Mission Accomplished

Hello Again,

A friend of mine (Sam) has been trying for a decent pike for a while on a lake that we both fish, He has caught quite a few pike when out on his boat, but unfortunately none of them have managed to make double figures. Without going into too much detail he has had a bit of a rough time this year and during one of our conversations it was clear that beating the 10lb barrier was something he wanted to achieve.
I decided that I would knock Sam a couple of lures up and invite him out with me on my boat to some of the areas that I have found productive.
Here is one of the lures that I made for him:-

This one is a surface lure, he seemed really pleased with it and I hope it brings him some good luck.

We started off in a small bay, with absolutely no success. So after half an hour or so we decided to move on, after a while Sam asked his usual "are you confident?" after a little chuckle I assured him that we would get some action, as conditions seemed perfect.

We were both fishing surface lures and unfortunately Sam got a bit of a birds nest on one of the casts, I was watching his lure as I brought mine away from it to avoid the two lines becoming tangled, when a decent pike launched itself at the lure. By what seemed like some act of divine intervention, at the exact moment the pike struck Sam had managed to sort his reel out and hit into the fish.

 "Is it on?"  "err Yeah" was Sams reply. For one awful moment we thought he had lost it as the fish swam straight towards us, but Sam did a good job of quickly gaining line and tightening up on the fish. The pike was still down deep but by the healthy bend in Sams rod it was clear it wasn't one of the many Jacks that inhabit the venue.

The look on Sam's face was priceless when he saw the pike coming up in the water, but with a powerful flick of its tail it headed back into the depths taking line from the tightly set clutch. Now Sam's face turned from a joyful look to a somewhat panic stricken realisation that this could be the fish that he had waited so long for. I don't think that I helped matters by proclaiming that it would "definitely be a double". After a few powerful lunges and a spirited, if short lived fight, the pike was safely netted. Sam looked both relieved and delighted, after a quick snip of the hooks with the bolt cutters ( always better to sacrifice a hook or two than delay unhooking the pike) Sam could finally hold his prize.

At 14lb 9oz it was a PB for Sam and by some distance. The fish was a lovely dark green colour with vivid yellow markings. I felt like it was mission accomplished and I am really pleased that I could help Sam to catch his PB. Well done mate hopefully she will be the first of many.