New Years Day Piking With My Dad & Nephew

So Happy New Year Folks.  My wife and I are well beyond staying up late to bring in the New Year and so were in bed asleep by 23:00.  The only bugger to this was being woken up at midnight with fireworks that seemed to go on for ages.  I could have done without this as the plan was to be down at the BIGHITAA river stretch at Brampton early New Years Day.

I was up and at the bank side whilst still very dark and I had to use the light in the boot of my car to get set up.  It was at this point I noticed that one of the eyes on the spinning rod I had was missing!  It was the second one up and as I didn't have a spare rod I chose to use it although until I repair it I won't use it again.

So having set up I started off spinning with a Lure that had a rattle in it as well as being mainly white with a splash of red on the head.  At this point I couldn't see the water although after all the flooding it was flowing very fast.  I did get to witness quite a nice sunrise though as pictured above.

After the sun had come up it was clear to see that the water was very coloured and moving very fast and I wasn't hopeful of catching a pike.  As I was here though why not keep trying.  At about 08:15 my Dad and Nephew Ollie arrived.  Whilst my Dad set up their rods Ollie had a go with my rod.  This proved a bit tricky for Ollie as he was struggling to bring the Lure in before the current swept the lure around into the reeds on our left.  Ollie did well though persevering.  Although I did have to help him out a few times when it got stuck.

After my Dad was finished setting up their rods we decided to venture upstream and see if the swims were any better.  The BIGHITAA stretch of river is roughly 1 km and I would say we were pretty much near to the bottom end by the time we settled on a stretch of river.

Ollie and my Dad settled a bit further downstream than I did and we settled into a couple of hours fishing.  I had one follow in which I think was a small perch other than that we blanked.  I left at about 10:15 as I had a family meal planned at my father in laws.  My Dad and Ollie stayed for another half an hour as Ollie wanted to see a pike.  I have promised him I'll take him again maybe to gingerbread when the weather settles.

To be honest though I think the moment of the session was getting the photo below of the three of us :)

Blog Later......