Simon Ashton managed to end his pike season on a high, landing no less than eight double figure pike to 24lb 1oz.

After an hour mapping out his chosen swim, Simon managed to locate a gully at around 80 yards, which was 2ft deeper and ran parallel to the bank. “The perfect place for a big pike to lay up and ambush prey fish,” Simon added.

“My rods, which I have 100% confidence in are the 12ft E-Sox Piker Bait rods, perfect for fishing at long range with big deadbaits and they allow me to set the hooks at a distance. I like to fish a 2oz to 4oz inline lead when fishing at distance, I feel this offers less resistance on the cast and you know your rig won’t tangle. To complete the rig I use a two-foot wire trace of E-Sox Super Trace Pike Wire with size 6 semi-barbed trebles”.

All eight of Simon’s double figure pike fell to big sea baits carefully presented along the gully, which goes to show how important location and feature finding can be.