Huge Scottish pike for the Piking Pirate

“THIS awesome specimen is the highlight of my angling career and unless the British record is broken there won’t be a better fish caught this year.”

These were the words of legendary predator angler Gord Burton after he banked his biggest ever pike weighing 34lb 14oz.

Better known as the ‘Piking Pirate’ and renowned for his passion of fishing natural venues, Gord targeted a vast Scottish loch measuring almost 14 miles in length and boasting a width of 1.5 miles. Despite having banked mostly jacks in recent visits to the water, which he’s fished for four decades, he remained confident that it was capable of producing something a bit special. And late in the afternoon of his latest session his float slid away and he struck into his fish-of-a-lifetime.

“I’ve been waiting my whole life to catch a pike like this from this wild, natural water,” Gord told Angling Times.

“If someone was to offer me a trade for two 40lb fish from a trout water I’d turn them down without hesitation. This is in a different league all together.”

Gord cast a float paternostered perch in to 25 feet of water and he beat his new personal best, that measured 45 and-a-half inches in length, with the help of a 15lb mainline, a Drennan wire trace and a pair of size 4 trebles.

“A short while after slipping her back I hooked another extremely big fish that also felt like it was over 30lb but unfortunately it came off,” Gord continued.

“The fish I caught had already spawned, so I’m intrigued as to what its top weight would be. I know that this huge water has much more up its sleeve and I want to be the one to uncover some more of its surprises.”