Avoncliff pike?

[Davey_Pants]

Can anyone tell me what the pike fishing is like at Avoncliff/Feshford? Fancy a day out this week by train but only want to go somewhere there's a good chance of a fish obviously!

[barbeldave]

Plenty of pike through avoncliff and freshford never seen any monsters there though.

[Davey_Pants]

Cheers Dave. Not too bothered about size, just want to catch something!
Last two or three trips out after barbel and chub have been really poor so a change of target is called for. Going for pike and just want to make sure I go to somewhere with a chance not to blank... again

[CabbagePatchKid]

Definitely plenty of pike around there - always plenty of evidence. I think there may be one or two biggies too.

I hooked and played one which grabbed my swim feeder for about 5 minutes without even getting a look at it - felt a lot bigger than any barbel I've caught

[runhunt]

i've caught the same damn pike in the same swim for the last two winters on chesse paste, stupid thing, its about 8lb.
paul

[wispafish]

Strange youve caught the same pike. Me and a mate have had the same one five times in three year twice last year. We nicknamed it spotty due to a orange spot on it side. Its only put on about 1.2 a pound in those years.

[Davey_Pants]

Having just spent a few hours in Avoncliff today, I can happily answer my own question - YES there are most definitely pike along that stretch!
Never caught pike before - never really tried - 1st swim I went to near the confluence with the Chew I chucked out half a lampray and within a few minutes the float went under and this little fella came out -


(flapped out of the net as I was photographing her)

5.5lb on the nose. Not a monster, but it had me grinning from ear to ear like a loon. Unhooking wasn't too scary and it swam off strongly.

Found a pot of lobs in my bag so I set up another rod. But there was only 1 worm in there! Cut it in half and chucked it out. The rod went over almost on the drop and a perch of just over 2lb came out. Lip hooked. Sweet:)

Reeling in the lamprey for another cast, a pike went for it and I landed that. Only just over 3lb but a beautiful fish. Then another slightly smaller perch on the other half of the worm.
Pity I had no more worms as I would have bagged up on good perch today I feel. 2 casts and 2 good fish.

Moved down to another swim still near the confluence and saw a pike sitting in the shallows at my feet. If my first was a 5.5 then this one must be close to being a double. It was trailing a trace with some bait still attached! I tried to get it to go for my lamprey so I could land it and hopefully free it of the trace but it wasn't having any of it. So I tried foulhooking it but missed. Then it moved even closer in and I was able to almost get it in my landing net but it spooked and scarpered. Poor thing, hope it gets caught by someone soon

Hooked another nice pike of probably 6 - 8lb momentarily but lost it.

Then I lost a couple of traces of my own in weed. Really hope some poor unsuspecting pike doesn't happen on them:/

With my last trace and last lamprey, I hooked something even bigger again. It was easily half again as big as the injured one I saw and gave me a hell of a fight for about a minute or two and then shed the hooks and the lamprey went floating off downstream so I packed up and headed back for the train home to Bristol.
Only fished about 4 hours and had 2 pike, 2 good perch and lost 2 more pike, 1 of them a bloody good fish.
So yeah, sorry for majorly long post, but I'm still buzzing on cloud 9! Hell of a good day, just wished I had more tackle, deadbait, worm, and someone with me to take photos:)

Definitely going out again as soon as I can scrape together the pennies

[barbeldave]

Sounds a great session you had today davey well done on your captures the perch do grow fairly big along that stretch.
Where you fished davey is the confluence of the frome not the chew.

[Davey_Pants]

Course it is! I do get those 2 confused all the time:)

Surprised at the size of the perch tbh. Fished Avoncliff once before in the summer and caught a sackful but they were all in the 8-10inch range