Gone in Sixty Minutes

I'd bought some new toys - a load of lures and a new shoulder bag arrived with the postman this morning. With one hour to spare before dinner, I raced off down the river to try them out.

First put in with a HTO mace lure, and the perch were straight on it.

Within 15 minutes, I'd already caught 5 fish. They were having it.

The lures are a tiny bit bigger than the 2" things that I normally use, but the perch certainly didn't seem to mind. Quite a few were nibbling at the paddle tail, but I was still getting good takes on the retrieve.

Then, just as I was bring the lure to the surface, there was a large swirl. Oh-oh!
 

Mr Pike decided to put in an appearance. It was a short, very stocky fish in great condition, and it put up a good fight. Still, with a bit of patience and the drag on the reel set lightly, I managed to get him in.

I'm still not great at guestimating pike weights, hmm maybe 5-6lbs? Who cares anyway, lovely fish and the mace lures sure seem to work well. 

Moving to another swim I took 3 or 4 more perch on another new lure type - a vibro worm. They didn't seem to stand up to much use though, as the perch managed to bite the tail of 2 of them.

..and by then my hour was up, the Mrs was on the phone asking me to come back and put the dinner on. Brilliant little session - a dozen or so perch and a nice pike. All in sixty minutes!