May 2015 - Between a Pike and a Carp Place?

Regular readers of the SENPAC blog will sense something of a theme developing here. Having bemoaned the poor fishing in April in last month's missive and at the same time predicted an improvement in the coming month of May, what happens, the hoped for improvement fails to materialise for most of the SENPAC regulars, certainly for those that have made the switch from pike to carp and/or the commercials.We are experiencing a very slow start to the Summer fishing up here in the north, the interminable cold north-west wind keeping water temperatures low has certainly impacted on the fish activity, with spawning apparently delayed on all but the shallowest of our waters. On one of our local, shallow, municipal park lakes which has a good stock of carp and bream, the annual spectator sport of "watching the spawning" which is usually concluded by the end of May is only now starting to get underway.

So May has seen a re-run of the April conundrum here at SENPAC, with one or two of our members succumbing to the frustrations of not catching carp/silvers and heading further north with the pike gear and reaping the rewards. Our "fish for what you want" day saw both pike rods, carp rods and feeders employed by the modest number of members who turned out on a day which was best described as challenging. Bright sun and a very cold wind saw all concerned struggle, two very small roach providing full bragging rights on the day to our RO, Mike Bell. An opportunity that was not wasted by him!

Our Newsletter editor trying to bring a perspective to the results described the catch as "two maturing roach fry" which I think was getting close to sour-grapes as a result of his complete failure to catch anything on the day.He did however, manage to sum up the challenge for SENPAC members presented by the past month, fairly succinctly, with the choice of image for the Newsletter front cover ( with a lot of help from Brian Roberts wonderful pike fishing blog) describing the month as one for "PARP FISHING".

 


As I write this with June on the horizon, the forecasters are telling us that we can look forward to  four days of rain and strong winds following which we can expect it to become more settled and warmer. Let's hope they are right. We have our first match of the Summer on the 7th June 2015, The Golden Maggot Trophy and reports would seem to indicate that the normally prolific commercial that we use for the competition has not as yet woken up, so a few day of warmer weather would be welcome. And then of course a week later the rivers re-open and if nothing else that will make it feel more like Summer?

Our next meeting will be held on Tuesday 30th June 2015 at the Northumbrian Piper as usual, if you are a local piker or you would like to learn more about piking and fancy a chat why not come along. You would be made very welcome.