At last a good day !

After fishing with Mark Harvey yesterday I had renewed confidence in the soft plastic baits, so out goes a Lake Fork Baby Shad, knock, knock , first cast . Aha, I thinks, this is good, and then nothing, so on my 20-40 grm rod I fix a 4" Salt&Pepper Twin Tail Hula Hula Grub.on a 5gm jig head, bang!, straight into a Perch 1.5lb, Back of the net!

So a move up river , and  I find it hard to cope with the weed, so I took the jig head off tied a 1/0 worm hook on, 2 swan shot fixed at the top of the lure and rig it weedless. a slow retrieve with a twitch  or two and then it all went solid and then all hell was let loose. a good size pike had taken the lure and battle commenced for the next 10 arm aching minutes, I got it to the net, but I did not have my large 40" net with me, after 3 attempts I managed to get the fish in head first and then slowly got it to drop into the centre of my 22" net with the head out one side and all the tail out the other side. 36" from the tip of the snout to the fork in the tail, I only had my small 7lb balance with me as I am a muppet and had left my new 55lb scales at home.
I had to have a bit of a rest after that tussle, I walked to the end of the stretch, fishing a few spots as I went, but there was no more movement, then I turned around to head back to the car.When I got to the spot were I had caught the perch earlier, I had one more go. still with the same set up, and then there was a tiny little tap, so I stopped the retreive, and gave the lure a little twitch,I felt the line tighten so I struck , and lo and behold it was another pike, this time a bit smaller but just as strong, well this goes ape, it came to the surface, saw me, and tail walked down stream, first time I have had a fish do that, up and down it goes, I manage to turn it at each end of the swim, 4 or 5 times it does this, and then it gives up, this one just about fitted in the net this time    

I think the second fish felt like about 7- 8 lb and the first fish was a lot more I reckon about 14-15 lb

ght the perch earlier i had one more go  to the car