Members Article

Chichester Canal Basin

The weather has been abysmal lately and only the more determined anglers amongst us have been venturing out. Even then with the rivers in a swollen and sometimes dangerous state the options of where to fish have been somewhat limited. Taking advantage of a rare break in the weather two of our members, Alex Harris and Graeme Winter opted for a bit of Pike fishing on the Chichester Canal. Below is Alex’s account of the session.

Graeme ‘the fair weather carper’ dragged himself away from the nice cosy fire for a days pike fishing on a wet and cold Saturday down to the Chichester Canal Basin. Graeme had never been pike fishing before as he does not like the cold and to get his carp fishing gear all muddy, well it does not even bear thinking about.

I set Graeme up with a simple pike rig. 500mm of 20 pound wire trace. Size 8 hook which went into the flank of the dead bait and one size 8 treble into the tail. We used a 1.5oz lead on a safe zone lead clip with Herring as bait, which had smelt oil and air pumped into it to lift it off the bottom.

The buzzer went off at 13:00 indicating a dropback run, Graeme struck and some five minutes later a nice pike of around 9lb was in the net. Graeme was well chuffed with this, his first Pike and now he can’t wait to go again.

As always it is the apprentice and not the teacher that catches the fish.

Alex Harris