Sunday 26 February 2012

Pike At The Palace II


Taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather I journeyed to Blenheim Palace as a guest of Sean from Fishmail. An early start meant we were on the water before 8am and it looked great. The only problem was a frost last night - a frost in the middle of a warm spell isn't good news for fishing.

We started off trolling four different baits spread out behind the boat and worked our way down the side of the lake. On the return troll I had a run on a sprat just outside the boathouse. My first Palace pike, about 6 or 7lb. If one is feeding surely there are more.

With renewed confidence we trolled around the lake, stopping off in likely looking spots to try static dead baits and lures. But our efforts were met with only a couple of dropped runs - still, we were the last boat off the lake.

The sun had shone and the views were great - a fantastic way to spend a sunny Sunday! Thanks Sean.

4 comments:

  1. If you care for pike then please refrain from blatantly publishig the venue. Pike and pressue equals dead pike. Please think about the anglers fishing these waters as well as the pike before naming waters.

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    1. While I agree with your comment, and on a lot of waters this is true, I'm not sure mentioning there are pike in one of England's best known pike fisheries is going to do any harm, I'm pretty sure this won't come as news to anyone.

      But in future posts I'll just call it The Palace.

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  2. Hi Brian
    Blenheim is a very well known pike venue, fished by hundreds of pike anglers every year, covered in various publications! Youve done nothing wrong in naming this venue Brian. I look forward to reading the report.

    Darren

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  3. @Anonymous - it's a good point: identifying a water in a big fish capture report has the potential to be very damaging but you have to consider all this in its relevant context.

    Blenheim is a well known venue - an English estate lake that I'd describe it as an iconic pike water - where a plethora of information is already in the pubic domain. Including a lot of detail on some big pike, one of them v big indeed. In fact, the big pike potential is a key part of the marketing here - the good news is that it's also a venue where things are v well-managed to prevent over-fishing.

    Brian: thinking more about 'The Palace' moniker conjures up all sorts of images about that lake with the island at the back of Buck House :)

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