Former Drennan Cup winner, Jamie Cartwright reflects on his recent trip to the famous pike water, Chew Valley Lake, near Bristol.

It is always incredibly exciting when an opportunity presents itself to fish for the huge pike that lurk in the depths of Chew Valley. Nights are spent dreaming of what could grace our nets, until the night before when sleep is impossible to come by.

I have been lucky enough to fish this fantastic water a number of times in the past seven or eight years, with varying results, some mediocre, but some beyond my wildest dreams. One thing is certain, when your indicator drops off at Chew your heart rate soars and your mind races with thoughts of what could be on the other end of your line.

So, when a last minute opportunity to spend the first two days of bank fishing of the Autumn with Ryan Hayden presented itself, I didn’t have to think twice about accepting. Holidays were booked and plans were talked over again and again for the trip ahead. What baits would we take? Which areas do we target?

Baits were fairly straightforward as we both had a good idea what we wanted to be using. My preference was always going to be a whole ‘bluey’ on one rod, as I had caught most of my biggest Chew pike (including my personal best of 33lb 8oz) on these fantastic, oily, bloody baits. Smelt are also a favourite among Chew regulars and I had a couple of packs of super smelt stashed at the bottom of the freezer that would fit the bill nicely. I also took packs of bass, mackerel and herring. A change of bait can certainly mean a change of fortunes if the pike are in a choosy mood.

Where to fish was going to be more difficult, as although you are in with a shout of a big fish on any bit of the bank, there are always better areas where the bulk of the pike hold up. We had some good info from Steve Rowley and a couple of other regulars who had fished in recent weeks that there were numbers of big fish getting caught from the Stratford area of the lake and we should head to a bit of bank that would give us access to that area.

We chose to head round to Wick Green after seeing a queue of anglers waiting to get into the gate to Moreton point which also gave access to that area of water. Nobody else had bothered with Wick so set up at the Stratford’s end of the bank so we could boat our baits out to that area.

Everything went well early on until the wind started to get up. It wasn’t a particularly strong wind but it blew into our bank from the shallowest, weediest areas of the lake, so it wasn’t long before we started to have problems with large clumps of weed drifting off the shallows into our lines, causing constant bleeps on the alarms and pulling our indicators.

After a couple of hours of pulling our hair out, we decided we had to move and see if we could get a swim on the opposite bank. We drove around and had a good look around but struggled to find anywhere to get in. Eventually we set up in the trees down the Woodford bank, as although nobody on that bank had caught so far at least we felt we were fishing effectively.

Our reward for all our efforts was a solitary 8lb pike, which picked up my super smelt as the sun set behind the hills. It could just as easily have weighed 38lb at Chew, though, and that’s the one thing that keeps you going through the periods of inactivity. It only takes one run to transform a dull day into a day you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

Those thoughts filled our heads as we set up in the rain on the Walley bank the next morning. “One bite is all it takes and it will be worth the soaking”, we both thought. I had very fond memories of this area of the reservoir as it was just along the bank near the sailing club where I was fortunate enough to land an incredibly rare brace of 30lb+ pike weighing 30lb 4oz and 33lb 8oz respectively amongst other high-quality backup fish. An amazing day I’ll never forget and just a taste of the joy that Chew is capable of gifting to the lucky few.

The day on the Walley bank was very enjoyable and I felt we fished hard and deserved a result for our efforts, but it wasn’t to be. That is the reality of fishing there. For every angler that you see holding a big pike in the papers, there could be 30, 40 or even 50 anglers who fished really well but came up short. Did our failure to catch a huge pike dampen our enthusiasm? No chance! It only makes the fires burn brighter within us, as we keep dreaming about what monsters the next trip may have in store!