Justice

I had some work on in Bristol and with the weather forecast looking good, I decided to make the best use of my day - which meant getting the hell out of work as quickly as possible. I closed things off just after midday and was back on the road back to destination Warwickshire Avon. By 2-15pm I was on the bank and ready for some Piking up to dusk.

I'd only got the one rod (my trusty 8ft telescopic) and it was already set up for thrashing a Sprat bait around a few swims to see if any Pike were willing to chase a bait. Nothing happened across the 3 banker swims (conveniently also the shortest walks!) so I broke down the set up and rigged up for a float leger approach on peg 3 with a bigger bait - a chunk of Sardine.

I moved the bait several times to different parts of the swim and was about a coffee break away from giving peg 4 a try. The float then started to bob and I had to wait a short while for it to turn into a definite take. I struck into it and it was very solid from the off. I knew this was another of those doubles that I have been losing all too often recently. .

After a few powerful runs and a couple of close misses with the net, the fish was finally mine. The barbless hooks were nicely positioned and popped out easily. On the scales it went 15lb 11oz. The mat in the picture is 38 inches long.

Having now checked some other photos of a 15lb 13oz fish I caught in December from 2 pegs upstream, it's definitely the same fish - now 2oz lighter. As I also photographed both sides of the fish this time, I compared it to one that Brian caught at 13lb 15oz last February and I can at least say it wasn't the same fish as that one! 

I had no other bites, but I was happy to bank a decent fish at last. Perhaps it's now time to turn my attention to other species again. I note there have been a number of 4lb+ Chub showing up in other bloggers catches already this year. Maybe a bit of Chubbing is on the cards?