Chew Valley 30 sets pike target for 2016
Martyn Cattermole with his 30lb 8oz pike.
This is the picture of one of the biggest pike of the year.
The pointer on the scales went round to 30lb 8oz for a fish boated by Martyn Cattermole when he spent the day afloat on the UK’s finest specimen pike venue.
Chew Valley Lake in Somerset has provided hundreds anglers with personal bests for the species, and the 58-year-old from Bristol was celebrating following the capture of his biggest-ever fly-caught pike.
He was drifting over 12ft-13ft of water when the huge predator took his bait.
“It felt as if the fly was snagged on the bottom until it started moving away, then before I had time to think it stripped 30ft of line and a brutal scrap with the fish began,” Martyn told Angling Times.
“I had three attempts to net the fish and I saw the fly was only just in the corner of its mouth. I was bricking it, thinking that the hook would pull any minute.”