Fishing England's East Midlands

Join the author as he explores the fishing venues of the idyllic English countryside and shares his experiences. This is the third article in this four-part series.

- Christopher Caine

That afternoon we were to target what is arguably the most iconic of the northern hemisphere’s freshwater game fish – the pike (Esox lucius). We arrived at a narrow but deep river and rigged up spinner baits onto medium-heavy bait casting set-ups. Casting off a low bridge and retrieving parallel to a weed line, my spinner bait lasted one pass before being bitten off. I tied on a Fire tiger mini spinner bait with the hope of connecting to a big perch or chub as by-catch. A green paddle tail as a trailer completed the lure.

We slowly made our way upstream, battling the unavoidable stinging nettles all the way. Shortly after the lure change I spotted a perch following it but it failed to commit. Casting in the opposite direction with a floating frog lure, Tom got a knock from a pike. One more cast and he was into the first fish of the session! The modestly-sized pike was landed with the aid of a long net. As with many pike, it showed signs of poor handling by previous anglers – it had a gill dangling loosely below the operculum.

A short distance upstream I spotted a large European eel cruising slowly along a submerged concrete slab. It seemed to be snouting between cracks, presumably looking for shrimp and the like. The European eel population is at approximately 5% of historical levels, so seeing one in the middle of the day was quite the treat and something I was not expecting at all.