I was holding back to present a virtually static bait

The most important and spectacular sight that I ever experienced with river pike occurred when I was barbel fishing on the River Kennet at Thatcham. I had laid a carpet of hemp on the bottom of a deepish gravel run and was fishing over it with two casters, these were presented on a size 14 hook. The set up was a crow quill set 9 inches over depth with the shot bulked 6 inches from the hook. I was holding back to present a virtually static bait. Sport was steady and I had had four barbel to just under 71b before I hit a smaller barbel of about four and a half pounds. As this fish took some line, it turned on the far bank giving a flash of colour as it did so, then the reeds opposite appeared to explode as if a large dog had just jumped in. No such luck, I could clearly see a monstrous pike had seized my barbel. I thought that no pike, no matter how big, could eat that barbel and it would soon drop it. I was wrong. It swam upstream with the barbel clearly across its mouth past my friend Lew Deeks into a clear shallow swim. I had walked up with my rod as the barbel was still attached to my hook. Lew and I then gasped in absolute amazement as the pike just turned the barbel and swallowed it with ease. The barbel just disappeared in front of us and as it did my line went slack – the pike had bitten through it. The pike stayed in the swim for a few minutes and then swam off out of sight into some deep water upstream. We believed that this pike was well over 301b possibly 351b plus.Naturally we returned in the Winter armed with proper pike tackle and very large dead baits. We never saw that big pike again, only catching smaller specimens to about half the size of the monster. I suppose that big pike was only taking exceptionally large baits like that barbel and did not need to feed too regularly.That big pike really got me thinking about monster pike in the Thames. There was a very big pike that was found dead at Greenwich which was over 48 inches long. This was a fish that lived upstream that had died and been washed downstream. This meant mere were some very big pike somewhere in the river.I had fished both the tidal and non tidal Thames for pike for many years. I had caught a lot of pike but most were in the 81b to 141b class with a few larger fish approaching twenty pounds. These fish had fallen to a variety of tactics including spinning, live baiting and dead baiting. At that time, I had not seen or heard of any larger fish. Obviously I was doing something wrong. Then I remembered that River Kennet pike that appeared to be only interested in larger baits. Perhaps the big Thames pike were taking only the larger fish? There were not that number of barbel on the tidal river that I was fishing but there were some terrific bream shoals. I had had several bags of well over 1001b of bream with a personal best bag of 1481b. These bags of bream were mainly made up of fish between 1lb and 4lb with an average weight of about 2lb. This meant there were plenty of fish for the bigger pike to feed on. This, coupled with the fact that at the time there were terrific shoals of dace, meant that there was plenty of food fish for pike to take regardless of the pike’s size. These are generally recognised as the conditions for an excellent growth rate for pike. I was convinced that there were some very big pike present in the river and that they would not be far away from areas that produced the most big bags of bream.I was particularly keen to use a boat for my pike fishing. In that respect I was very lucky as I had my own inflatable boat, friends of mine also had dinghies that I could use and at that time I was an active member of the Francis Francis A.C. that owned its own punts. To be honest I was spoilt for choice but opted for my own inflatable boat as it gave me easy excess to most of the river. The boat meant that it was easy to change swims as all I had to do was reel in, lift the weights and start my engine. It could not be easier but it also meant that I could cover a lot of water in a day.Naturally, I targeted all the areas that I knew held a good head of bream. Results immediately showed some improvement with a higher proportion of big doubles appearing in catches. At first I thought the area below Kingston bridge near the old timber yards was going to produce a monster pike. There were certainly plenty of bream present for the pike to feed on, and it was producing the odd twenty pound plus fish, but events were to prove me wrong. I fished areas that produced big bags of bream for the next three years catching plenty of big doubles but nothing over twenty pounds. Then on the 24th February 1987,I was on half term holiday from school and decided to take a punt out to fish for pike on the tidal Thames. The river was running very fast and clearing after a flood. Conditions, I thought, were ideal for predators who must have had a very lean time trying to catch their prey in the heavily coloured water of the previous two weeks. I was convinced that they must be very hungry by now.After I loaded up the punt and started upstream, I was surprised how slow the punt was moving against the flow. It certainly was moving faster than I expected and it took me much longer to reach the slack water swim that I wanted to fish at Teddington.When I arrived and moored up, I set up a float rod to trot the swim with a 4BB crow quill Avon, bulk shotted 18 inches from, the hook. There was only a number 4 shot between the bulk shot and the size 16 hook. The hook was baited with two maggots and the tackle fished a few inches over-depth. I started off catching 9 perch up to about 1lb 2oz and then started to catch some roach. I kept the roach and some of the smaller perch for livebait.Then I decided to move to a swim where I believed the pike would be after spawning. It was hard work getting the punt into the swim and mooring it with just one ryepeck. A ryepeck is a traditional Thames mooring spear, about 20ft long with a steel tip that is worked into the bottom. I only used the one ryepeck rather that the normal two so that if a pike went under the punt I could pass the rod underneath without snagging up.Once I had moored I noticed the tide was just starting to rise. I set up with a 11ft 2 1/4lb test curve Sportex rod with a fixed spool reel, loaded with 121b b.s. line. The terminal tackle consisted of a sliding pilot float set at 6ft with a wire trace to two barbless size 8 trebles. I baited up with a smallish roach livebait and trotted the livebait through the 8ft deep swim. The pilot float had only travelled a few feet before it flew under. I struck into solid resistance and knew I was into a big fish. It stuck close to the bottom and moved to the far bank before I could turn it. Eventually I fought it back to near the punt but could not move it off the bottom. I kept up as much pressure as possible as the fish made several more long runs. Then I felt it starting to tire and several minutes later was in a position to net it. It took both hands to lift the fish into the punt onto my large piece of foam that I had cut to fit the punt. When I saw the fish in the net on the foam, I knew that it was well over thirty pounds. I placed the fish into the well where I knew it would be safe. Finally I closed the lid to keep the fish in darkness so that it would not panic. Naturally I immediately packed up and took the punt back to its Twickenham moorings. As soon as I secured the punt, I phoned the press and friends to get the fish properly weighed, witnessed and returned. I did not have to wait long to have it weighed in at 331b 6oz and photographed. Everything ran very smoothly and the fish was safely returned. It had a girth of 25 inches, we thought that we could see the outline of another pike in its guts when we placed it on the unhooking mat. This was the Thames record pike, which at the time of writing this article, I do not believe has been beaten.Two days later, I returned to catch seven pike out of the same swim. This bag consisted of a mixture of small male pike with some better females to just under twenty pounds. Then there was a heavy period of rain, the river flooded up again and I could not get into the swim.In the following years, I caught other good Thames pike but none to match that 331b 6oz specimen. Then, by the early nineties, I noticed a decline in average size of lower Thames pike. By this time there was certainly a shortage in smaller prey fish as large numbers of cormorants took up residence on the river. Every year got worse as the prey fish disappeared. Even the smaller bream appeared to be disappearing. I believe that there are no longer the prey fish left in the lower Thames for it to produce many big pike.

No doubt there are other rivers, or sections of the Thames without such a terrific cormorant problem, that are still capable of producing big pike. My final advice to readers is not to neglect river pike, but keep an eye on cormorants and other predators that might be present. Remember, to get really large pike, there needs to be ample feed fish resent for all stages of their growth. I believe that years ago, we had this on the lower Themes.