, of course it's always only one. This monster was eating "ALL" the ducks. Not to mention taking the odd nibble at kiddies fingers.

Strange that no dogs were mentioned, can't have been much of a pike if it only attacked kids and ducks?

Anyway for some reason the lake had been drained and the monster was found dead! The reporter apparently said they didn't know why it had died, maybe old age or over feeding (maybe it had been snaffling a few dogs on the side). No one seemed to think it might have been because the pond had been drained!

The body was then displayed, with close ups of the jaws and teeth.
When I asked my aunt haw big it was she only held her hands about three feet apart. As I said I missed the item, but maybe the monster wasn't so huge after all. I tried to tell her that it was a load of crap, but unfortunatly the answer I got was "oh no, it was on the telly".

Joking aside these stories get my back up, and I 'm sure other pike anglers as well. It's all very similar to the story about the duck eating catfish a few months back. They don't do the image of these fish any good at all.
I have mentioned before that in my area since the Tees barage was put in pike have started to show in good numbers on the lower river. We've already had clubs change their rules to let anglers kill pike. We have also had people carring out their own private culls, these are matchmen, to protect "their" fish stocks. To be honest there are some very stupid people around.

All we need now is the cry to go up "will some body think about the ducks!".

I just thank God that the film about a man eating pike never came to fruition.

There have been a couple of these stories over here (E.Ang...) over the last few years. One "beast" terrorising a pub's garden pond turned out to be around 2lbs when it was finally brought to book.

There was also a famous one at some pub near Sutton Bridge a few years back, all the local pikers tried to catch this monster. Eventually the local kids nailed it (all 8lbs of it...) with half a brick.

There is a water close to where I live that has an infamous pike known as the 'duck guzzler'. From what I can see, and I've tried to be open minded and rational, it's simply a ploy to attract more day ticket pikers to the water.
Which brings me on to another point, has anyone actually seen a pike take a duck? I'm not doubting that ducklings get taken, but I have never seen anything like that, so I assume it's not a common thing....Duck Guzzler?...nah, just a commercial ploy to make more money....

I've seen a duckling taken by what could only have been a pike a couple of times.

But what about a full grown duck? Anyone seen that?

There's a photo in one of John Bailey's book's of a pike attacking an adult coot. And according to John Wilson's book on pike, fish of 20lb can take a fully grown malard.

Stewart, there was a 33 pounder found dead on my local water with a full grown mallard stuck in its jaws....d'oh!

I've only ever seen one occasion where a pike has taken a water bird. It was a mallard ducking down the River Leam about 4 years ago.

I'e caught a rainbow trout with a 6 inch water snake in it's gut. And a brown trout with a rat in it.

Fished Llangorse lake in South Wales at the weekend. In the `Boathouse` bar at `Lakeside` they had got newspaper articles from 1999 of a water skier that had been bitten on the foot by a pike as he had gone into the water. The scars were not to pretty and apparently the pike attempted to pull him under as it locked onto his foot.

Caught a 16lber once with a mouth full of feathers no sign of the bird though.

That was in the Daily Telegraph:

A WATER-SKIER was nursing a badly injured foot yesterday after being bitten by a pike in a Welsh lake.
Darren Blake was treading water when the predator, estimated to be up to 5ft long, attacked. He felt himself being pulled into the Llangorse lake, in the Brecon Beacons, before the pike bit him, leaving an inch-long gash on the ball of his foot and six V-shaped toothmarks on his sole. The Llangorse skiing club has now issued a warning to its 80 members about the fish.

Mr Blake, 31, said yesterday: "Now I know how those people feel when they get bitten by a shark. I was in terrible pain, but mostly it was the shock of something trying to eat me. I can't tell you how terrifying it is when something grabs you from under the water."

Mr Blake, from Lichfield, Staffordshire, said: "I am hobbling around at the moment, but I am just glad to have my foot in one piece - that fish could have killed someone with a weak heart."

Barrie Rickards where are you?

You have to reply to this one.

Personally I think the "bite" was from some other source than a pike.

Could revolutionise the bait industry.
Into the tackle shop
"Mornin, can I have 3 mallard, a couple of water rats, oh and have you got any water skier's feet, size 9. And I'd best take 3 pints of toes for loose feeding ."

We have a water ski club on a water near me. 3 skiers were bit over a period of 6 weeks, all in the same spot. Turned out to be an old rusty 55 gallon drum on the bottom...they had kicked it while swimming and gashed there feet. plonkers!

I have a book somewhere or other by I think Fred Buller where he pulled a full grown rat out of a Pikes mouth and then turned it into a lure. It was serialised in pictures with the rat both in and being actually taken out of its mouth so I have no reason to doubt it. Surprising thing for me was that I recall the Pike was only about 17Ib and it was a bloody great rat. I also remember a similar picture type story with a young mallard being taken out of a Pikes mouth. Personally I have never seen a Pike take anything other than another fish despite spending an unhealthy proportion of my life besides various bits of water and despite just about every other non angling member of the public swearing that they have seen a Pike at their local pond taking ducklings, coots, dogs, sheep, cows, Hippo?s...

I have no doubt at all that a 17lb pike would take a rat in the right situation, they take surface lures and i know Rik has just recently taken a few on surface baits intended for cats.
I caught the duck guzzler or its relative all 28lb of it!!.....Sedges right it's a ticket seller, bet we are both banned from Patshull now!!!!

I think what we should do is tell the press and warn water skiers etc that there is now a mutant strain of human eating pike on the prowl in various waters. It will keep them off!!

I love the one about the water skier. A pike over 5ft long, how much would that wiegh 50lb+?

Another good one I've heard was the monster of Linton Lock, one the Ouse near York.

Some guy fishing in a hooked a pike that was "a good foot bigger than the boat, and hand six plugs hanging from its jaws". I tell you what I'd love to catch that, if those plugs were all rapala's it would be worth a fortune!

Gawd, I'm going to sound like all the other ''sensationalist'' weirdos here... but this is true... my dad and I fish Stanborough Lake, in Welwyn - we were down there at first light one day, after carp, as the carp there cruise the surface layers at first light... unfortunately, to feed them, you have to get through the ducks first! Anyway, as soon as the ducks saw us settling into our swims, they were upon us - but when we didn't feed them, they soon disappeared... apart from one immature (though full-grown) female, that hung around in front of my swim (no more than 6 feet from the bank). I turned around to thread up my rod, heard an almighty ''SPLASH!!!'', and turned round to see no duck - I'm talking no more than 2 seconds in total - no time for it to have made a noisy exit. There ARE pike in the lake (though for some reason, pike-fishing is banned), along with known zander and at least one catfish. I'm with you guys on this subject - I believe that most stories you hear about this kind of thing are rubbish - but I will swear on my (future) kids' lives that a fish took that duck...

I did remember fishing the R.Yare a few years back seeing what look like a hugh bream dorstal fin skimming across the river coming closer and closer to my boat. As it went under my boat it wwas the wing of a coot sticking out of the water the rest was in the mouth of a big pike. It was a pretty frightening sight!!
Windy

davy is that park lake albert park in middlesborugh coz my dad has told me alsort about that pike. and he told me the concil had put a bounty on its head before the lake had been drained.