Some sessions stay with you longer than the catch report alone would justify, and a January morning on the Broads a couple of winters back is one of mine.
I’d got to the water in the dark, cold enough that the rod rings needed clearing of ice more than once before the first cast went in. The mist came up off the water just as the light started to change, thick enough that the far bank disappeared entirely for the best part of twenty minutes. It’s the kind of morning that makes you understand why people put up with getting up at 5am in January to go fishing at all.
The first run came about ninety minutes in, on a smelt fished hard against a reed line I’d fished a hundred times before without much confidence in that specific spot. A solid, unspectacular fight in the cold water, but a genuinely good fish – low twenties, in good winter condition, exactly the kind of pike this water is known for producing when the conditions align.
What stuck with me wasn’t really the size of the fish. It was the whole texture of the morning – the total quiet before the mist lifted, the particular cold that only a Broads winter morning has, and the sense that this was exactly the kind of session that reminds you why you fish through the winter at all rather than waiting for easier conditions. Some catches matter for the fish; this one mattered for the morning it happened on.
Rob Hadley grew up fishing the rivers and drains of the Norfolk Broads, and it was inevitable that pike would become his species of choice. He’s been targeting predators seriously for over 20 years – starting on dead baits, moving through live bait rigs, and eventually landing on lure fishing as his preferred method about eight years ago.
These days he fishes the Broads through winter, travels to Chew Valley Lake each spring for its outsized fish, and spends the warmer months working soft plastics on rivers across the East Midlands for perch and zander. He’s had pike to 31lb and perch to 3lb 9oz, and reckons both records are beatable on the right day with the right set-up.
At The River Bend, Rob writes the predator species guides, lure fishing technique articles, and most of the winter fishing content.
Covers: Pike, perch, zander, lure fishing, winter fishing, predator rigs