Today I had been given permission to take Kieran from Slough to the Predator Lake on the Wasing Estate for a pike handling course. He has been fishing with me twice already and after losing a small roach to a pike at Twynersh has been keen to catch our largest native predator. He even disrupted his whole family to be ready for me to pick him up at 7 am. And it was tipping with rain.

We drove down to the Kennet valley and stopped at Max’s cafe in Padworth for a bacon sandwich. As we arrived at the lake the rain stopped and the sun came out. I thought we had used up our daily ration of luck and did not anticipate the day’s fishing that followed. I set up the first rod and cast out a still frozen sardine.Three more rods were then baited with a variety of other dead baits and we had just sat down when the bite indicator on the first rod went off. The bait must still have been partially frozen - perhaps the pike like sardine flavoured ice lollies. Kieran was into his first fish that pulled back at him and did very well to learn fish playing skills as he went. The pike weighed eleven pound four ounces.

Kieran with 11lb 4oz pike

Shortly afterwards the same rod produced anothe fish of twelve pounds fifteen ounces, again to a partially frozen sardine.

Kieran with a 12lb 15oz pike

Our last two sardines accounted for two more large pike - one weighed fouteen pounds six ounces:

Kieran with 14lb 6oz pike

…and the fourth weighed a massive fifteen pounds ten ounces.

Kieran with 15lb 10 oz pike

While he was playing this fish one of the other bite indicators went off and I banked a pike just under ten pounds which I managed to land, unhook and return safely whilst he was still playing his fish. As I struck into this fish and a later one under similar circumstances I dreaded it being a real monster but my luck held in both instances, each fish being about the same size.

Kieran ended the day with six fish, his remaining two being just under ten pounds. The biggest four had taken sardines and the smallest four had taken roach. Only the half herring failed to produce a bite. How do you convince a twelve year old beginner that pike fishing is not always like this?

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