Fishing for pike and bream
at Sutton-at-Hone with my uncle

My uncle Tim is a member of Dartford District Angling Society, and he recently took me to Sutton at Hone Fisheries as his guest. There is a mixture of lakes on the complex and we fished a couple of them, the small and big lake.

I had an old Lineaeffe Lotus rod set up for pike, baited with a legered smelt and on the Senator carp rod I was specifically targeting bream with a groundbait feeder. The feeder was filled with an extremley sweet mix combined with casters and maggots. It consisted of Smartbait vanilla cream corn groundbait and Smartbait vanilla cream corn floaters and sinking hookable pellets.

We started off fishing the small lake, my uncle was going just for pike and had two deadbaits out, one with a popped up smelt and one with a small roach. He also tried a bit of spinning too.

My swim in the small lake:

The pike rod is on the left, in the margins under the overhanging branch by that tree. My feeder is on the Senator carp rod on the right, which was cast about 40 yards out onto a gravel bar.

After about 15 casts with a feeder full of groundbait combined with maggot on the hook, I was into my first fish. It ended up being new PB bream of 2lbs 4oz - (there are no bream in my local lakes so it is very hard to catch them obviously) so I was happy .

My uncle Tim on the other hand, was busy spinning a couple of swims along ...



The fishing then died down, so my uncle suggested that we trekked off to the big lake. I had to say yes because I had not caught in hours , plus he knows the lakes much better than I ever will. So we got to the big lake and found a nice corner swim that we both fished next to each other.

Again, I had the feeder cast out about 60 yards onto another gravel bar my uncle knew of, and the deadbait static in a place that I thought looked like a good spot for a nice Esox. To the right of me there was an array of small shrubs and a tree which overhung into the water and I managed to cast the smelt under it without getting it tangled within the branches. Hopefully this was the spot for a pike!

And it was! A couple of hours later an extremely weird take, in which even though my baitrunner was on, the tip of the rod swung round like a quiver after a few inquisitive 'blips'. This forced me into striking out of curiosity, (plus the fact my uncle shouted "HIT IT!"), and there was a very lively weight on the end. This resulted in a energetic little fight whereby after a couple of minutes I had netted a pristine jack pike of 5lbs 12oz:

My uncle was happy to see that at least one of us had caught a pike. His exact words to me two days before the session were, "I'd be happy to see a pike come out from either one of us, but it'd be great if someone had a double!" which made me more determined to catch.

I rebaited and recast to the same spot. A couple of hours later the alarm on the feeder rod went off very slowly, and I struck. At first I didn't even think that there was a fish on the end of my line, or I had struck too early. But when I got it in, it ended up being a small skimmer not even worth weighing at about 3 or 4 ounces.

After this skimmer I thought that I'd try and get a bigger bream. So I changed to legering a 10mm Smartbait CSL boilie on a hair rig. I cast it to the same spot as before, but this time with a PVA bag filled with the sweet groundbait, CSL boilies, casters and maggots.

I then recast my deadbait to the left of me in a very snaggy spot full of overhanging trees, rushes and plants. My uncle convinced me to put the bait there and was confident that a pike would be lurking about somewhere. It was just a case of seeing whether or not they wanted to take the bait that worried me!

A while later my uncle and I were having a discussion on how mad it was that seagulls can not only take boilies while they're in mid-flight, but also know where they're going to land, and manage to actually follow them too. We got to chatting about this when we saw a carper at the opposite side of the lake trying to catapult boilies to a controller float, but a load of seagulls got to the boilies before they even got near the water!

It was then that we heard a 'blip' on the pike rod...then another....and then a couple more. Before I knew it the bobbin was edging closer towards the rod and I had struck into what felt a good weight. It didn't fight much at first. Instead it was swimming around in a 'figure of eight' fashion, heading towards the snags every now and then. When it realised it was hooked, the fish hurtled off about 30 yards out to open water in around 3 or 4 seconds! I managed to bring it in and after a few minutes of fighting I netted a pike which when weighed, turned the Avons to 10lbs 8oz. A new PB pike and a new PB fish overall. It had made the session, and my uncle was happy too:

The boilie didn't do me wrong either actually! Half an hour or so after returning the pike the bite alarm went off on the Senator carp rod and I had a 2lbs 3oz bream. So overall I had an excellent day. A PB pike, a PB bream, a PB fish overall, and the most pike I've ever caught in a single session as well, believe it or not! My uncle unfortunately didn't catch but he was happy for me and he was delighted to see a double figure pike as he hoped.

I can't often go to this lake as it's a fair way from me and there is no way of getting there via public transport, but it's a great fishery!

What a view!

I want to thank my uncle for a great day out fishing and teaching me everything I know, otherwise I wouldn't be where I am today, and I most probably wouldn't be fishing at all! He got me 'hooked' as they say, from the first time he took me to that complex where I caught around 30 fish. It's always a great day out when I'm fishing with my uncle. Cheers for a blinding day Tim!

Thanks for reading all!

Tight lines for the New Year!

Ash