“For about 2 minutes this giant fish towed me slowly around the lake”
“At heart I’m a kayak angler and I normally I’d spend my time fishing in the sea but with the weather being so terrible and conditions rough, me and a mate settled on lure fishing for pike from the kayak on a large Yorkshire Stillwater.
About 20 minutes into the session I had the take. I was trawling a deep diving lure (Abu Garcia Svartzonker in orange colour with a silver rubber tail) along the deep shelves and I could see a lot of bait fish on the sounder so I thought it could have been a great area to catch a pike.
I was trawling the lures quite fast so that they would be scraping the bottom, and on one occasion I got snagged so I had to circle round to get it released. I managed to get leverage on the lure, pulled it free and cranked it a couple of times, which is when I saw my line tighten up so I struck. For about 2 minutes this giant fish towed me slowly around the lake. I don’t think it knew it was hooked. I eventually got it to the surface and the biggest pike we’ve ever seen tail walked about two feet out of the water. My mate shouted – ‘Jesus Christ, that’s a thirty!” I think he was more excited than me!I was trying to be calm and collected and he kept shouting me to take my time! After around 15 minutes, in which time the pike went on three surging runs and dived under the kayak a few times it finally tired out and we tried to scoop it into the net, but it took around 6-7 attempts as it was so huge. It also kept swimming out of it on each occasion.
When we did finally net it I was gobsmacked – when I saw its huge white belly for the first time I knew it was a big 30, but a 40 had never crossed my mind.
We took the fish to the bankside where we weighed it, but it took us about three attempts because we were shaking so much. When the pike stopped kicking the needle settled on 42lb 4oz and we both just kept saying wow. My mate then told me it was a new Yorkshire record and probably the biggest pike ever caught from a kayak. This was my second biggest fish caught from the kayak – with an estimated 100lb Norwegian halibut being my largest.”