Roly Byre, the River Barrow Piker, reports that any hint of Spring that had been in the air vanished quickly but that there was still a requirement to go and fish for pike on the Barrow. The Junior Piker was keen to make the most of his midterm break and recent floods, daily snow flurries and gale force winds were not considered as reasons not to venture out to a ten year old! Roly gave in and unfortunately they had nothing to show for the effort they made’
Roll forward 7 days to last Friday. Temperatures (not that they felt it) had crept up a degree or two and they were not there long when a rod almost ended up in the river, it leapt out of the rear bank stick, the alarm screamed “RUN” as a psycho jack hammered a bait. The Junior Piker was into his first fish of the day, a hard fighting Barrow pike.
While Roly was playing a rather bad game of hide and seek with my unseen quarry the Junior Piker let a roar. He was in again! A smaller fish this time that gave a great account of itself on light tackle.
Roly and the Biker Piker tried all the usual tricks of rebaiting, repositioning baits, casting to the ebst lies and even some unlikely ones. With nothing responding they resorted to the cup of coffee trick. Then something happened. The Junior Piker was roaring yet again. “I’ve got one”. Roly rushed to help him land what turned out to be a beautiful Barrow brownie.
The Biker Piker was next up, he picked up a jack in the middle of the afternoon and Roly’s gamble on the far bank pool paid off just before we called it a day.
Though conditions were far from ideal, being windy, sunny and very cold the trio had a great day. No massive fish were landed but everyone got something and best of all the Junior Piker was even more hooked on the best way to spend a day.
Compliments of Roly Byrne
For the full report and more photos see: riverbarrowpiker.blogspot.ie
