New UK pike record.

[Cyres]

You are an exceptionally lucky chap to have caught 2 40s. Good on you to have returned them safely.
I had a long chat this am with my pike fishing guru mate. He reminded me we fished Chew on day 18 the first year it opened and we blanked. So did the big names who were also there. Chew apparently is routinely restocked with big pike netted from Blagdon. I know decades ago they moved some huge Blagdon pike into Cheddar reservoir. I spoke to a walker there whilst fishing there and they said one looked the size of a sleeper!
It appears that Roy Lewis record pike was caught as a big twenty some years previously.
Chew boat tickets are now stratospheric price cf to the normal cost for trout fishing. They were expensive when we fished it in the early years but after many blank days we never returned.
Pike fishing just lost its appeal and shooting has taken over!
D

 

[Plummer]

Nice fish, my only claim to fame is that I caught the very first pike back in the 90's documented by Bob Handford and Chris Klee.

 

[Bo Diddley]

You are an exceptionally lucky chap to have caught 2 40s. Good on you to have returned them safely.
I had a long chat this am with my pike fishing guru mate. He reminded me we fished Chew on day 18 the first year it opened and we blanked. So did the big names who were also there. Chew apparently is routinely restocked with big pike netted from Blagdon. I know decades ago they moved some huge Blagdon pike into Cheddar reservoir. I spoke to a walker there whilst fishing there and they said one looked the size of a sleeper!
It appears that Roy Lewis record pike was caught as a big twenty some years previously.
Chew boat tickets are now stratospheric price cf to the normal cost for trout fishing. They were expensive when we fished it in the early years but after many blank days we never returned.
Pike fishing just lost its appeal and shooting has taken over!
D

I've never fished Chew, but I have some friends who are serious pikers, the lengths they go to secure boat tickets are unreal.
And yes, I know how lucky I am to have caught such a fish, I also caught a different fish from the same pit just a couple of pounds smaller, I quietly left the place and have never told anyone about it, although another angler had an accidental capture, so the genie may be out, although I have not heard of anything on the grapevine, I hope it still a relatively forgotten pit, and the fish swim unmolested from the bounty hunters.

 

[FrenchieBoy]

Nice fish, my only claim to fame is that I caught the very first pike back in the 90's documented by Bob Handford and Chris Klee.

View attachment 351210

Nice one - A pike is a pike and I would have been happy with that one!
I am quite happy to catch a small "Jack" rather than blank, and I do blank more often than I manage to catch as the water that I fish is not heavily stocked and is a "Free to fish water"!
I can still fondly remember my first pike - It was a small pencil pike barely a foot long, but I was over the moon with it!
I don't think it would be as pleasurable or exciting catching doubles if we were going out catching them every time we went!

 

[Klenchblaize]

Pike fishing at Chew is a big money spinner for the owners, the tickets are snapped up within minutes, so they want the pike to survive.

I’m guessing this particular Leviathan has a pet name other than “Pike”?

K

 

[Bo Diddley]

I’m guessing this particular Leviathan has a pet name other than “Pike”?

K

I'm not sure about pet names for pike, I know the carp fishermen have names for everything, mostly things like "The Mug" "The Parrot" & "Single Scale all seem poplular

 

[graphictart]

Call it Beatrice?
Now that's a set of gnashers​

 

[FrenchieBoy]

Call it Beatrice?​

Now that's a set of gnashers​

View attachment 351261

I would rather have Beatrice nibbling on me than a big old pike!

 

[graphictart]

 

[Curried Venison]

That's inflation for you!