Severn Flood Pike

Lovely essox ****y, is that the one you told me about?

I hope Sabrina is going to be kind to me too for a change/forum/smilies/embarassed_smiley.gif

Hi Claudia,

Not the biggest in the river by a long long chalk, but a nice one to catch when conditions are against you.

I'm sure Sabrina will sort you out next weekend. I reckon you're due something 'proper' big! /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

My first zed a double would do me nicely......I always wanted to see how S.Spiller handles a golf club /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif lmao

I've already got him one of those 'personalise your own golfball' kits for Christmas /forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif

LMAO......and I got him his first set of golfballs /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Yeah Yeah.........Whatever! /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Sabrina must have been up a bit ****y judging by the lane in the background /forum/smilies/surprised_smiley.gif

Well done matey.....

Good luck Claudia, I really hope you get your Zed. I hope you aint still chasing a double Zed after 36 years, like I am with my 2lb roach. I've got a good feeling about this winter though /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

What are your plans for the week starting the 24th ****y? Sabrina is on our list /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

lol I will get my zed...even if it takes me 36 yrs.....come to think of it.....doubt I will still alive in 36 yrs time/forum/smilies/surprised_smiley.gif

You will get you 2lb roach this Winter.....remember i got a crystal ball /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Trust ****y and Jim..........

They've got crystal balls..........and Neil has gotgolden ones /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

There are loads of Zander in the Warks Avon you know Claudia, in fact they have become a pest in some stretches. The Evesham to Eckington stretch is absolutely stuffed with the critters and I well remember about 10 years ago the EA electro'd the day ticket stretch at Harvington (Ken's water) and took out over a hundred in one foul swoop. ****ie would probably know about the Avon zander though I guess and its always worth knowing if you are a zander fan. Loadsa pike too, the last time I fished at Evesham a piker came to me looking for small fish for bait because he had run out. He had only been there for a couple of hours and caught about 14 in that time, no wonder I couldn't catch anything.

Hi Steve,<blockquote class=quoteheader>Steve Spiller (ACA) wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>

Sabrina must have been up a bit ****y judging by the lane in the background /forum/smilies/surprised_smiley.gif

What are your plans for the week starting the 24th ****y? Sabrina is on our list /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif</blockquote>

The river was well up that day, in fact it had only just recently left the path I am sitting on.In the pic it's half a rod length to the right (or my left, if you see what I mean). To be honest I wish I'd taken some barbel gear... 8oz might just have held bottom.

Unfortunately mate I'm working Mon-Fri from the 24th and then amaway the weekend 29/ 30th.Can do this weekend if you fancy joining me and Claudia for a quick round and a jar on the 19th hole? /forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif



Hi Graham,

Hope you're keeping well mate /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

You're right to flag up the potential of the Avon and it's no longer all aboutthe lower river. There are zander a-plenty all the way to Warwick and beyond, in fact I took Jim for his first zander fish at Warwick a few years back and his debut pb by the end of the day was 9lb 12oz!

I even had a 3lb tiddler out of the Leam well above the Jephson Gardens weir a couple of years back.

Evesham has been plagued by tiny pike for years now, I covered the festival for Midland Angler a few years back and anglers were being regularly robbed of precious ounces by marauading jacks.

As to why there are so many jacks on that stretch, and other heavily match-fished venues on the Avon? Well that's a hot potato...

In fact thinking about that hot potato... I interviewed Mick Brown last year at the PAC conference and he was very eloquent on the topic,

****y: How can predator anglers forge closer links with the greater mass of pleasure/ club and match anglers, many of whom still view pikers as the enemy within?

Mick Brown: I think it’s something you have to tackle on a local level. In my part of the Midlands we have a lot of trout clubs and there’s a lot of match fishing going on, and pike fishing just doesn’t mix with what they’re trying to do. Over the years I’ve got to know a lot of the trout anglers and slowly but surely I’ve managed to talk to them and explain that if they’ve got a problem it has to be tackled in the right way. The usual problem is that they suspect that the pike are eating all their trout, so they start killing them. It’s education really, they need to know that if you start taking the big pike out you are making the problem worse. You’ve got to do the right thing; you can never get rid of pike. It’s just talking to each really and seeing each others points of view. One of the big issues of course is what’s happening on the Warwickshire Avon because they think there’s too many pike there…

****y: The Evesham festival?

Mick Brown: Yes, the trouble is that you get a really good section of river where the baitfish naturally collect and it’s bound to draw all the predators in the region. I don’t think there is a simple answer, where you can say do this or that, but one thing is certain and that’s if you start culling the pike you only exacerbate the situation and you end up with more and more smaller pike. I’ve seen it so many times.

There’s a trout lake near where I live; I fished it for them to assess the pike stocks and my analysis, because of repeat captures, was that there was three big pike in there and you’re best to leave things as they are. Well one of the members on the fly caught two of those big girls in a day and killed them so I no longer had any interest in fishing there. Two years later I got a call from them saying they had a problem, I went down and in a few days I caught 106 2lb’ers, and they were there simply because they’d taken these big doubles out.

I’m not really sure what the answer is on these match stretches. Even if they were to throw ten pike a week up the bank it wouldn’t solve the problem. People just don’t realise the numbers involved and the rate they’re breeding. The more preyfish you’ve got, the more predators they will support and it’s a fact. Just killing a few of them is not a real solution; it just creates bad feeling between the different branches of our sport. Maybe competition anglers have just got to come to terms with the situation. It’s like playing cards where the joker’s in the pack; you’ve just got to live with the fact that you may have a pike in your swim. In some ways it makes the result a little more unpredictable rather than the best guy in the best swim always winning.

Unfortunately mate I'm working Mon-Fri from the 24th and then amaway the weekend 29/ 30th.Can do this weekend if you fancy joining me and Claudia for a quick round and a jar on the 19th hole? /forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif

That's a shame mate andwe can't do this weekend /forum/smilies/sad_smiley.gif

Good luck Claudia I hope you get you're beastie of a Zed, I know ****y will do his best for you...........

Claudia take a barbel rod /forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif

Good luck, hope you both catch.

Jeff,

I'll be taking one rod for the berties and one for the zed.....might be a struggle to get a bite though, as the temperature will drop to minus Friday night....but I won't give up /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Steve,

Shame you and Wendi can't make it /forum/smilies/crying_smiley.gif, I'm sure I would whoop your butt /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif/forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif

Claudia........

I'll show you my blisters and scars one day mate............

I can't sit down lately /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif/forum/smilies/crying_smiley.gif

Payback will be sweet when I open a large can of whoop ar$e! /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

Good luck mate /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

To be honest my money is on barbel or zander. the cold won't take hold in the south-west til Sunday.

Good luck all you hardy souls (or nutters as me and Claudia like to call ourselves) who'll be out on the banks this weekend!

Hey! Hey! (As Fozzie bear on the Muppets used to say)

Have you heard the one about Steve Spiller's new favourite bankside snack?

It's called a sand wedge!!! /forum/smilies/party_smiley.gif/forum/smilies/confused_smiley.gif/forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif

Get in!!/forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

Cu soon mate, good luck with the roach.

****y,

I've told you...we are no nutters/forum/smilies/confused_smiley.gif....we just 'arrrrrrd/forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif lol

Sand wedge......lol priceless/forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

Steve,

Meet you at the 19th hole /forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif...and you paying lol