Chance to pick one of the finest brains in pike fishing with Mick Brown at King’s Lynn Pike Anglers Club meeting

by Chris Bishop Wednesday, January 25, 2012
12:04 PM

People who can’t fathom the drains fall into two main categories.

There are those who sit there puzzling over why they don’t catch and then there are those who move about and end up wondering the same.

After giving them far more attention of late, in a bid to shake my hoodoo when it comes to catching anything half-decent from them, I’ve come to the conclusion that they are waters where luck probably plays a bigger part than almost any other type of water.

Tomorrow night, there’s a chance to pick one of the finest brains in pike fishing when it comes to tackling the Fens, with Mick Brown on the oche at a King’s Lynn Pike Anglers Club meeting.

They’re expecting a bumper turn-out at the Wm Burt Club, in West Winch (7.30pm) – hence the move from the usual Wednesday night, as a bigger room was available.

Brown rarely does talks, so there are few clues when it comes to subject matter.

He’s someone who has put a lot of thought into pike behaviour, so this could well be a theme.

My own studies of pike behaviour have mainly featured smaller specimens of late. Until they learn to talk, we won’t know why we’re catching so few of them at the moment.

You can’t help blaming the weather, because it’s the obvious difference this season. While there’s colder and more settled weather on the way, this season could now pass without much at all in the way of winter.

A bigger worry than a slow season is what’s going to happen if we get another dry spring and summer in the Fens.

Water levels are down in several stillwaters. Rivers are sluggish despite recent rain. Drains haven’t had anything to drain.

There were near misses on several waters towards the end of last summer. There were fish kills on the Wissey and one or two others, as well as controversy over turbid water being used to replenish water levels in the Old Bedford.

Farmers are already calling for more flexible arrangements when it comes to abstraction. The more we take, the less the fish have got left to live in.

Elsewhere, they are warning the upper reaches of rivers in some parts of the country could dry up. Roll on summer.